My answer to this and similar proposals to drill for oil or natural gas or dig for coal is that they are all finite resources. The world will eventually exhaust them. We should be on the leading edge in providing the world with renewable energy sources. That is where the big money will be in the future.
It may not be soon but it will happen. According to Fareed Zaharia in "The Post American World," China and India are projected to build 800 new coal fired power plants between 2006 and 2012. Do you really think that the coal companies wouldn't sell every ton they could mine to whoever would buy it? A 250 year supply for the US would not last as long if there were greater profits to be made outside of the US.
BTW, the C02 emissions from these new power plants would be five times the total savings of Kyoto. It is time to look to renewable, sustainable planet friendly power. Why continue to foul our own nest when we don't have to?
You assume that coal is only being contemplated for electricity production, but it is just as well being considered for use in cars and for heating oil. That's what companies working on liquification are trying to develop.
The bogus but often repeated claim that the US has some mythical "250 year supply of coal" rests on wildly optimistic and easily disproved coal reserve estimates by the US Geological Survey. The USGS has a truly abysmal prediction record for both fossil fuel reserves and prices.
For a more realistic overview of US coal reserve estimates see for instance Richard Heinberg: Coal in the United States at The Oil Drum.
Unfortunately a far more likely scenario for US coal production is for US coal production to peak around 2025. This is only 16 years from now.
Global oil production appears to have peaked in 2005. We in the US have only the shortest time to ramp up alternatives before even our dirty alleged "ace in the hole" coal supply peaks as well, then goes into irreversible decline.
