10
Flight 460 of United Airlines made an on-time departure from the West Coast at 7:15 am As the Boeing 727-2oo became airborne and climbed steeply, the morning sun, which minutes before had cleared the eastern horizon, tinted the landscape below a soft red-gold. The world seemed clean and pure, Nim thought, as it always does at dawn, a daily illusion lasting less than half an hour.
While the jet steadied on an easterly course, Nim settled back in his comfortable first-class seat. He had no hesitation in making the trip this way, at company expense, since reflection this morning while driving to the airport in darkness confirmed the good sense of last night's impulse. It would be a two-hour-twenty-minute non-stop flight to Dewer. An old friend, Thurston Jones, would meet him there.
A chirpy, personality-packed young hostess-the kind United seemed to have a knack for recruiting-served an omelette breakfast and persuaded Nim to accompany it with California wine, early as it was. "Oh, come on!" she urged when she saw him hesitate. "You've 'shed the surly bonds of earth,' so unzip that psyche! Enjoy!" He did enjoy-a Mirassou Riesling, not great but good-and arrived at Dewer more relaxed than be had been the previous night.
At Dewer's Stapleton International Airport, Thurston Jones shook Nim's hand warmly, then led the way directly to his car since Nim's only baggage was a small overnighter be was carrying. Thurston and Nim had been students together, as well as roommates and close friends, at Stanford University. In those days they had shared most things, including women whom they knew, and there was little about either which was unknown to the other. Since then the friendship had endured, even though they met only occasionally and exchanged infrequent letters.
In outward mannerisms the two had differed, and still did. Thurston was quiet, studious, brilliant and good-looking in a boyish way. His manner was self-effacing, though he could exercise authority when needed. He had a cheerful sense of humor. Coincidentally, Thurston had followed the same career route as Nim and now was Nim's opposite number-vice president of planning-for Public Service Company of Colorado, one of the nation's most respected producers and distributors of electricity and natural gas.
Thurston also had what Nim lacked-wide practical experience in power generation by coal.
"How's everything at home?" Nim asked on their way to the airport parking lot. His old friend had been married happily for eight years or so to a bubbly English girl named Ursula, whom Nim knew and liked.
"Fine. The same with you, I hope."
"Not really."
Nim hoped he had conveyed, without rudeness, a reluctance to discuss his own and Ruth's problems. Apparently so, because Thurston made no comment and went on, "Ursula's looking forward to seeing you. You'll stay with us, of course."
Nim murmured thanks while they climed into Thurston's car, a Ford Pinto.
His friend, Nim knew, shared his own distaste for cars with wasteful fuel habits.
Outside it was a bright, dry, sunny day. As they drove toward Dewer, the snowcapped front range of the Rocky Mountains was clear and beautiful to the west.
A trifle shyly, Thurston remarked, "After all this time it's really good to have you here, Nim." He added with a smile, "Even if you did just come for a taste of coal."
"Does it sound crazy, Thurs?"
Nim had explained last night on the telephone his sudden desire to visit a coal-fired generating plant and the reasoning behind it.
"Who's to say what's crazy and what isn't? Those endless hearings nowadays are crazy-not the idea of having them, but the way they're run. In Colorado we're in the same kind of bind you are in California. Nobody wants to let us build new generation, but five or six years from now when the power cuts start, we'll be accused of not looking ahead, not planning for a crisis."
“The plants your people want to build-they'd be coal-burning?"
"Damn right! When God set up natural resources he was kind to Colorado. He loaded this state with coal, the way he handed oil to the Arabs. And not just any old coal, but good stuff-low in sulfur, clean burning, most of it near the surface and easily mined. But you know all that."
Nim nodded because he did know, then said thoughtfully, “There's enough coal west of the Mississippi to supply this country's energy needs for three and a half centuries. If we're allowed to use it."
Thurston continued threading the little car through Saturday morning traffic, which was light. "We'll go directly to our Cherokee plant, north of the city," be announced. "It's our biggest. Gobbles up coal like a starving brontosaurus."
* * *
"We burn seven and a half thousand tons a day here, give or take a little." the Cherokee plant superintendent shouted the information at Nim, doing his best to be heard above the roar of pulverizer mills, fans and pumps. He was an alert, sandy-haired young man whose surname-Folger-was stenciled on the red hard bat he wore. Nim had on a white hard hat labeled "Visitor." Thurston Jones had brought his own.
They were standing on a steel plate floor near one side of a gargantuan boiler into which coal-which had just been pulverized to a fine dust-was being air-blown in enormous quantities. Inside the boiler the coal ignited instantly and became white hot; part of it was visible through a glass-enclosed inspection port like a peephole glimpse of hell. This heat transferred itself to a latticework of boiler tubes containing water which promptly became high-pressure steam and ripsnorted to a separate superheater section, emerging at a thousand degrees Fahrenbeit. The steam, in turn, rotated a turbine generator which-along with other boilers and turbines at Cberokee-supplied almost three quarters of a million kilowatts to power-hungry Dewer and environs.
Only a portion of the boiler's exterior was visible from the enclosed area where the men were standing; the entire height of the boiler was equal to fifteen floors of a normal building.
But all around them were the sight and sound and smell and taste of coal.
A fine gravel of black dust was underfoot. Already Nim was conscious of a grittiness between his teeth and in his nostrils.
"We clean up as often as we can," Superintendent Folger volunteered. "But coal is dirty."
Thurston added loudly, with a smile, "Messier than oil or hydro. You sure you want this filthy stuff in California?"
Nim nodded affirmatively, not choosing to pit his voice against the surrounding roar of blowers and conveyers. Then, changing his mind, he shouted back, "We'll join the black gang. Don't have any choice."
He was already glad be had come. It was important to acquire a feeling about coal, coal as it would relate to Tunipah, for his testimony next week.
King Coal! Nim had read somewhere recently that "Old King Coal is striding back toward his throne." It had to be that way, he thought; there was no alternative. In the last few decades America had turned its back on coal, which once brought cheap energy, along with growth and prosperity, when the United States was young. Other forms of power notably oil and gas-had supplanted coal because they were cleaner, easier to handle, readily obtainable and, for a while, cheaper. But not anymore!
Despite coal's disadvantages-and nothing would wish those away the vast black deposits underground could still be America's salvation, its last and most important natural wealth, its ultimate ace in the hole.
He became aware of Thurston motioning, suggesting they move on.
For another hour they explored Cherokee's noisy, coal-dusty intricacy. A lengthy stop was at the enormous electrostatic dust collectors required under environmental laws-whose purpose was to remove burned fly ash which otherwise would belch from smokestacks as a pollutant.
And cathedral-like generator halls with their familiar, deafening roar-whine were reminders that whatever the base fuel, electricity in Brob-dingnagian quantities was what this place was all about.