Dear Next President:

My name is Kathleen I am a student at Beulah High School in the state of North Dakota. This letter that I am writing to you is of matters, I believe you should take into consideration. Being President will give you power over making executive decisions for the United States but these decisions need to be wise and thoroughly thought through.

There has been a lot of news reports about coal mines being shut down. According to CBN News station, Alpha Natural Resources (Who is a large American producer of coal for the industrial production of steel, iron and low–sulfur thermal coal for fuel steam boilers for the production of electrical power.) announced that they were shutting down eight coal mines in Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Alpha stated, “It will cut production by 16 million tons and eliminate more than 1,200 jobs. This move is the result of the Obama administration’s so–called ‘War on Coal’.”

Shutting down coal mines will really affect my economy. Many of my peers guardians will lose their jobs. Wikipedia’s ‘Coal Mining Jobs’ says that 81 thousand people have coal mining jobs. The state of North Dakota has 27,639 people that work in the mine fields. North Dakota will fall but we will not be the only state slowly falling apart. When that happens the unemployment rate will increase, and then economies will go into a recession. Which, would lead us into another Great Depression.

If we lose the coal mines the effect will be on power plants, because they need coal to run on. According to World Coal Association “Coal & Electricity,” coal is a major energy resource it's about 41% of what our country runs on. When power plants shut down, even more jobs will be lost. The United States will have a massive blackout all because we no longer have enough electrical power to go around. If you think that we can run on Nuclear power alone, you would be wrong; according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, they state that Nuclear power is only 8.7% of a major energy source that we use. If an operator runs for a whole 24 hours at 497 MW (megawatts) it only generates 11,496 megawatthours. In this nation alone, we consume 1,834 watts per person a day stated by Wikipedia “List of Countries by Electrical Consumption,” we have 318.9 billion people in the United States, we wouldn't last a year.

Cort Ammon on Worldbuilding, says, “ If all the power would go out, civilized humanity would suffer massive starvation and population reduction. There would be war and suffering, with factions forming and fighting among each other. We may possibly die.”

As the President you must think of the future of our nation, starting a war won't help us in anyway at all. Making this kind of choice won't help us in the long run. Our country would fail, states would fight to leave, many people will die, and most of all, we would no longer be the “United” States of America.

Sincerely,

Kathleen B.