Second Nature by Nathaniel Rich

Author:Nathaniel Rich [Rich, Nathaniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub

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The lesson Schendler drew from the failed hydro plant had ramifications that extended beyond Aspen, even beyond the American West. “If we want to solve climate change,” he said, “we’re going to fracture alliances. We’re going to do some difficult things. And those things are going to hurt.” This, at least, was how Schendler justified his most surprising gambit of all: a partnership with Bill Koch.

After ten years of entreaties, Schendler managed to obtain a meeting with Oxbow Carbon to discuss the possibility of capturing methane vented by its coal mine, Elk Creek, one of the nation’s largest underground mines. Methane gas trapped in coal seams is released during mining; Colorado law required mines to vent the gas to protect workers and prevent explosions. That methane rose into the atmosphere, where, over a twenty-year period, it trapped radiation eighty-four times more efficiently than carbon dioxide. But methane can also generate energy. Schendler proposed outfitting Oxbow’s mine with a methane-capturing system that would generate enough energy to power all of Skico’s properties. It would also eliminate three times Skico’s annual greenhouse emissions.

“Wait,” said an Oxbow representative, raising his palm. “We don’t believe methane is a pollutant,” he said. “We don’t believe coal is, either. We think burning coal is good for society.”

Schendler paused. What could he say to win men like this over?

“Why,” he finally asked, “did you take this meeting?”

“I’m a resource guy,” said the miner. “I hate to see resources wasted.”

“It was the one, small piece of common ground,” Schendler later said, “and I had to cling onto it for dear life.”

The methane-capturing plant opened on November 9, 2012, three days after Aspen’s voters passed the Koch-backed referendum to block construction of the hydroelectric plant. At the grand opening, Schendler posed for pictures with Oxbow executives. Koch declined to attend but he did provide a guarded statement for the press release. “This project,” he said, “is useful and rational.” It was not quite a ringing endorsement, though it did make Schendler’s point as concisely as possible.

A few weeks later a tunnel deep in the mine burst into flames. The fire could not be extinguished. After a year, Elk Creek, responsible for a tenth of Colorado’s coal production, shut down. Oxbow buried tens of millions of dollars of equipment underground. Koch laid off nearly three hundred employees, many of them third-generation miners.

Meanwhile the power plant thrived. Methane continued to leak from the sealed mine and was converted into energy—enough to power seventeen restaurants, two luxury hotels, and four ski resorts. “We’re sorry for the job losses Oxbow is experiencing,” Schendler told a reporter, “but we’re glad that our project is still running.”

The collapse of the coal mine had made Schendler’s point too—a point about a new industry’s cannibalization of an old one, about the violent end of a familiar way of life and the birth of another.

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