JR Hay

Foreword

This work was written for the UNC Charlotte Axe and Quill society third edition of the students work anthology and was published therein. This was my first published piece of writing and I hope it isn’t my last.

“Man has always required heat, synonymous with life and energy, and worshipped light. He learned to capture both in fire, and with that discovery came a new mastery over the quality of his environment.” – Kenneth L. Lasson

In the Tamarack outside of Beckly I palmed a coal figurine. Its form is of the Black Bear, raised up on its hind legs, almost posturing. Souvenirs like this are common in the Mountain State, to me they are a relic of our era. An apex predator formed of highly compacted combustible fuel, sounds much more intense than the friendly figurines looked. I placed it back down. Bears and coal have so much in common. For starters they are both native to this land and have been for some time. The thing that they share the most, however, is their lack of disorder, their incredible complex structures which are both covered in unassuming black cloaks.

Entropy is a measure of disorder in a system. In general, things with high complexity have low disorder, therefore things with high complexity also have low entropy. In the context of the entire universe both black bears and coal have rock-bottom entropy. Most of the observable matter within the universe is in a state of plasma, discordant particles dancing about like many marbles in a pinball machine. This disorder seems to be the natural state of things, as has been posited in the second law of thermodynamics: entropy in an isolated system always tends to increase, this means the universe was never as orderly as it was and never will be again. Entropy is useful because it can describe the potential of a system to do work. High-entropy systems tend to have low potential energy, just like an unorganized factory they have a hard time doing real work. The opposite is true for low-entropy systems, such as a star. which uses its potential to illuminate the skies and increase its own density. It is evident when one comes face to face with the black bears’ beady eyes, lengthy claws, and snarling expression, that they are capable of a great deal of work. And when one basks in the blaze of a hot oven, they should understand that coal is the source of that warm radiation. Both have low entropy, and both are susceptible to outbursts of power.

Let’s first consider coal, which isn’t just one thing – it’s a process. A process that begins with death. A plant dies and for one reason or another it doesn’t decay, perhaps it expired in a swamp surrounded and protected by thick mud and murky waters. This slaw of plant and mud forms a biological sludge known as peat, which, through increasing heat and pressure and over millions of years transforms into the four major ranks of coal: Lignite, Subbituminous, Bituminous, and Anthracite – listed in ascending order to their natural development and energy density. Bituminous is probably the type that these figurines were carved from as it’s the most abundant type in the Appalachian Basin. The energy contained in this Bituminous Coal was formed via the Sun and condensed via tectonic activity. Therefore, coal is both solar and geothermal, created with as green as energy comes. It was nature’s way out of the carboniferous period – aptly named for a period of high carbon dioxide content within the atmosphere. In this way one could think of it as the original carbon capture technology.

There, deep in the ground, this captured carbon sat dormant, its energy locked under the stone. Then we humans came along, and in all our wisdom we noticed the potential sequestered in this “fruit of the earth” and exploited it. The iron age which followed was fueled by coal, and every subsequent age until oil, coal’s more vigorous cousin, took over as top-dog of unrenewable energy sources.

Bituminous Coal typically has an energy density of around twenty-seven megajoules per kilogram. This dwarfs both lithium-ion batteries and dynamite but is only around half that of gasoline. The amount of coal in the Appalachian deposit is thought to have been around 70 billion metric tons. That’s a lot of energy, and an ever-growing, energy hungry species took full advantage.

My Grandfathers truck juddered over the half-paved road to the farm, soon even this vestige of modernity would disintegrate from under the tires, transforming into the meandering gravel which defined the latter miles. I jostled up and down on the middle seat, between my father and his father. Around me the evidence of a great contraction – buildings boarded up and overgrown. Kudzu and other flora had long ago overtaken barns and retaining walls. Thickets had punctured the once watertight roofs of abandoned cabins.

Rewilding is a common scene in the majority of Appalachia. West Virginias population peaked in 1950 with just over 2,000,000 residents. This coincided with a local peak in coal production. That production level was about the level of saturation; after 1947, coal production would remain relatively stable. All those new residents brought with them order – the order of family and for that purpose stoves to burn, roads to pave, buildings to erect. Of course, as the astute reader may surmise, all that structure doesn’t come for free. Parents needed an income to support their growing families, so the father may have gone out to work in a mine, or processing plant. The plants were largely funded by outside interests, pumping order into the wilderness to extract its natural fuel. These mountains lost their isolation, and so the second law was still conserved.

Eventually, the veins ran dry. It became more expensive to mine deeper and the energy mined wasn’t worth the cost. Machines were invented to mine more efficiently with less humans involved, and the workforce shrank. At the same time, scientists discovered that the burning of coal for energy is detrimental to both the environment and human health, and so the legislatures began to legislate it, driving up the cost. People looked for power elsewhere, and people left. The same domicile which once served as the epitome of order was abandoned, disheveled and it transformed from low to high entropy – the second law was conserved.

It is easy for one to see this and to say this is a sad sight – the ghostly shadows of a bygone era presenting a haunting image of what it once was. Yet, in this system of high entropy, which is unfit for modern human life, the solitary black bear finds solace. The black bear can do what humans have all but forgotten; it thrives in the relatively high-entropy state of the forest. Therefore, the ecosystem is only returning to its natural state- before the mines, before the order. From this perspective, West Virginia’s low entropy was only a blip on the graph. Perhaps one day soon cities may rise again, and people and structure may return – but it will still only be a blip in the timeline of existence. In the end it will return, and so will the whole of the earth to a system high in entropy, devoid of human life, devoid of any life. Coal can only burn so far until it’s all snuffed out, and when the last black bear dies, there won’t be one to take its place. The second law is conserved.