December 5, 2010

Charles Qualls, a 32 year old coal-truck driver, was killed Saturday while hauling from the Republic Energy mine, owned by Massey. He was the 48th coal miner killed this year. Brake failure and icy road conditions are suspected as the causes of the accident; during the incident, the operator radioed that he was losing brake control while descending a hill.

Read articles at http://wvgazette.com/News/201012050488 and http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2010/12/06/another-miner-killed-on-the-job/. Read the preliminary MSHA report at http://wvgazette.com/static/coal%20tattoo/masseytruckfataldec2010.pdf

December 4, 2010

ICG and Frasure Creek, Kentucky’s two largest coal mine operators, have agree to pay $660,000 as the result of an audit by the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet that uncovered improper water monitoring practices. The audit was in response to a lawsuit filed by Appalachian Voices and others whose investigation had uncovered 20,000 separate violations of water testing practices, each of which could potentially have resulted in a fine of $37,500. The state confirmed about 3000 of the violations, though mine operators characterized them as “technical reporting errors” of the labs, rather than fraud.

One additional result is that ICG and the state plan to work together to develop a certification program for the labs that test water from mines. While labs that test water for human consumption are required to be certified by the state, there currently is no certification for the labs that test mine discharge.

Read article at http://www.kentucky.com/2010/12/04/1551399/ky-coal-companies-agree-to-pay.html

December 3, 2010

A predicted move to replace Central Appalachian range with Illinois Basin coal is not happening, according to an official with Genscape, a company that provides real-time monitoring of power production.

The shift had been predicted because of decreasing production in Appalachia due to greater safety enforcement and stricter permitting there. However, plants that are capable of burning both kinds of coal are shifting their blends to favor the Illinois coal over the Appalachian coal.

Read article at http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/Coal/6645996

December 3, 2010

Massey Energy has announced that Don Blankenship will retire as CEO of the company effective December 31. There was no reason specified for his retirement other than his statement that “after almost three decades at Massey, it is time for me to move on”, but the move comes on the heels of rumors that Massey is trying to sell itself.

Blankenship was CEO since 2000, and during his tenure, he saw revenue triple and the number of employees double. But at the same time, negative press has swirled around him, including ugly disputes the United Mine Workers, questionable campaign contributions, and a series of environmental and safety problems in the mine including the blast at the Upper Big Branch mine in April 2010 that killed 29 miners and Massey shutting down a different mine after MSHA sought a court order to take it over.

Read article at http://wvgazette.com/News/201012030947

December 2, 2010

The Farrell-Cooper company has come to a settlement with MSHA to resolve a 2007 death of a miner in its Rock Island Mine in Le Flore County, Oklahoma. Jack Ward, a 66 year-old dump truck operator, was killed when he backed up too far while emptying his vehicle, rolling 177 feet down the side of the dump slope, and coming to rest with the operator’s cabin under water. Mr. Ward’s cause of death was drowning.

As a result of the accident, Farrell-Cooper agreed to pay a $375,000 fine and accept 7 citations from MSHA, three for flagrant violations. One violation was for Farrell-Cooper lying about the amount of training Mr. Ward had received; Farrell-Cooper had reported eight hours of training, yet Mr. Ward was only on site for two hours the day of the travel. Mr. Ward was killed in his 10th day of employment at the mine.

Read article at http://www.msha.gov/MEDIA/PRESS/2010/NR101202.asp

December 2, 2010

Preliminary work has begun on a $2B coal-to-liquids plant in southeastern Wyoming, the first of its kind to produce gasoline from coal. DKRW Advanced Fuels chose the location because of its proximity to large coal stocks. They plan to ship their daily production of 20000 barrels of gasoline by pipeline to the Denver area and hope to open the plant in 2014.

Read article at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wpr/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1732798/WPR..News./Coal-to-liquid.plant.comes.to.Wyoming

December 1, 2010

Massey Energy has announced that it is shutting down the Freedom Energy Mine #1 in Pike County, Kentucky. Over the last year, Massey has been in increasing conflict with Mining Safety and Health Administration over the operating conditions in the mine. This conflict culminated in MSHA’s unprecedented November 3rd request in federal court to take over the day-to-day operation of the mine.

MSHA officials interviewed said the mine’s planned closing doesn’t affect their decisions to sue: “(we) will continue to seek a court order to ensure that miners who continue to work in any capacity at Freedom are safe.”

Read article at http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/12/01/131725252/massey-to-close-ky-mine-that-regulators-wanted-seized

November 29, 2010

A new report by the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED) says that the decrease in jobs in coal mining in Kentucky can be replaced by jobs in the clean-energy industry, especially if Kentucky follows the lead of many other states and creates a renewable portfolio standard as well as expanding financing to spur investment in clean-energy.

Read article at http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/17203-1

November 29, 2010

As more and more utilities are required to upgrade and/or replace their coal-fired power plants to modern emission standards, more and more of them are coming to the conclusion that it’s better for them to replace them with natural gas plants instead. Bill Johnson, CEO of Progress Energy in Alabama said “We’ve been a coal-based generator for decades, and until a few years ago, we thought we would remain largely coal-based and nuclear until people started talking about carbon regulation. We decided we had to do something about it.”

Natural gas is gaining favor among utilities for a number of reasons: not only does burning gas emit less carbon dioxide, it burns much cleaner (important in areas facing restrictions because of high particulate pollution), and most importantly, its price has remained competitively low for the last several years after crashing in 2008. “Coal is losing its advantage incrementally to gas,” said Michael Zenker, a gas analyst at Barclays Capital, “and as long as gas prices stay as low as they have been, it’s going to continue indefinitely.”

Read article at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/business/energy-environment/30utilities.html?_r=1

November 29, 2010

Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, has been subpoenaed to appear in the ongoing joint federal/state investigation of the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster. While many senior Massey Energy officials have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights, investigators have spoken with Blankenship’s lawyers and say that the he will in fact testify when he is called in a couple of weeks.

Read article at http://wvgazette.com/News/201011290841