23 November 2010

Nature Geoscience has published a new analysis showing that 2009 global greenhouse emissions rose to the second highest levels. While emissions decreased in the US, Germany and Japan as their economies lagged, economic growth in India and China resulted in corresponding carbons increases that more than offset the difference.

At the same time, emissions due to deforestation were down 25% over the same time period, primarily due to improved efforts in Brazil.

Read article http://www.grist.org/article/2010-11-23-coal-drives-2009-global-carbon-emissions-higher-than-expected

November 23, 2010

The Water Works Board (BWWB) of the City of Birmingham, AL, has filed an appeal to the water discharge permit for the proposed Shepherd Bend Mine along the Mulberry Fork of the Black Warrior River. The permit, issued in October by the Alabama Surface Mining Commission (ASMC) was opposed by the BWWB because it allowed the mine to discharge into the Mulberry Fork only 2200 feet upstream from one of the major water intakes for the city of Birmingham. The additional pollutants contributed by the mine discharge is expected to significantly complicate the BWWB’s job of making the water drinkable for the city.

In its appeal the BWWB says that the permit as issued by the ASMC did not meet the regulatory requirements for permitting because it did not do sufficient analysis of the kinds and quantities of toxins that the mine is expected to discharge into the river, and because the sediment ponds and other pollution treatments that the mine proposing using to clean its discharge are below the standards required by the ASMC’s own rules.

Read article at http://www.birminghamtimesonline.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4284

November 22, 2010

MSHA issued the Twilight MTR Surface Mine a “imminent danger” citation because of two unplanned ignitions that occurred within the same week. While nobody was harmed in either case, the citation was issued because the cause of the ignitions remained unknown. “Until the blasting operations and explosives handling practices are deemed by MSHA to be safe, all blasting and loading of explosives are hereby stopped to ensure the safety of those involved in this mining procedure.”

Read article at http://wvgazette.com/News/montcoal/201011220815

November 22, 2010

Now that Massey Energy is up for sale, the companies extensive list of safety violations may be coming back to haunt it, according to a number of stock investors. “Contesting every single violation, questioning the legality of the enforcement efforts on the part of federal and state officials: None of this is good for productivity. It’s not good for the overall health of the company.” said Rob McGarrah from the AFL-CIO’s stock investment fund.

Massey CEO Don Blankenship agrees, sort of: “Practices that we’ve employed at Massey successfully for years, that improve health and safety, are now being discarded; that’s as well as the fact that environmental regulations have reached the point that they’re fully unreasonable.”

Read article at http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/17060-1

November 21, 2010

While most of the developed countries of the world are slowing down or stopping the use of coal for electricity, countries in Asia, particularly China, are rapidly expanding their markets for coal. Currently Australia, Indonesia, Colombia, South Africa and Canada all export to China. The United States also exports some coal to China via Canada, and there are several new ports being planned in the United States to greatly increase this amount.

Currently China burns about half of the 6B tons of coal produced annually worldwide. While most coal, especially lower-quality “thermal” coal, is burnt close to the mine itself, increasingly more and more coal is being shipped longer distances before burning. Environmentalists are especially concerned about this development because it provides an end-run around national efforts to limit CO2 production by shipping the coal to a country where there are no (and will likely be no) limits on CO2 production.

Read article at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/world/asia/22fossil.html

November 20, 2010

Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship invited local and national reporters to company headquarters and answered their questions for almost two-and-a-half hours. While the subject of the questions varied significantly, his central responses were consistently on the same few topics: Massey has unfairly blamed by the news media, reporters have failed to criticize federal regulators, and those federal regulators are keeping Massey from running a safe mining operation.

Read article at http://www.npr.org/2010/11/20/131465631/massey-head-points-fingers-as-he-details-explosion

November 17, 2010

It is often commented that renewable energy solutions such as solar or wind farms are diffuse energy solutions that occupy much larger swaths of land than non-renewable resources like coal-fired power plants. Clearly the land used by a coal-fired power plant itself is relatively small. But an analysis that includes the size of the mines providing the coal for those plants shows that the land-use impacts of renewable energy may be quite a bit less than for coal-based power.

Read article at http://www.grist.org/article/2010-11-17-which-has-bigger-footprint-coal-plant-or-solar-farm

November 19, 2010

Massey has announced it is building a new coal-processing plant in Wyoming County, WV. Scheduled for opening in Q3 2011, it will be able to process 700 tons of coal per hour coming from the company’s Guyandotte and Sewell operations.

Read article at http://www.register-herald.com/todaysfrontpage/x117336810/Massey-building-processing-plant-in-Wyoming-County

November 19, 2010

Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technology has been viewed as a critical to the future coal-fired electricity in an age where carbon emissions are increasingly likely to become regulated. With CCS, the carbon dioxide resulting from the burning of coal is captured and stored deep underground in natural geologic formations that in essence become permanent storage tanks.

New experiments from Duke University have shown serious consequences would result if that CO2 would escape from the formations into the neighboring aquifers. Escaped CO2 can react with the water, increasing its acidity which, in turn, causes the water to dissolve more minerals from the rock surrounding the aquifer. The end result was a net increase of 1000% of the concentrations of Iron, Cadmium and Zinc, resulting in water that may not pass federal guidelines for drinking water.

Read article at http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/what-if-captured-carbon-makes-a-getaway/.

Mines represent first group to be identified under agency’s new screening criteria
November 19, 2010

MSHA announced that it has advised 13 mines that they have been placed on a “Potential Patterns of Violation” list, the first set of mines notified that they might face increased “Patterns of Violation” (POV) enforcement since MSHA toughened its POV criteria. Of the mines, 11 of the 13 are coal mines, and of those the majority are in Central Appalachia.

Four of the mines on the list had previously been notified that they were on the PPOV list: Straight Creek #1, Upper Big Branch, Eagle #1 and Ruby Energy.

Read article at http://www.msha.gov/media/PRESS/2010/NR101119a.asp