This story originally aired on Wyoming Public Radio.

Products evolve. How we use them today can be quite different than what their makers imagined — take baking soda. 

Decades ago, Arm and Hammer realized the tiny teaspoon most households used just for baking didn’t move enough product off the shelves. So, it pitched baking soda as a way to freshen up a stinky fridge, which requires a full box. Sales increased dramatically, which was exactly the goal of the company’s product repositioning campaign. 

This kind of repositioning has been used time and time again by different industries for all kinds of products. Now, a University of Wyoming research team is trying to do the same thing, but for coal. The idea is to create a new market and keep Wyoming mines open.

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. The coal bricks are noticeably light. 

“That's really good because it's compressive strength,” said Trina Igelsrud Pfeiffer, who is directing much of this research. 

The university brought her in eight years ago to help find new uses for coal, as demand from power plants has steadily declined 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 said her team’s research proves that coal can be used for construction materials, like the bricks, road paving, and a soil additive for 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. 

So, sugar beets grown with the help of the coal additive don’t come out dusted in black, but it’s worries like that 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 is not the case for these alternative uses, and getting that point across to the public can take a lot of clever marketing. 

What does it take to reposition? 

It’s a strategy called “repositioning,” something Boston University marketing associate 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. Another example? Old Spice.

A vintage 1970s commercial shows weathered-looking sailors and farmers lathering up with the brand’s products: shaving soap and aftershave. A 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 kitschy tone, he tells the viewer, “Anything is possible when your man smells like a man and not a lady. I’m on a horse!”

So that’s repositioning. Which is kind of what coal in Wyoming has to do. But it is a bit harder for a so-called climate change “bad actor” than an old-timey cologne. The stakes are big here, too. 

The clock is ticking

University of Wyoming economics associate professor Rob Godby said that is because Wyoming needs to find a home for its coal. 

“What we really want is a lot of volume,” he said. 

This year, demand for Wyoming’s coal for electricity has been terrible. It’s shaping up to be the second-worst year ever for the industry.  

“So, the idea would be, what if we could find a product you could use coal for that has a large market?” Godby said.  

A large market, like, say, the construction industry. But Wyoming has to convince builders that bricks made out of coal are a great idea, and that has to happen quickly, added Godby. 

“That's the real problem,” he said. “The decline in coal is happening faster than alternative uses of coal are being developed.” 

And the state has not struck any big deals with new industries yet. The vision of coal brick houses, coal highways, and coal crop fields still needs years of research and a hefty market buy-in.