Ellie worked her way through their tiny crammed office. It wasn’t meant to have two desks, but Aubrey and Arnold couldn’t decide on which intern to hire. The desks were face to face, and there was barely enough room for them to pull out their chairs and squeeze into them.

“Late again, I see. Soon enough I’ll have so much room in here I don’t know what I’ll do with it,” Brendan said, greeting Ellie.

“I’m not getting fired.”

“Why not? You’re not doing any work. You’re lucky we don’t get paid.”

“I do work!”

“I’ve never noticed, and our desks are literally touching.”

“I’m sorry I can’t get worked up about the same things you can, Brendan. Striving for real change takes some work. I can’t just knock out reports on any pet climate project the EPA is pushing.”

“Pet projects? The EPA is striving to make our country as safe as possible while producing as much energy as possible! That’s a delicate line to walk, and you should be thankful they’re out there looking out for the great businesses and corporations of this country!”

“Geez, sorry. I didn’t mean to trigger you. Just leave me alone so I can do something important over here.”

Brendan scoffed and turned his attention to his computer. Ellie did the same.

Ellie stared at her barren desktop and moved the cursor over the single document she had saved there. She agonized over opening it. She sat there motionless for minutes, while across from her Brendan was clicking and clacking away—over something stupid, she had no doubt.

Finally, she overcame her inertia to click on the file. After a few seconds of waiting for it to load, a blank white document appeared on her screen.

She placed her hands on her keyboard. She moved her fingers around, as if she was just learning to type and any missed stroke would be on the document for eternity. Slowly and deliberately she started pressing the keys.

“Nicholas Hazard is responsible for . . .”

A chicken randomly pecking at corn thrown across the keyboard could have typed the words out faster.

As if in need of a break, Ellie pushed her chair back about six inches and leaned against the wall.

“What are you working on over there, anyway?” she asked her office mate.

Brendan tucked a pen behind his ear, put his hands behind his head, and leaned back in his chair. “Clean coal,” he answered triumphantly.

“Clean coal?” Ellie asked, honestly unfamiliar with the concept. “Like they scrub it before they burn it?”

“No,” was the only response he gave for what felt like an eternity. “It’s about the emissions from the coal after it is used as energy.”

“Okay—since you’re the expert, would you care to explain what that means?” Ellie was becoming annoyed she had started this conversation in the first place.

“How much do you know? You know how coal-burning plants work, right?”

Ellie shook her head, indicating that she did not.

“Okay . . . so coal plants burn coal, which creates heat. The heat is used to boil water, turning it into steam. The steam is then used to turn turbines, which generate electricity. That’s basically all it is.”

“So, all this fuss about fuel sources is basically just to make water turn things?”

“Steam, but that’s basically it. In that function, clean coal is the same as regular coal-burning plants. The clean part comes down the line with the emissions from the coal.”

Brendan paused, waiting for a sign that this was getting through to Ellie. She nodded that she understood.

“Coal contains different chemical compositions, depending where it’s mined. But it’s essentially all carbon. When it’s burned, it releases that carbon as a gas, carbon dioxide—as well as other gases, like nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides.”

Ellie nodded.

“Clean coal is basically a branding exercise, where the plants implement various techniques to limit how many of these chemicals are emitted. Every year the new technology improves efficiencies, so less coal is needed to create the same amount of energy, automatically reducing emissions. There are other techniques that catch the particulate matter so it never gets into the atmosphere, as well as desulfurization to reduce sulfur dioxide. There is no one definition for clean coal, but these things and others working together makes coal cleaner. This improves our health as well as the health of the planet.”

“That all makes sense, but wouldn’t it be better to just not burn the coal? If it has negative effects no matter what, just keep it in the ground and there’s no problem.”

Brendan cringed, taking the question very personally. “What’s going to power our country then, Ellie?” he rebutted. “Is everyone going to attach their exercise bikes to turbines and power our cities? It’s illogical to just remove coal from the conversation—global demand for energy is increasing every day!”

“Obviously, I don’t mean stopping it tomorrow, but shouldn’t we prepare for a coal-free future?”

“Do you know what country has the largest supply of coal?”

Ellie shook her head.

“You’re sitting in it. That is an exportable commodity that we’re walking on. If we can make it clean and safe we can sell that all over the world. It’s the cheapest energy source, and will remain so for a long time. That means almost any country can buy it from us, and a lot of them want to. We’d be foolish not to give them the option.”

“Okay, well—what about mining it? There aren’t any drawbacks to splitting open the earth and carving out what we need?”

“Everything has drawbacks, obviously. But coal mining has become a lot safer in the last few decades. The image a lot of people have of coal mining is miners riding elevators deep into the earth and carving coal out. However, eighty percent of coal mined now is done from the surface. The land is stripped away, exposing the coal seam, where it’s excavated and carried away to plants.”

“Okay—so instead of splitting open the earth, they literally carved it away. That seems better.”

“Nothing is perfect, but it’s a part of life! We need energy. We have coal. Coal produces energy.”

“Even if we switch to clean coal, isn’t the damage already done? Hundreds of years of coal dust and carbon dioxide hasn’t effected our atmosphere?”

“The atmosphere is always in flux. Trees make oxygen from carbon dioxide. Then their leaves fall off and decay, releasing some of it back. The planet is basically a living being, and it’s always changing. We’re not going to stop using energy, so we and the planet are just going to have to adapt.”

“That’s ridiculous. How can you be satisfied with that? Why wouldn’t you want to find alternative sources for your precious energy?”

“They’re not feasible yet. We have something that works—why not improve upon it first?”

“What about, like, mining disasters—won’t those keep happening?” Ellie responded after a slight pause, trying to find a hole to poke in Brendan’s argument.

“Disasters happen, regardless. We can only work on methods to mitigate them. Take this, for example: in the 60s, in a town called Centralia, Pennsylvania, a coal mine caught fire. The thing is, it wasn’t even in use. It was abandoned, and no longer profitable. And it caught fire. It was expected to have been caused by illegal garbage disposal practices. The fire never should have happened, but it did—and because someone broke the law, now we have to deal with it.”

Ellie perked up at the mention of the fire.

“A coal mine fire? How did they put it out?” she asked, suddenly much more interested in the conversation.

“They haven’t—they tried preventing its expansion, but it has nearly a limitless amount of fuel. It should be able to burn for a few hundred more years.”

“A few hundred years?” Ellie said under her breath—more to herself than Brendan. “And I bet that’s emitting all the noxious chemicals you mentioned, only completely uncontrolled or regulated.”

“Yeah, of course. The town is practically abandoned now. The government bought most of the land, deeming it unlivable.”

“So if someone managed to put it out they’d do a fair amount of good in the world.”

“I mean, yeah, I guess—but it’s impossible. The thing is so hot, and it’s not like anyone can get at it. We just have to wait for it to burn itself out.”

“Where is it in Pennsylvania?”

“I don’t know. You’re in front of a computer, look it up.”

Ellie scoffed, and began typing more quickly than before.

“It’s like 150 miles away,” she said again, under her breath. “I haven’t traveled that far before.” She typed something else into the computer. “It is raining though. It might work.”

“What are you talking about? How have you never traveled 150 miles?” Brendan asked.

“I think I’ve done enough here today. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You’ve been here for like an hour! What are you talking about?”

Ellie stood up. “Aubrey told me the news was the only place I could make a real difference,” she said. “I’m just not sure that she’s right.” Hastily, she left the office and headed for the janitor’s closet.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3