When a product becomes really known for a particular thing, it can be hard to envision it for anything else. Take baking soda. For years, it was literally for baking – a half teaspoon in your cookies, maybe a bit more for soda bread. But later, it was marketed as a deodorizer, a way to freshen up a stinky fridge or stained carpet. And that requires a full box, causing sales to increase 20 fold.
Now, a research lab at the University of Wyoming (UW) is trying to do something similar for one of Wyoming’s top industries – coal. The idea is to keep Wyoming mines open longer, as the state is home to the nation’s largest supply.
A peek at the research
The Energy Innovation Center is one of the more prominent buildings on the UW campus.
Inside a conference room are tables with construction materials, like a clay brick. It’s noticeably heavy. Sitting next to it are bricks made with a mixture derived from coal. They’re noticeably light. Something Trina Igelsrud Pfeiffer, who directs much of this research, said is intentional.
“That's really good because it's compressive strength,” Igelsrud Pfeiffer said.
UW brought her on in 2017 to help find new uses for coal in the midst of the decline in power plants’ use of the fossil fuel. That demand has about halved since 2008.
“It was Wyoming’s economic need to make sure that coal stayed relevant and viable, and that the coal towns actually kept the people employed and businesses running,” she said.
Igelsrud Pfeiffer added her team’s research proves coal can be used for construction materials, like the bricks. Or road paving. Or a soil amendment to boost crop fields.
When asked if the crops come out of the ground covered in a black coal film, the answer was a resounding no. The coal feedstock is mixed into the soil, much like biochar is currently used in agriculture to help with soil health.
It’s worries like that – coal-covered crops – that are tricky to overcome.
Igelsrud Pfeiffer said that for a long time, “we didn't even use the word coal. We said carbon ore, because of the CO2 issues and things like that. It was the bad actor, if you will.”
Burning coal releases emissions that are harmful to our health and the environment. But Igelsrud Pfeiffer said that’s not the case for the alternative uses she’s researching, and getting that point across to the public can take a lot of clever marketing.
What does it take to rebrand?
Conversationally, one might think of shifting the public’s view on a product as rebranding. But academically, it’s called repositioning. That’s something
Boston University’s Marketing Professor Susan Jung Grant studies closely.
“You have to start with the associations that people have, whether they are positive, negative or neutral,” Jung Grant said.
She added that repositioning usually happens when interest in a product is waning. Take Old Spice.
A vintage 1970s commercial shows weathered-looking sailors and farmers lathering up with the brand’s products: shaving soap and aftershave. An old-timey narration plays in the background, “C’mon, wake up to the freshness of the open sea with Old Spice, and get a super smooth shave.”
Jung Grant said at that time, the brand was viewed as old, something for “your dad or your grandfather. It had a very stodgy image.”
But a more modern 2010 ad shows a shirtless, fit man sitting on a white horse on the beach. In a somewhat kitchy tone, he tells the viewer, “Anything is possible when your man smells like a man and not a lady. I’m on a horse!”
Old Spice is now a deodorant, shampoo and body spray. It’s used by younger brothers, boyfriends and teenagers.
“It's become redefined, and it has a lot of humor in the way it's introduced,” Jung Grant said.
So that’s repositioning, which is what coal is up against.
The baking soda dilemma
UW Associate Economics Professor Rob Godby spends a lot of time understanding coal markets. He said alternative coal uses could have promise for keeping the industry alive, but repositioning is just one of the hurdles.
“You've got to be cost competitive, and then you have to break into that market and actually convince people to use something different,” Godby said. “What we really want is a lot of volume.”
It’s kind of like the baking soda quantity problem.
“So the idea would be: What if we could find a product you could use coal for that has a really large market?” he said.
In theory, the construction industry could become for coal what a stinky fridge is for baking soda. But Godby said those products will use a lot less coal compared to current uses for electricity. Although he added that electricity demand for coal isn’t reliable.
“This year in Wyoming, it'll be probably the second-worst year ever, after last year,” Godby said.
Some power plants in the state are already shifting away from coal. At the end of this year, Kemmerer’s Naughton power plant is retiring its coal units, which puts in question the future of the local coal mine.
“That's the real problem,” Godby noted. “The declining coal is happening faster than alternative uses of coal are being developed.”
Igelsrud Pfeiffer’s team is racing to soften the blow. The team’s vision is a future with coal brick houses, coal highways and coal soil amendments.
But to get that research market-ready, they’re asking Wyoming lawmakers to set aside $2 million in the state budget. They’ll find out in spring.
