The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum in Benham features an exhibition coal mine; artifacts from miners and their families; fossils; a 2-ton block of coal cut especially for the museum as a photo backdrop; and even items from the personal collection of country music star (and coal miner’s daughter) Loretta Lynn.

It also will soon have 80 solar panels on its roof to generate the electricity the facility needs, withthe excess helping to power the town of Benham. The switch to solar is expected to save the museum between $8,000 and $10,000 a year on its energy bill.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to bring coal to the forefront of America’s energy policy, in part by eliminating environmental protections and President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plant policy. Meanwhile, the coal industry has been declining for years, in part because other energy sources such as natural gas and renewables have become more cost-effective alternatives.



  1. bobbo, we think with words and flower with ideas says:

    Its called a “Museum” for a reason.

  2. NewFormatSux says:

    Yes, use the cheapest energy available. Like how climate scientists use coal for their supercomputer models, placing them in Wyoming and Idaho to save money. Little surprising that they could be saving this much, since Kentucky is one of the cheaper states, where they don’t even let companies export that much.

  3. Ah_Yea says:

    Of course they went solar.

    Any moron can see this one.

    First, the Obama EPA regulations against coal driving up the cost of electricity as much as 80%.

    Second, the Obama solar subsidies creating an artificial price point for solar. Artificial because the prices are not market driven and the subsidies are going to end.

    Musk isn’t the only one who knows how to game the system.

    http://washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/12/obama-green-energy-spending-distorts-solar-power-m/
    http://washingtonexaminer.com/energy-official-electricity-prices-to-soar-80-percent-thanks-to-epa-coal-regulations/article/2543871

  4. NewFormatSux says:

    It’s not the coal that has been made more expensive. The solar has been made cheaper. The installation is being donated.

  5. Screwed in the ASS! says:

    Really?

    Solar is a great ALTERNATIVE and should be used wherever possible. However, fossil fuels, like coal, are the primary sources of energy that the world uses. And they use them because they’re plentiful and CHEAP!!!

    Last time I looked into solar, it was NOT cheap. In fact, just about every solar alternative was pretty damned EXPENSIVE — even for a lot of American’s. And if you’ve ever wondered why we don’t use more solar just consider the glass portions of that solar panel alone. First, you have to gather (probably mine) the materials which you then have to somehow HEAT and then roll into panes. But what are you going to use to make the FIRE to do all the heating?! Magnifying glasses (which are already GLASS)? A Gilligan’s Island BICYCLE?! No. You’re either going to cut down some trees or use some fossil fuels.

    … And don’t even THINK of saying nuclear! Other than the obvious dangers and pollution problems that come with nuclear power, even for thorium reactors (which almost no one uses), the cost are like a billion times more expensive than solar.

    Don’t misunderstand! I’m all with you on using solar. But what you clearly don’t understand (probably because you live in an egalitarian first world and are clueless to anything outside that world) is that solar is NOT plentiful, NOT cheap and NOT really an alternative source of energy to the MAJORITY of humans on planet earth — or even in America! Therefore, coal, oil and other CHEAP sources of energy will continue to be used. So if you want to FORCE your will on the rest of humanity and MAKE them use solar, you have to wake the fuck up and find a way to make solar energy CHEAP! And I don’t mean by screwing first world countries over (America, Europe, Australia, etc.) with more taxes to fund it either!!!

    • NewFormatSux says:

      Use solar power to make the fire.

    • bobbo, we think with words and flower with ideas says:

      Last time I looked into solar, /// When was that?……. look again…… project forward.

      it was NOT cheap. //// Accounting. The Devils Playbook.

      • NewFormatSux says:

        Says the guy doesn’t solar cuz some trees he claim.

        • bobbo, we think with words and flower with ideas says:

          Yep. Every site has to be individually evaluated.

          …………or do you ALWAYS go for the ignorant knee jerk yapping dog response?

          …………….In your own “real” life, or do you only favor us?

  6. NewFormatSux says:

    35,000 coal jobs added since Oct 2016. I wonder if something happened around that time?

    Peabody and Arch have left bankruptcy too.

    https://spectator.org/coals-colossal-comeback/


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