Read the study here.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Mountaintop removal coal mining adds to greenhouse gas pollution by destroying forests and potentially releasing carbon dioxide that was previously trapped inside rock and soil, according to a recent scientific paper.

Carbon dioxide emissions from the Appalachian coal industry are up to 17 percent greater than previously estimated if these types of sources are added to emission generated by burning coal in power plants, the paper found.

So even if power plants deploy carbon capture and storage, or CCS, technology, mountaintop removal will remain an important contributor to global warming, according to the paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Authors James F. Fox of the University of Kentucky and J. Elliott Campbell of the University of California, Merced, argue that carbon dioxide emissions from the mining process should be considered as the world tries to come up with policies to control climate change.

"In order to agree on informed decision-making, the sustainability discussion begs the need for ongoing and future scientific research, discussion and thereafter management to address a sustainable trajectory for terrestrial carbon and coal production interactions," Fox and Campbell wrote in their paper, published last month.

Emissions from coal-fired power plants accounted for 36 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and 38 percent of worldwide CO2 emissions between 1997 and 2006.

Over the last two decades, surface mining in Appalachia has removed nearly 7 percent of the region's forests, while producing about 23 percent of the nation's coal.

Fox and Campbell attempted to examine the greenhouse impacts of coal mined by mountaintop removal, from its extraction and transportation to its burning in power plants. Using published data on factors for forest and soil carbon content, they calculated the carbon emitted when companies cut down trees and blow off entire mountaintops to access coal reserves.

When calculated assuming today's power plants -- which do not capture their carbon dioxide emissions -- Fox and Campbell found that these other sources add up to 17 percent more carbon to Appalachian coal's greenhouse footprint.

Adding carbon capture would reduce the overall footprint by more than two-thirds, leaving the elimination of forest and the redistribution of carbon dioxide from soils to produce about twice as much carbon dioxide as coal-fired power plants.

"In both cases of current combustion practices and future CCS goals, the terrestrial carbon storage impacted by the disturbance of [mountaintop removal] is shown to be significant," the paper says.

Among other things, Fox and Campbell suggest examining the often-used practice of bulldozing and burning trees ahead of strip-mining, rather than logging the forests and harvesting the wood. Burning forests produces 12 percent more carbon dioxide than harvesting the wood, the study says.

"It is argued here that the terrestrial carbon impact be included in the ongoing discussion of coal mining life-cycle emissions and be considered when discussing energy production and environmental sustainability," the study concludes.

@tag:Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1702.