Old energy vs. new energy: Will Coal River Mountain be mined or be home to a wind farm?

A seminal battle between old, extractive energy and new, renewable energy is shaping up on the aptly named Coal River Mountain in southern West Virginia (in background of Associated Press photo). Environmental groups are appealing the state's "approval of a key permit change for a Massey Energy strip mine at a site where citizen groups are promoting alternative plans for a wind-energy facility," The Charleston Gazette reports.

Coal River Mountain Watch and the Sierra Club argue that the state revised a mine permit without ensuring that the changes complied with federal law and state policy on exemptions from the general rule that strip-mined land be returned to its approximate original contour.

This month, the consulting group Downstream Strategies concluded that a wind farm on the mountain "would provide more jobs and tax revenue than a mountaintop removal mine," like the one on Kayford Mountain in the foreground of the photo, writes Ken Ward Jr. "Massey officials have said that if environmental groups think wind projects are such a good idea, they should buy land, obtain permits and build such projects themselves." (Read more)