As noted on this website, (click here ) On Dec. 22, 2008, a billion gallons of sludge covered 300 acres, and spilled into the Clinch River and the Tennessee River when the retention pond burst at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Steam Plant. That’s 1,000,000,000 gallons of toxic soup containing Arsenic, Lead, Mercury, Selenium and other toxics and carcinogens. Knoxvillebiz.com.

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View of what had been the James Home, Copyright (c) 2008, Knoxville Biz . com

posted on Yale Environment 360 (Click Here)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved 42 mountaintop removal coal mining permits in the Appalachian Mountains, dashing hopes among many environmentalists that the Obama administration would move quickly to crack down on the destructive and controversial practice. U.S. Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-W.V.), chairman of the

House Natural Resources Committee, said the EPA has given the green light to 42 of 48 mountaintop removal projects currently under review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In mountaintop removal mining, coal companies blast and bulldoze the tops off mountains to get at coal seams below. In recent years, the practice has destroyed nearly 1 million acres of Appalachian forests and buried close to 1,000 miles of streams in mining debris. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said recently that the agency was reviewing the permits because the projects might violate the U.S. Clean Water Act, but she added that “the bulk” of the pending permits did not appear to raise environmental concerns. Environmental leaders criticized the EPA for not taking a stronger stand and called on the White House Council on Environmental Quality to take action to stop the 42 projects from proceeding.

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On Dec. 22, 2008, a billion gallons of sludge covered 300 acres, and spilled into the Clinch and Emory Rivers when the retention pond burst at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Steam Plant. That’s 1,000,000,000 gallons of toxic soup containing Arsenic, Lead, Mercury, Selenium and other toxics and carcinogens. Tennessean.com, Knoxvillebiz.com.

View of what had been the James Home, Copyright (c) 2008, Knoxville Biz . com

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s law firm, Kennedy, Madonna, LLP, and the Levin Papantonio Law Firm have joined to investigate the Tennessee Coal Spill on behalf of property owners living in the impacted area. For more information call 888-435-7001 or click here.

According to TVA spokesman Gilbert Francis, “Most of that material is inert. It does have some heavy metals within it, but it’s not toxic or anything.” However, according to the EPA, coal fly ash and sludge contains  carcinogens and high concentrations of heavy metals. Furthermore, “concentrations of arsenic to which people might be exposed through drinking water contaminated by fly ash could increase cancer risks several hundredfold” AP, NYTimes, Yahoo.

Coal plants in the US produce 129 million tons of fly ash per year. 129 million tons! This is the number two largest waste stream in the U. S., second to municipal solid waste. The amount of fly ash is increasing as air pollution control technology is being deployed. Scrubbers and other hardware are designed to burn coal in ways that produce less air pollution. However the pollutants that are not released into the atmosphere must go somewhere.

Solar and wind farms produce zero grams of solid waste, zero grams of radioactive waste, and zero grams of greenhouse gases per year. Offshore wind farms produce artificial reefs, which are good for the environment. But in reality, Clean Coal does not exist. (“We Shall Not Be Moved” listen / lyrics )

In a decision just made public ( full text PDF ) the EPA has ruled that it will abide by the 2007 Supreme Court decisions and limit carbon emissions from new and proposed coal plants – essentially killing off the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the foreseeable future. According to the Sierra Club “The decision means that all new and proposed coal plants nationwide must go back and address their carbon dioxide emissions.”

What’s next? Nuclear Power? Auto emissions?  Carbon Dioxide is Carbon Dioxide, whether from a coal plant, a tail pipe, or the nuclear fuel cycle. Will we see plug in hybids? Plug in hybrids running on biodiesel and methane?  Charged by PVSolar and Wind power? I think it is a matter of when, not if.  Toyota led the way with the Prius – the status car of the decade for people who care about the planet.  New taxis and limos in New York City and elsewhere must be hybrids.  Toyota is capturing the ‘Black Car’ market while Ford, with the Escape hybrid is leading the yellow cab market. In MOTOWN GM announced the Volt, a worthy successor to the EV1, and now Ford announced the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids.

Here’s what happened.  In April, 2007 the Supreme Court ruled that the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency can and must regulate Carbon Dioxide unless it can prove scientifically that greenhouse gases do not contribute to global warming. See Environmentalists hail Supreme Court ruling on carbon or the New York Times. The Sierra Club filed suit in May to request the EPA overturn the Deseret Power’s proposed plant because the 110 MW plant would have emitted 3.37 million tons of CO2 each year. The EPA ruled that it will regulate carbon.  For the text of the Supreme Court’s Rulings: Environmental Defense v Duke Energy and Massachusetts v Environmental Protection Agency ).

On “We Can Solve It” Al Gore challenged America to generate 100% of our electricity using clean, renewable, sustainable technologies. Boone Pickens came up with The Pickens Plan

and said “I’m going to build a wind farm in West Texas.” Vinod Khosla (Sun Microsystems), Paul Allen (Microsoft), Eric Schmidt (Google) and others in Silicon Valley are investing in solar and wind, and designing hybrid cars.

Meanwhile, the coal industry is trying to fight back. They keep talking about ‘Clean Coal.’ The thing is, “Clean coal” technology doesn’t really exist. We at Popular Logistics would like to see every coal miner in America and elsewhere offered a job manufacturing photovoltaic solar modules, wind turbines, and other tools of the sustainable energy trade.

“Clean Coal is a marketing plan, it’s all smoke and mirrors.  See How Stuff Works , Greenpeace ( Myths and Facts ). Richard Coniff, at Yale Environment 360

writes:

Clean is not a word that normally leaps to mind for a commodity some spoilsports associate with unsafe mines, mountaintop removal, acid rain, black lung, lung cancer, asthma, mercury contamination, and, of course, global warming. And yet the phrase “clean coal” now routinely turns up in political discourse, almost as if it were a reality.

Coniff writes about the energy and the money required.  Burning hydrocarbons releases chemical energy and carbon dioxide.  Burning coal in a “clean” manner requires recapture of the carbon, and storage somewhere – such as oil or gas wells or in the oceans. This adds to the cost, or would, if the technology existed. It doesn’t make much sense from a thermodynamics perspective. Which is why T. Boone Pickens is building wind turbines, not “Clean Coal” plants.

]]> http://popularlogistics.com/2008/11/sierra-club-kills-king-coal/feed/ 1 http://popularlogistics.com/2008/11/energy-policy-public-health/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=energy-policy-public-health http://popularlogistics.com/2008/11/energy-policy-public-health/#comments Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:07:08 +0000 L J Furman, MBA http://popularlogistics.com/?p=1248

There really is no such thing as “Clean Coal.” Mining coal destroys mountains, and often kills the miners.  Burning coal releases tons of carbon into the atmosphere and the oceans, and even if you could sequester the carbon, burning coal releases other pollutants, including mercury into the biosphere. The mercury makes its way into fish. This is why people, especially children and pregnant women, should not eat a lot of tuna or swordfish.  Wind, solar, geothermal, ocean current, and “negawatts,” on the other hand, really are clean energy.  Offshore wind turbines don’t release pollution. On the contrary, they create artificial reefs, which enhance fish habitat. This is also good for fishermen, the economy, etc.