Joy Global Inc. and its operating companies are committed to safe environmental practices and stewardship.
Joy Global manufactures mining equipment which is driven by electricity rather than diesel fuel. In the United States, our environmental compliance meets or exceeds all federal, state, and local regulations. Also, approximately half of our company’s assets and personnel are located outside of the U.S., including countries such as the U.K., Australia and Canada, where we are compliant with reporting our machinery’s “carbon footprint.”
Since the start of the current industry growth phase in 2003, we have redesigned and streamlined many of our manufacturing processes to make them more efficient – allowing us to significantly grow our realizable capacity without adding roofline. The result has been an increased cost and carbon efficiency of our manufacturing facilities.
Although our equipment is used to mine a wide range of minerals and metals, we mine more coal than any other commodity. Domestic energy is fast becoming a national security imperative to reduce the high cost of imported energy. Energy supply-demand models and analyses, including those from the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, indicate that neither the U.S. nor the world can satisfy the growing need for energy without coal in the fuel supply base for many more decades. This nation's abundant and affordable coal reserves can provide an invaluable hedge against dependence on both foreign energy and alternative energy sources which are substantially more expensive, while available and developing technology can make coal environmentally compliant.
Ensuring that sufficient domestic coal is produced, transported and converted into the energy products demanded by a growing and increasingly energy dependent economy is imperative. It is critical that we establish environmental policies that balance the need for expanded and affordable energy supplies with reasonable and sensible environmental protection requirements.
In addition to legislative certainty, these clean coal technologies will require broad funding to enable rapid development and deployment. We support carbon allowances if the funds are directed into development of key technologies and are phased in on a timeline that contemplates the availability of effective and cost-efficient technology. It is also important that any targets or caps associated with carbon allowances are matched to available technology. If coal remains a key part of energy supply, it must also become part of the climate change solution; it is imperative, therefore, that targets enhance – rather than undermine – the development and deployment of related technologies.
This issue is also global one. If the U.S. places too burdensome a level of restriction on companies doing business domestically – thus fostering an uncompetitive environment – they may relocate to other parts of the world which have a significantly reduced environmentally-friendly agenda. This may ultimately result in an ever greater worldwide problem. We also believe that all associated industries – not just electricity generation – should be governed by emissions requirements, as transportation and natural gas also emit carbons.