Plight of Appalachian coal gets attention from international magazine The Economist and CBS News

The coal business has suffered a steady decline in Appalachia, largely due to cheap natural gas, and coal advocates fear it will only get worse with the release of new carbon regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency that limit "emissions from new fossil-fuel-fired power stations to 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour—far less than the average coal plant emits," reports The Economist. "To meet this standard new coal plants would have to capture and store much of their carbon emissions. Critics complain that the technology enabling carbon capture and storage (CCS) is too expensive and works far better in theory than in commercial practice."

Economist map shows mines and vote trends

And, according to coal advocates, much of the blame falls on the shoulders of President Obama, who they say doesn't understand Appalachia, where he lost significantly in both elections. The Economist says: "He is urban: Appalachia is rural. He is biracial: Appalachia is white. He is cosmopolitan—well-travelled, well-educated, brought up in Hawaii and Indonesia: Appalachia, thanks to its mountains and patchy road network, is still insular and isolated. During his campaigns he lavished attention on [Virginia,] Pennsylvania and Ohio, battleground states with Appalachian parts, but bypassed Kentucky and West Virginia, which he stood little chance of winning."(Read more)

Kentucky coal jobs in the second quarter of this year reached the lowest number since 1927. Since mid-2011, Eastern Kentucky has lost more than 5,700 coal jobs, or nearly 42 percent of the previous number. In West Virginia, between July 2012 and July 2013, coal mining employment fell 5 percent to 11,829 jobs, reports The Associated Press.

CBS News had a segment Thursday night on the struggles Appalachian coal towns are having with utilities' increased use of gas. The story centered on Harlan County, Kentucky, where "in the past two years, unemployment has risen from 9.8 percent to 17.2 percent. In Eastern Kentucky overall, 42 percent of miners have lost their jobs," Jeff Glor reports for the network. "The only mines still operating in Harlan are run by C.V. Bennett's family. Five years ago, Bennett had 500 employees. Today it's 100." (Read more)