This article was originally published by Montana Free Press.

On a 159-acre working forestland east of Bonner, Dave Atkins’ personal and professional interests overlap. There, in a stand of dry conifer forest populated with ponderosa pine, Douglas fir and the occasional western larch, Atkins tinkers with forest management techniques he’s learned over the past half-century in an effort to better equip his property for the changing conditions of the next 100 years.

Now retired, Atkins had a long career with the U.S. Forest Service that spanned several disciplines. He started out as a silviculturist, directing timber harvests on the Lolo National Forest. Mid-career, he returned to school to earn a master’s degree in ecology, taking a particular interest in old growth timber. When he retired from the agency 20 years later, he was managing the wood innovation program out of the agency’s Washington, D.C. office, where he focused on finding markets for wood that’s too small or poorly formed to mill, and often too much of a wildfire hazard to leave in place.

That’s where Atkins began learning about biochar, a material that’s produced by burning biomass in a low-oxygen environment long enough to produce charcoal, but not so long that the feedstock turns to ash. Atkins says creating biochar out of young, skinny trees can reduce wildfire risk by removing “ladder fuels” — flammable material that can carry flames into the forest canopy — from vulnerable forests without releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere the way pile burning, the more common alternative, does. Whereas pile burning releases smoke containing small particulates that create a public health hazard, biochar production generates much less smoke. That’s a particularly important consideration in Missoula County, where smoke-trapping inversions are common.

Beyond its potential to sequester carbon, biochar can improve poor farm soils and help rehabilitate sites where mineral or fossil fuel extraction has occurred. Adding biochar to a hard rock mining site can reduce the acidity and heavy metal pollution associated with mine drainage. Applied to drilling pads, it can expedite revegetation efforts.

“Biochar is this phenomenally versatile material that can improve agricultural soils, help restore disturbed sites from mining or road construction, and the icing on the cake is that it’s a way to store captured carbon for hundreds to over a thousand years,” Atkins said. “It delivers a lot of positives.”

Much of what makes it work for these applications is its structure. Biochar is porous, with a honeycomb-like configuration. Its abundant surface area creates a kind of scaffolding for poor soils, particularly those that have a hard time holding onto water or nutrients. When it’s applied thoughtfully — often mixed with an organic soil amendment like livestock manure or compost — it can also improve nutrient uptake in plants. In an orchard or an arboretum, biochar buried at the right depth during planting can stimulate root development, decrease water requirements and help trees withstand drought.

But its potential still isn’t widely appreciated, at least not in the United States. Tom Miles, a Portland, Oregon-based agriculture and energy consultant who directs the US Biochar Initiative, said its potential is starting to gain recognition in agricultural and environmental circles, but it remains off the broader public’s radar.

“Markets and uses are what’s ultimately going to drive production,” Miles said. “The biggest hurdle we’ve had is education.”

He said biochar isn’t produced at scale right now, so prospective buyers often face sticker shock. (A cubic yard of biochar produced in Oregon runs between $110 and $150, depending on the delivery method and quantity purchased, Atkins said.) Miles estimates there are 150 biochar producers in the U.S., most of which have smaller operations and relatively high product prices to recoup their labor and equipment investments. He said he’s hopeful that will change as more affordable industrial-scale biochar kilns — equipment to “cook” the biomass, essentially — enter the market.

Atkins’ current project at his property is part of a collaborative forest management effort that involves 570 acres, three government agencies, two nonprofits, two private landowners and University of Montana researchers. The Wildfire-Adapted Twin-Gold Creek Project recently received $288,000 of support from the state in the form of a Forest Action Plan grant. With some of that funding, Atkins will use small-diameter material culled from his property to produce biochar, first with two low-tech kilns already on the site, and later with more sophisticated equipment that the Bureau of Land Management will help bankroll.

Atkins and his wife, Shirley, staff a booth at the Clark Fork farmers market in Missoula to sell the biochar he produced from last year’s thinning project and build community awareness. He said he made four sales of what he’s branded Blackfoot Biochar at a recent market, and estimates one in 10 people he spoke with had heard of biochar before. In other words, he recognizes there’s a long way to go.

“This is a labor-intensive, unautomated process, but it goes back to raising awareness and doing some marketing,” he said. “You’ve got to start somewhere.”

Evaluating economics, investing in research

Atkins is set to receive more help on that front in the coming months. University of Montana forest operations professor Beth Dodson will be researching the economics and logistics of biochar production over the next two years. A graduate student will assist her by comparing the cost of biochar production with that of pile burning, which is currently the most popular method for disposing of thinned forest material. Dodson also has support from the Forest Service to take a more qualitative look at the biochar production process. As part of that project, she’ll examine biochar-friendly designs for thinning projects and how best to process, store and distribute the final product.

One of the Twin-Gold Creek Project’s overarching goals is to use biochar to repurpose forest thinning byproduct for agricultural use in the Blackfoot Valley, though the details of exactly how and where that might happen are still being worked out.

Dodson said she’s hoping her research can provide a more fulsome picture of what it will take to make biochar composed of forest products commercially viable at an industrial scale.

“This is the first time in the last 10 years or so where a very real, logical outlet for that material is actually in place,” she said. “A lot of people have looked at biochar and extolled its virtues, but without an actual outlet for anyone who could purchase and use this material at scale.”

The Twin-Gold Creek Project also comes at a time when existing national biochar programs are scaling up and Congress is considering a sizable investment in biochar. Miles said a cost-share program administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service that’s aimed at increasing the carbon content of soils will be available nationwide in the coming months. At the legislative level, the $1 trillion infrastructure package passed by the U.S. Senate last month includes $200 million to remove flammable vegetation for use as biochar and other innovative wood products. If the package is passed by the House and programs are implemented the way Montana’s Democratic Sen. Jon Tester envisions, tribes, veterans, youth and conservation corps will have a role in biochar production.

“Clearing out low-value, high-risk vegetation to create biochar is a win for wildfire safety and communities in the wildland-urban interface, a win for the climate, and a win for agricultural producers, and I will continue working to push this and other proposals like it that will help us reduce emissions and address climate change, especially as the threat of wildfires continues to rise,” Tester said in an emailed statement.

Biochar in a changing climate

A substantial piece of Atkins’ interest in biochar centers on how it plays into the carbon cycle, which comes into focus when he talks about how carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are shaping the planet his descendants will inhabit.

“I see biochar as one more benefit of forests and wood products in helping us create a low-carbon, sustainable world. Part of what motivates me is two little grandsons that are 3 and 6, and wanting them to have an opportunity at a healthy ecosystem and climate that I had,” he said.

Though Atkins’ project is small in the scheme of things, he’s energized by the holistic approach he sees in the proposal. If the Twin-Gold Creek Project develops as planned, the approximately 75 homes within a mile of his property will be less vulnerable to wildfire, mature pine trees will be more likely to survive a fire, and the biochar derived from younger trees will help make agricultural land more resilient to drought, which is one way climate change is manifesting in Montana. 

The Nature Conservancy, which led the charge on the Forest Action Plan application, estimates the project will store the equivalent of 1,036 tons of carbon dioxide and produce nearly 300 tons of biochar. The report the collaborative is working on will be shared with an eclectic collection of groups including Blackfoot Challenge, the Montana Tree Farm Association, the Missoula County Air Quality Advisory Council, US Biochar Initiative, and the Montana Loggers Association.

​​The application acknowledges that there are still plenty of unknowns presented by the project, including its economic viability, whether biochar’s application on farmland in the Blackfoot Valley will have the desired effect, and whether greater public awareness of biochar’s potential will lead to increased enthusiasm for its production and use in Montana. In the Forest Action Plan application, biochar is described as being positioned similarly to the solar industry 30 or 40 years ago.

Atkins says that nearly two decades after he first started learning about biochar, the pieces appear to be falling into place. As they do, two ambitions are converging for Atkins: his post-retirement acquisition of a working forest of his own to experiment on, and an opportunity to steer the carbon cycle in a way that’s beneficial to his community, the climate and agricultural producers.

“The soil scientist part of me, the ecologist part of me, the forest manager economics side of me say, ‘This is the dream come true.’”

Montana tests biochar to reduce wildfire risks, with potential for mine remediation is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Chatter about the potential of covering played-out coalfields in central Appalachia with solar arrays has simmered for years. Progress on the first pair of such projects is on the verge of coming to a full boil because a nonprofit pursued a pair of companies with the technical know-how.

The Nature Conservancy is partnering with utility giant Dominion Energy to install roughly 50 megawatts of solar power on 1,200 acres of the former Red Onion surface mine and surrounding properties in Virginia’s Wise and Dickenson counties. That’s enough to power 12,500 homes at peak output.

That September update came on the heels of a mid-May announcement that the conservancy had joined with Sun Tribe, a Charlottesville solar developer, and Washington, D.C.-based Sol Systems to construct up to 75 MW of solar nearby. Those half dozen sites range in size from 70 to 125 acres. Four are in Wise County, one is in Dickenson County and a sixth is in Tennessee.

Virginia native Brad Kreps, who directs the conservancy’s Clinch Valley Program, said solar projects have been top of mind since 2019 when the nonprofit acquired the 253,000-acre Cumberland Forest property. An estimated 13,000 acres of cleared minelands pock the biologically rich landscape that stretches across Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.

All but 100,000 acres of the Cumberland Forest are in the historic Virginia coal counties of Wise, Dickenson, Russell and Buchanan.

“For us, acquiring the Cumberland Forest property and becoming a landowner put us in a stronger position to actually try this,” said Kreps, an Abingdon resident with two decades of conservancy experience. “It gave us a chance to reach out to partners and say, ‘Help us really look at this, find sites that are viable, and create value for nature and people.’”

Both Sun Tribe and Dominion expect the showcase projects—with a combined output of around 120 to 125 MW — to be online within the next two or three years.

“It was incumbent on us to go out and find companies that are compatible with our values and approach,” Kreps said.

Dominion is seeking to expand its renewable energy portfolio because the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which took effect in July 2020, requires the utility to generate 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045.

Kreps and the conservancy credit the landmark legislation as the linchpin that allowed the state to muscle its way to the forefront on generating renewable energy where fossil fuels were once harvested.

For instance, the landmark legislation requires that Dominion procure 200 MW of solar or wind on brownfields, coal-mined lands and other previously developed sites such as parking lots by 2035. It allows the utility to venture outside its service territory boundaries to do so. 

Adam Wells, regional director of community and economic development for the advocacy organization Appalachian Voices, praised the conservancy for its pioneering spirit. Wells has plenty of experience trying to launch rooftop solar projects in the coalfields of Virginia — and beyond.

“It’s a venture into the unknown,” Wells said, adding that it’s more likely to be successful due to the conservancy’s heft, expertise and long history of collaboration. “The advantage of the nonprofit structure is that it’s able to absorb risk.”

In this interview with the Energy News Network, Kreps explains the conservancy’s approach to renewable energy development on previously disturbed lands. This piece was lightly edited for clarity and length.  

Q: First, why did the conservancy acquire the Cumberland Forest property in 2019? 

A: Context matters, so it’s important for people to understand that the Appalachian Mountains are one of the conservancy’s top priorities. Our organization has selected these mountains, which extend from Alabama to Canada, as one of the top four landscapes on Earth to address climate change challenges and biodiversity. The other three are Kenya, Borneo and the Amazon. 

We set up a private limited partnership to be able to acquire land at scale in the Cumberland Forest. First and foremost, our goal is to protect and conserve the forest. We also want to help people by managing the area in a way that supports the economic transition and diversification of the region. That means we’re also working on outdoor tourism and recreation.

Solar is beneficial because it generates clean energy and brings new investment to former minelands.

Being successful with the Cumberland Forest model will lead us to big, ambitious conservation projects in the greater Appalachian corridor.

Q: People have talked about installing solar panels on deforested minelands for years. The conservancy is actually doing it. Is it daunting to lead on this front? 

A: The conservancy loves a good challenge. It’s exciting to be on the leading edge. These are some of the first projects — in the whole country, not just central Appalachia — to demonstrate that we can build solar on former minelands.

One of the most important aspects is that we are learning a tremendous amount by doing. At some point, you have to take the bull by the horns.

Q: What is the timeline for Highlands Solar, the just-announced project with Dominion?

A: We are the landowner and have leased the development opportunity to Dominion Energy, so Dominion drives the timeline. It looks as if construction will happen on a 2024-25 schedule.

The way I try to explain it is that the preconstruction part of the project takes several years and has a lot of different pieces. It’s a really important behind-the-scenes process. That includes a site assessment to determine which areas are suitable for arrays, figuring out the condition of the land, working on an interconnection agreement to tie into the electric grid, installing infrastructure, and getting the appropriate local, state and environmental permits.

Once built, it will operate for roughly 35 years. After that, there’s the reclamation phase because as a landowner we want assurances so we can decide the future of that land.

Q: Ed Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia, called the project a “huge win” for the region’s economy. How does that translate to local tax revenues and local jobs? 

A: I don’t have specific numbers but I’m confident about tax revenues being generated.

The Virginia Clean Economy Act sets the framework, but the specifics on tax revenue structure happens in conversations between the solar developer and the local communities. 

Similarly, we are confident these projects will create jobs in all the phases. The developers do all of the hiring. We are urging them to connect with local people and we think they are interested in doing that.

I should also note that the developers of both projects are very interested in local job training and workforce development. In tandem with construction, the conservancy will be working with the developers to devise a broader community benefits plan that involves businesses, nonprofits, area governments and community colleges.

Q: What’s the status of the solar project you announced in May, with Sun Tribe and Sol Systems?

A: Since the announcement, they have been busy. They are rolling up their sleeves and going through the checklist of things they need to work through to get to construction. They are in the predevelopment phase where they are moving forward with site assessment and interconnection.

Q: How do these solar projects mesh with your organization’s wheelhouse of undertaking conservation with the looming threat of climate change?

A: There are lots of tools in the toolbox when it comes to mitigating climate change. First, our leading priority in the Cumberland Forest is to conserve and manage existing forests as carbon sinks and as habitat for an array of species.

To achieve anything on the climate change front, we have to be aggressive on renewable energy. A big part of our platform is being smart about where we site renewable energy projects. By keying in on former surface mines, we can increase clean energy production and keep the surrounding forest intact.

Q: If you get pushback from members wondering why you’re pursuing solar instead of reforesting the minelands, what do you tell them?

A: We are going to do both and we’re going to be smart about where we do solar and where we do reforestation. About 85% of the Cumberland Forest is forested and about 15% is minelands.

Remember, we’re trying to manage the forest to create benefits for nature and people, so we’re seeking the optimal outcome. In some places, we think solar is the winner because minelands are flat, large enough and near utility infrastructure. On other parts of the minelands we are going to plant trees because reforesting makes the most sense.

It’s not an either/or; it’s all of the above.

Q: Your Virginia projects add up to an estimated 120 megawatts of solar energy. How does that move the needle on climate change?

A: It’s a small step. The value of these projects is the concept. We’re trying to show we can successfully build solar on these former minelands.

When we look regionally and at our neighbors in Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee, many of those minelands could be great sites for solar projects. We’re trying to lead by doing and create a successful approach.

Hopefully when we revisit that question, we will see other solar projects pop up in central Appalachia. It may only be 120 megawatts, but they’re really important megawatts. If we generate them, we’ll be unlocking more solar.

Q: Is there a limit to the number of megawatts of solar projects the Cumberland Forest property can support?

A: Yes, there is a limit. Solar is part of a bigger strategy where we’re taking a targeted approach. By that filter alone, there is a limit because we’re not going to convert existing forest to solar projects.

Q: When will you be announcing the next project in Virginia? 

A: We don’t have any plans for that right now. We’re focused on helping our first two batches of projects be successful.

Once these Virginia projects get up and running, we will evaluate opportunities in Tennessee and Kentucky. Interest was high in Virginia because of the Virginia Clean Economy Act. Tennessee and Kentucky don’t have that enabling legislation.

Q: You’ve talked about your initial projects serving as a model for other coal mining regions in the United States. How does that happen?

A: The conservancy definitely has a bigger vision at a national level that we call Mining the Sun. That initiative is driven by the concept of how can we repurpose former minelands, both coal and hardrock, for renewable energy. We also want to help bring reinvestment to communities that are transitioning.

Every state is a little different, so it’s important to share ideas and bring other states along. For instance, the Virginia Clean Economy Act is an enabling policy because it sent a signal to the market and utilities that this is where the state wants to go. We want to learn how that legislation can be a model for other states.

Q: And lastly, it has been a busy year for the conservancy. When you’re not focused on work, what are three of your favorite pursuits?

A: I’m an outdoor junkie. Being out in those beautiful Appalachian Mountains, camping, paddling, rock climbing and hiking restores my passion for conserving these landscapes. 

I also play drums in a band. We shut down in the early stages of the pandemic, but now practice on my back porch and are able to do outdoor performances.

We’re constantly trying to think of a new name because we hate our name, “The Boys.” We started with bluegrass and morphed into a fusion of bluegrass with funk and jazz. We joke about being an Appalachian band with an identity crisis.

Meet the Virginia conservationist trying to turn old coalfields into solar farms is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

PAINTSVILLE, Ky. — A high-tech manufacturing training center in this eastern Kentucky town is widely regarded as a singular success story of federal support for revitalizing Appalachian coal country. 

The 40,000-square-foot training center here in Johnson County, shaded by the 80-foot highwall of a reclaimed abandoned coal mine, is the home of eKentucky Advanced Manufacturing Institute. In 2016 and 2017, the newly organized institute was awarded two grants totaling $3.5 million from the Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization grant program. AMLER is a $115-million-a-year federal program supporting projects that produce new jobs on or adjacent to reclaimed abandoned mines. 

eKAMI, as it’s known, has run with that idea. The nonprofit institute has trained nearly 200 eastern Kentucky workers — most of them men, many of them laid-off coal miners — since its first class graduated in 2018. During the 15-week course, which also is supported by a separate federal grant, students learn to program and operate digital machining tools and autonomous robots. eKAMI’s students graduate to $28- to $32-per-hour jobs in the thriving Middle Atlantic intelligent manufacturing sector. The nonprofit group itself employs 8 people. 

eKAMI has established such a credible track record that it won $6.4 million more in AMLER grants in 2018 and 2020 to build and staff a similar training center 40 miles west at the medium-security Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex in Morgan County, the state’s largest prison.

“Manufacturers are seeking a talented workforce. They’re here recruiting even before our classes graduate,” said Kathy Walker, a former coal industry executive who founded eKAMI in 2015. “Our waiting lists are long. We have a lot of people who want to work. It takes courage to flip the switch from mining to 21st-century advanced manufacturing. But they find out they can do it.”

Yet even as it is recognized in Washington and Frankfort — Kentucky’s capital — as a champion Appalachian job developer, eKAMI also illustrates the complexity and challenge of developing 21st-century economies in regions so heavily influenced by 20th-century fuels. Producing good jobs and revitalizing regional economies is exceptionally difficult. More money is just a start. 

“If you just look at the dynamics of what’s going on at eKAMI in terms of trying to build a new economy in eastern Kentucky, what’s happening is they’re training an able workforce and then shipping them out,” said Peter Hille, president of the Mountain Association, a nonprofit community economic development group in Berea. “That’s another form of extraction, right? The solution has to be really broad and integrated. The pieces have to knit together so that they build on each other.”

Walker notes that her primary goal is to recruit an advanced manufacturer to settle in Paintsville, or other small eastern Kentucky towns where reclaimed minelands qualify for AMLER grants. Buford Owens, an eKAMI instructor who worked for 30 years as an underground coal miner before he was laid off in 2017, added that while most graduates commute out of the region for jobs in northern Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, they typically return home on weekends. 

“That’s wages that are circulating in towns around here. It’s helping the area,” he said. 

Still, the larger point that Hille raised is relevant, just as it’s been for more than half a century. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared the War on Poverty and created the Appalachian Regional Commission to direct tens of billions of dollars to various job creation and development initiatives in 13 states from western New York to Mississippi. Eastern Kentucky’s efficient and scenic highway network, which ended the region’s transportation isolation, is one measure of the commission’s effectiveness. But Census data also shows that eastern Kentucky counties, including Johnson County, are entangled by poverty rates that are more than twice the national average.

Joe Biden is the latest U.S. president to direct Johnson’s poverty-fighting goal to job creation on ruined industrial landscapes. President Jimmy Carter first introduced the concept in 1977 when he signed the bill that has spent $7 billion so far to reclaim Appalachia’s abandoned coal mines. Carter signed a second bill in 1980 that authorized a total of $5 billion spent to date for cleaning up the nation’s Superfund toxic chemical sites. 

President George H.W. Bush approved the environmental cleanup program for the nation’s nuclear weapons plants in the late 1980s, which now spends almost $7 billion annually. In the early 1990s, President Bill Clinton approved the Pentagon’s even larger program to rid installations of chemical wastes and other toxic hazards. 

Shortly after taking office, Biden signed an executive order that promised to help rural regions move past their dependence on fossil energy markets, and his administration has identified $37.9 billion in existing federal grant and loan accounts, including AMLER, to meet its job creation and revitalization goals.  

The economic logic behind big land restoration programs is pretty clear. A study published in May by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts calculated that every $1 million spent on reclaiming abandoned mines generates eight direct and indirect jobs.

The Abandoned Mine Lands Economic Revitalization grant program embraces those data points and advances them in several steps. It asks private businesses and local governments to collaborate on projects that join mineland restoration with job-producing results beyond earth removal and grading. Since it was established in 2016, with heavy lifting by U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, a Republican of Kentucky and former chair of the House Appropriations Committee, the AMLER program has authorized $655 million in grants in six coal-producing states and for three tribes. Kentucky’s share so far is $140 million.

According to Kentucky authorities, 55 projects in 21 counties have been selected for AMLER grants; $42 million has been spent to date and $79 million more has been approved. Grantees, according to the state, “have projected over 4,000 jobs.” But neither the state nor the Department of Interior has conducted a formal assessment of the accuracy of that number.

Kentucky’s AMLER projects, like those in the five other Appalachian states, are typically small, scattered, and hard to find, just like the towns where they are located in the state’s heavily forested and steep Appalachian region. 

State authorities, who review applications for the federal grants, cite other successful projects that fall into two basic categories.

The first is assistance to build industrial parks and to help recruit new industries. For instance, Perry County won a $6.5 million grant in 2018 to add capacity to Dajcor Aluminum’s plant in the Coalfields Regional Industrial Park. The industrial park had already benefited from a $900,000 AMLER grant in 2017 for a natural gas service pipeline. The Canadian company has added 31 employees since December, according to the state.

The second category seeks to grow a new rural Appalachian economy from the natural and cultural resources at hand — reclaimed minelands, recovering forests, ample farmland, and eastern Kentucky’s intriguing history and mining culture.

A rails-to-trails project, for instance, opened this spring on a former coal railroad corridor in Prestonsburg with the help of a $1.95 million AMLER grant awarded in 2016. It serves as a foundation of the developing recreational economy in the town of 3,250 residents.

The developers of the Wilds of Emily Creek have applied for a $3.5 million AMLER grant to turn 7,000 acres of forest and reclaimed minelands into an ecotourism attraction on former mine sites in Martin and Pike counties. The project has already gained a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to control invasive plants. 

“We’ve got a big canvas here to work with,” said Kenneth Van Hoose, who manages the project. “We’ll take our time to make this a place people want to visit.” 

AMLER grants in the five other coal-mining states of the East are invested in similar projects promoting the reclaimed landscape. In southwest Virginia, Project Thoroughbred, a grain processing plant meant to bolster a nascent malted barley economy in coal country and generate 50 jobs, was awarded a $2 million AMLER grant in 2019.

The largest AMLER grant in Kentucky, $12.5 million, was awarded in 2016 to the Appalachian Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit development group, to build an 80,000-square-foot wildlife center on abandoned minelands in Bell County, in the southeast corner of the state. That project, Boone’s Ridge, has evolved into a $56 million, 12,000-acre recreation destination that is under construction. The foundation has benefited from two other federal rural grants and loan programs — $3.1 million from the Appalachian Regional Commission for constructing infrastructure and $23 million in loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Frank Allen, the foundation’s chair, projects that when it is completed in May 2023, Boone’s Ridge will be capable of employing almost 250 staff members and attracting 1 million visitors a year. But Allen has $10 million more to raise. 

“This is really hard work in this region,” he said. “There is only so much the federal government can do. I’ve learned the hard way. Investors would much rather go into urban environments.”

Few regions of the country know the “hard way” more intimately than eastern Kentucky. As recently as the early 1990s, eastern Kentucky mines produced 130 million tons of coal annually. Last year it was under 10 million tons, according to federal figures. Thousands of abandoned mines await reclamation, according to the Interior Department. In 1950, eastern Kentucky mines employed nearly 70,000 miners. Just over 2,000 miners are working now. 

eKAMI’s lengthy waiting list for students seeking training reflects that number. “These are new collar workers,” said Kathy Walker, the founder. “We need to train them in mass. Much more than we are capable of doing now. I can tell you, manufacturers have jobs waiting for them.”

In the shadow of a reclaimed mine, this Kentucky center is retraining coal workers for high-tech manufacturing is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

When Danny Van Clief chose a career in solar energy, he wasn’t seeking a turbulence-free glide path.

Instead, the CEO of Sun Tribe Development wanted the freedom to jump with both feet into formidable challenges — ones that might spook other developers.

That pluck has landed his Charlottesville company the opportunity to be the first to generate large-scale renewable power on the coalfields of Central Appalachia. If the bold venture announced this week comes to fruition, roughly 550 acres of deforested minelands sprinkled across an expansive Nature Conservancy preserve will generate up to 75 megawatts of solar energy within two to three years.

“If it were easy, everybody would be doing it,” Van Clief said about plunging into untested territory. “I’m thrilled … to play a small part in the energy transition in Southwest Virginia.

“This is a breakout moment for the region. There’s been a lot of talk about this but not as much action.”

Innovators within the conservancy have been itching to walk that talk since 2019 when the nonprofit acquired the diverse 253,000-acre Cumberland Forest property in Southwest Virginia, Eastern Kentucky and Eastern Tennessee. An estimated 13,000 acres of former surface mines scar the property.

But an organization whose wheelhouse is protecting land, waterways and wildlife needed guidance and hands-on partners to advance that nontraditional thinking. 

All along, the conservancy had targeted Cumberland Forest as a potential showcase to prove that investments in nature could yield financial returns and critical conservation results while returning value to local communities.

In early 2020, the conservancy collaborated with the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy to map out acreage on the property accessible to utility lines and other necessary infrastructure. A few months later, the nonprofit began seeking proposals from private solar developers.

“We can do things that are good for nature and people,” said Brad Kreps, director of the conservancy’s Clinch Valley Program in Abingdon, Virginia. “A mission of conservation and economic recovery can be compatible. These two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

After a nine-month review of 15 applicants, Sun Tribe was chosen as the developer. In tandem, Washington, D.C.-based Sol Systems will finance, own and operate the solar systems once they are built.

Van Clief, a solar executive for 15 years, joined Sun Tribe in 2019 to head up its large-scale solar business. In the last year, it has completed 100 MW of utility-scale projects, usually defined as 5 MW or more. Overall, the 5-year-old company has a workforce close to 80. 

Yes, the conservancy wanted developers with strong track records, but a history of environmental stewardship and a commitment to renewing and diversifying the regional economy mattered just as much.

“We’re super excited,” said Kreps, who has forged local relationships during two decades with the Virginia chapter of the conservancy. “This is kind of the next big milestone.

“We’re trying to show how an area that has historically played a role in supplying energy can build on its past and create a diversified economy that still has an energy component.”

‘Patience and a lot of listening’ 

The half dozen parcels selected for solar range in size from 70 to 125 acres. Five are in Virginia and one is in Tennessee. Four of the Virginia sites are in Wise County and one in Dickenson County. 

Sun Tribe is now tasked with the nitty-gritty of working with county and state agencies to secure the proper paperwork and permits. Another hurdle is connecting with PJM, the independent regional transmission organization that manages the grid in Virginia and 12 other states.

A majority of the sites are in Appalachian Power territory, but Lexington-based Kentucky Utilities also serves a slice of the region under the name Old Dominion Power.

Separately, through the end of March, Appalachian Power was accepting proposals for 300 MW of renewable generation. It was the first of several expected bids to put the subsidiary of the giant American Electric Power in compliance with the Virginia Clean Economy Act. That 2020 law requires the utility to provide a carbon-free grid in its service territory by 2050.

Appalachian Power commended the conservancy for enabling regional renewable energy.

“This represents another avenue for [us] to explore as we work toward meeting the requirements set forth in the Virginia Clean Economy Act,” said spokesperson Teresa Hamilton Hall.

Managing array construction and interconnection, however, could prove to be vastly simpler than proving to local communities that the flow of green electrons translates to jobs and growth.

“We are really seeking permission to become a neighbor,” said Van Clief, a University of Virginia graduate in his mid-40s. “First and foremost, we’re Virginians working in Virginia.”

The partners are in the midst of fleshing out an affiliated community benefits plan that focuses on economic development, bolstering a local workforce and environmental resiliency.

“That means patience and a lot of listening,” Van Clief said about engaging with communities.

Kreps and the conservancy have always maintained that success in maximizing the bounty of such a mammoth landscape hinges on achieving three ambitious and interwoven goals.

Conservation with the crushing threat of climate change is the first and overarching one. The second is yielding a positive financial return to show partners that investments in nature such as leasing land for solar projects, practicing sustainable forestry and sequestering carbon in intact trees are smart business decisions.

And third, but no less in value, is returning value to local communities with a boost in jobs, training opportunities, tourism and outdoor recreation.

“It’s a matter of figuring out optimal use and what we can do where,” Kreps said. “This requires a mix of approaches.”

Adam Wells, who spearheaded the formation of the Solar Workgroup of Southwest Virginia in 2016, is ecstatic that the conservancy is pursuing a second life for land too often cast aside as unusable. 

“It’s huge. Hats off and bravo to everyone involved,” said Wells, a Wise County native and regional director of community and economic development for Appalachian Voices. “If they can do it and make it work, that is the ultimate achievement.”

He’s all too familiar with hurdles because his coalition of nonprofits, community action agencies, colleges, state agencies and planning district commissions continues to navigate a maze of obstacles that have prevented the state’s seven coalfield counties from incorporating renewable energy into a widespread economic transition. 

In his view, the conservancy and its partners have two tough tests ahead. Building economically viable solar projects in remote locales is difficult enough, never mind inventing and tweaking a community benefits package. 

“All of the players are sincere,” he said, “but there has to be follow-through. That’s the real trailblazing.”

That translates to measurable impacts on local quality of life, increasing tax revenue and providing long-lasting jobs that pay enough. 

“I’m optimistic. I have to be,” Wells said. “That’s what gets me up and going.”

Wells and his coalition will offer support. In the meantime, he has his hands full with a related effort to guide four manufacturers in Tazewell and Buchanan counties in moving beyond their coal-centric beginnings into renewable technology.

In mid-March, The Virginia Growth and Opportunity (GO) Board green-lighted close to $500,000 in state matching grants sought by Wells and Vivek Shinde Patil, another go-getter at the nonprofit Ascent Virginia.

The venture they call the Energy Storage and Electrification Manufacturing Jobs Project could generate as many as 206 direct jobs and millions in investments. The grants are designed to help local companies pivot to exporting advanced batteries and other components that fuel cars in Asia, light homes in California or store energy generated by wind farms in Europe.

Stepping stone to a broader outcome

For several years, Wells and Sun Tribe have been shepherding a separate and smaller solar project that still has the potential to be the first one to be deployed on an old coalfield in Virginia.

Construction on the 3.5-megawatt array for the Mineral Gap Data Centers is now slated to begin at the end of this year and be completed in mid-2022, Van Clief said.

Wells and his solar workgroup team pioneered a novel funding method by writing a grant to tap into federal money for redeveloping old mine sites. Appalachian states began receiving federal money from what’s known as the Abandoned Mine Land Pilot Program in 2016. It’s funded through the U.S. Treasury.

Approval led to the state Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy awarding $500,000 in 2019 to the Wise County project designed to partially power on-site data centers with a new solar array. It was designed to decrease the centers’ operating budget as well as peak-load demands on the local distribution grid.

As of now, the conservancy arrays will be funded with private dollars. Van Clief said it was premature to reveal a price tag for the undertaking.

The signature biological richness of the Cumberland Forest prompted the conservancy to invest in one of the most mammoth projects ever pursued by the nonprofit during its seven decades of existence.

If the conservancy can be successful stewards of nature in Central Appalachia while also mining the sun and renewing and diversifying the economy, Kreps is assured it could be a model in Virginia and beyond.

More than 100,000 acres have been affected by coal mining in Virginia, according to figures from the state agency soon to shorten its name to the Department of Energy. That number doesn’t include other brownfields. Mineral mining (non-coal) has impacted another 40,000 acres.

“If we can demonstrate solar on unforested lands in the Cumberland Forest, it’s a stepping stone to a bigger and broader outcome,” Kreps said. “Virginia is setting strong policy. We hope that shapes policy in neighboring states and can be connected to federal policy.

“It’s very positive for climate change and the environment.”

Currently, only 1.6% of Virginia’s electricity comes from the sun, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Recent legislation should boost that figure relatively soon.

“The Virginia Clean Economy Act let the world know that Virginia is open for solar business,” Van Clief said. “And this portfolio says Southwest Virginia is open for business.”   

Now, it’s time to dig in and prove the concept.

“This is a defining moment for our business and for our industry. We couldn’t have scripted better news than this announcement as we’re coming out of a pandemic.”

Conservancy charts a solar showcase on the coalfields of Central Appalachia is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This article originally appeared at CPR News and is republished here with permission.

The Elk Creek mine above the town of Somerset may have closed years ago, but methane gas still silently seeps out of its collapsed walls and into the atmosphere.

Tom Vessels, a former gas executive turned entrepreneur, is on a mission to eliminate that gas from closed or abandoned mines and prove doing so can slow down global warming.

For the last nine years, Vessels has captured the mine’s methane and used it to generate electricity for residents in the surrounding valleys. This has removed 250 billion cubic feet of methane annually — equivalent to taking more than half a million cars off the road for a year, according to a February report from Aspen Skiing Company, the project’s backer.

“The more I learned about the methane’s impact on the environment, well the more excited I got,” Vessels said. “I can see what we’re doing is having a real benefit. I just wish we could do it faster.”

Despite his proof of concept, Vessels is still the only one capturing methane from non-operational coal mines in Colorado, according to the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. The Elk Creek project is one of only four similar projects operating in other states, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data show.

“You can have all the potential in the world, but if you don’t have a market, you won’t have any development,” he said.

Methane has at least 28 times more warming potential than carbon dioxide. Coal mining is responsible for about 7 percent of all U.S. methane emissions, according to the EPA, and research shows the amount of methane leaking from abandoned coal mines will grow as more mines close.

Researchers and experts agree that capturing mine methane would make significant greenhouse gas reductions. There’s just no profitable use for the gas.

Few places know more about this than the North Fork Valley, which a state energy office report shows is home to some of the gassiest abandoned coal mines in Colorado. A regional working group started meeting in 2017 to brainstorm ways to use mine methane.

“They came up with [that] it’s extremely difficult to use the gas,” said Chris Caskey, a climate scientist who participated in the group. “We looked through all the economic possibilities.”

The gas can be used to generate electricity, like at the Elk Creek mine. But Vessels said it’s currently cheaper and more efficient to create electricity from other renewable resources.

Instead, he said, the country should look at profit in terms of how much mine methane the capture process is removing from the Earth.

“You have to have a policy incentive,” Vessels said. “If you look at the greenhouse gas we destroy, suddenly, we become incredibly economic.”

Companies in countries such as Germany and Australia capture methane and are paid to produce energy from the gas through what’s known as a “feed-in tariff.”

“If you did that, then I’d think you’d see tremendous economic activity in Colorado,” he said. “Right now, frankly, we’ve always been sort of marginal.”

California’s cap-and-trade program offers a similar strategy, allowing companies to offset their own emissions by supporting projects that capture and remove methane. The Elk Creek operation makes money from companies in California through that program, Vessels said.

Coal methane projects face other barriers. Leasing the methane in these underground, defunct mines is a complicated process, requiring a stack of permits from different jurisdictions, said John Messner, a member of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

“If we can come up with a leasing mechanism to do it and a regulatory scheme to ensure that there’s not offsetting impacts, I think you’d have a number of folks that would be interested in pursuing it,” Messner said.

It could soon become easier to formalize methane capture in Colorado. Congress is considering the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act, which would make it easier for companies to lease methane from abandoned mines in the North Fork Valley.

Another bill sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Chris Hansen would require coal mines to report their emission reductions from methane capture. It’s one of the ways legislators are looking to codify the emission targets set in Gov. Jared Polis’ climate roadmap.

“You’re creating investment and jobs in places that badly need economic development,” Hansen said of his bill. “We can really help those communities and create great jobs, at the same time reduce a huge amount of CO2-equivalent emissions.”

For now, the benefit of capturing the gas is largely environmental. Tanya Henderson, the executive director of the Western Slope Conservation Center in Paonia, says the climate benefits are worth it on their own.

“It’s not really a question of, ‘Is this the most economically feasible thing to do?’” Henderson said. “It’s a question of, ‘Is this the right thing to do? Is this something that will improve our world?’ And I think it will.”

The Elk Creek operation proved that capturing methane from abandoned coal mines can bring down emissions in the United States, but the project is costly on its own merits. Burning the methane on-site to transform it into carbon dioxide — a weaker greenhouse gas — may be the most appealing solution, Vessels said.

“This is probably one of the cheapest ways to destroy greenhouse gas,” said Vessels, whose operation also does this. “But that market does not exist in Colorado.”

He now lobbies at the state Capitol with the hope of starting more methane capture operations in abandoned mines across the state.

“We want to encourage people to do more projects like this,” Vessels said.

Methane from abandoned coal mines could be key to fight climate change — if only it made more money is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.