NASCAR is not the most green sport in the universe, efforts to be more environmentally friendly notwithstanding. It’s dozens of cars whipping around a track, burning fuel as fast as possible to move pistons. Very few hippies attend races.

ThinkProgress assessed the sport’s environmental footprint last month. Their calculations suggest that one race uses 6,000 gallons of fuel, emitting 120,000 pounds of CO2. That’s in addition to the eight to 10 sets of tires each of the 40 teams use and the oil in the engines. Hell, until 2007, NASCAR used leaded gasoline. (To the sport’s credit, they are increasingly using slightly-more-environmentally friendly ethanol in their fuel.)

Dale Earnhardt Jr., surrounded by his mortal enemy. (Photo by Ted Murphy.)

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is one of NASCAR’s top drivers. He’s a legacy in the sport; his father was killed in a crash at Daytona in 2001. Over the course of his career, Junior (as he’s called) has raced 455 times — meaning he alone can be credited with about 1.36 million pounds of CO2 just on the track. And that’s not to mention the other emissions from burning fuel: particulates and contributors to smog. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not exactly a champion of air quality.

But unlike most drivers, Junior really hates air quality. From Politico:

NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be the new face of coal in a television ad touting the fossil fuel as a low-cost solution for power generation. …

“Most people think of me as a race-car driver, but I’m a business owner too,” Earnhardt says in the ad. “And at my company, the cars run on gas but the business runs on electricity. That’s why I’ve been learning about how coal keeps electricity prices down.” He suggests viewers visit [some website] to learn about “clean coal.”

The ad does not discuss Environmental Protection Agency regulations and makes no political statements.

Odd that a pro-coal group wouldn’t have a racecar driver include a nuanced, balanced discussion of the EPA’s attempts to limit air pollution! And that it would include a plug for “clean coal,” which, along with “the energy fairy” and “Casper the Friendly Ghost,” will soon solve all of our energy problems.

Junior’s advocacy, however well-intentioned, is disappointing. The health problems from coal power are legion. Take Kannapolis, N.C., a town northeast of Charlotte in Carrabus County. It’s where Junior is from. A map from the Sierra Club shows how close Kannapolis is to four coal-fired power plants. It’s surrounded by them, including one deemed a “biggest offender” nationally, in red on the map below.

Every year, that big offender, the Marshall plant, puts out 12 million tons of carbon pollution — and massive quantities of particulates and other pollutants that cause a number of health problems, including asthma. The link between coal power and asthma is strong, which may explain why Carrabus County is in the top third in the state when it comes to the asthma rate for children under the age of 15. And North Carolina is doing comparatively well when it comes to asthma. Many more states are not so lucky.

Junior never signed up to be a spokesperson for dirty air. He just wants to drive fast and make a little extra cheddar by doing spokesman work for what he sees as a small business issue. We get it. He’s wrong, but we get it. He doesn’t mean to advocate for dirty air in everything he does. He is just trying to help.

And Lennie didn’t mean to kill that puppy.

There were at least four major protests this weekend targeting fracking, nuclear power, pollution, and mountaintop-removal mining. Here’s a quiz: How many of these protests did you know about?

There was Saturday’s banjo-festooned fracking protest in Washington, D.C. It was called “Stop the Frack Attack,” and it called on politicians to stop the frack attack. Some estimates suggest that 5,000 people participated in the action; UPI asked a pro-fracking guy how many were there and he said that he heard 1,500 from a cop, so UPI went with 1,500.

Anti-fracking protestors march in Washington, D.C. (Photo by TXsharon.)

There were also protests in Japan and China. Earlier this month, some 100,000 people rallied in Tokyo to try and prevent a nuclear generator from being turned back on. Over the weekend, tens of thousands more marched outside of Parliament with the same aim: calling on the prime minister to halt the use of nuclear power. (There were no reports of banjos.)

Police, in blue, clash with protestors in Qidong. (Photo via TeaLeafNation.)

In Qidong, China, a huge protest halted plans to run a wastewater pipeline from a paper plant into the ocean.

The pipeline that residents fear will pollute their water will not be built, the government promised on the Qidong police micro-blog and the website of Nantong city, which oversees Qidong.

This apparent victory for residents follows another one this month when protesters in the southwest city of Shifang, in Sichuan province, forced officials to scrap a planned copper refinery. A large demonstration halted a petrochemicals plant in Dalian, in eastern China, last year.

Environmental experts cheer the growing rights awareness among China’s citizens that forced the Qidong decision, but they caution that China will face many more such protests unless the government overhauls its opaque decision-making process and allows the public to participate.

Thousands of people overturned cars and stormed city hall to demonstrate their opposition. (There are more pictures here.) A massive police presence eventually restored order.

And finally: A protest in Lincoln County, W. Va. — in the region heavily impacted by mountaintop-removal mining — shut down one mine for three hours on Saturday. Twenty protestors were taken to jail. A press release from the group behind the action, RAMPS, explained what happened:

More than 50 protesters affiliated with the R.A.M.P.S. Campaign have walked onto Patriot Coal’s Hobet mine and shut it down. Ten people locked to a rock truck, boarded it and dropped banners: “Coal Leaves, Cancer Stays.” At least three have been arrested [Editor's note: This figure was preliminary] with another in a tree being threatened by miners with a chain saw. Earlier in the day, two people were arrested at Kanawha State Forest before a group of protesters headed to the state capitol.

Patriot Coal, the parent company of the mine, recently filed for bankruptcy. So that’s good news, anyway.

And that was your “What Protests Happened Over the Weekend?” quiz. How many of those protests had you heard about? One? None?

Now ask yourself this: Did you hear that people were upset that NBC tape-delayed the Olympics?

Here’s an absolutely stunning look at the impact of mountaintop-removal mining on a section of southern West Virginia:

Decades of mountaintop-removal mining may have harmed aquatic life along more than 1,700 miles of streams in southern West Virginia, according to new research. Mining companies have converted 5% of the region to mountaintop mines. The resulting water pollution has caused so many sensitive species to vanish that 22% of streams may qualify as impaired under state criteria, the researchers report. …

Using satellite images taken by NASA between 1976 and 2005, [lead author Emily] Bernhardt and her coauthors created maps of mountaintop mining in a 12,000-square-mile region of southern West Virginia. They found that companies had converted 5% of the land to mines during this period. …

Bernhardt’s group found that salinity and mineral levels in the region’s streams increased with the total area of mountaintop mines. The researchers also found that as the number of mines increased, fewer sensitive insect species were detectable downstream.

Satellite view of the region. The light-colored area is actively being mined. (Photo by NASA.)

What’s being mined, of course, is coal: coal that often ends up being shipped overseas, contributing to growing carbon pollution in Asia. The scale of the findings is astonishing: 600 square miles of mountaintop-removal contaminating as much as 1,700 miles of freshwater streams. Not much else to say.

Three updates on the coal industry. If you can’t be bothered to read the whole thing, here’s a summary. Coal: Ugh.

Americans see more future in renewables.

A poll from Rasmussen Reports indicates that Americans see investment in renewables as a better plan than investment in fossil fuels like coal.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% say investing in renewable energy sources like solar and wind is a better long-term investment for the United States than investing in fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil. Thirty-six percent (36%) think fossil fuels are a better long-term investment.

What’s particularly remarkable about this finding is that Rasmussen is often considered to be more friendly to conservative issues. In fact, Nate Silver, the Times’ polling wunderkind, wrote that the firm’s 2010 election polling was “biased and inaccurate,” “overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average.” He goes on: “The discrepancies between Rasmussen Reports polls and those issued by other companies were apparent from virtually the first day that Barack Obama took office.”

If Rasmussen says that Americans prefer renewables, then you can take that to the bank.

India is falling out of love with coal.

A few years ago, India began resorting to importation to meet demand, having seen coal consumption nearly double since 2000. Today, the picture is very different: Import costs are rising, and India’s large supply of coal turns out to be ill-suited for modern plants. From National Geographic News:

Coal power is no longer looking like cheap power.

Although India has seemingly abundant coal reserves, the low-quality, high-ash fuel causes problems when it’s used in state-of-the-art power plants. Instead, companies like [India's largest electric utility] Tata are looking overseas for coal, and import prices have been rising steadily. Tata’s chief executive officer says Tata Mundra won’t be financially viable unless it gets a hefty rate increase to offset the soaring prices of imported Indonesian coal.

Coal suitable for fueling these new plants is turning out to be scarce and expensive, leaving many in India to ask if it has any selling point left at all. It also is losing its luster as certain renewables, such as wind and solar, become more cost-competitive.

Of course, given how much coal the U.S. is exporting, it’s quite possible that India’s complaints will only be short-term.

A Siberian coal mine caught fire.

The mine, in the remote Kemerevo region of Russian Siberia, erupted into flames early this morning. All 263 miners on the job were rescued, happily.

It’s unclear whether or not the fire was extinguished. A fire in an old coal mine in Centralia, Penn., has been slowly burning since 1962. It’s one of scores of coal mine fires burning in the United States.

Here’s another summary that’s more helpful than the one that started this article. Coal: Expensive, unpopular, combustible.

It seems like a decent bet that the Prairie State Energy Campus, a massive coal plant in southern Illinois that just started operation in June, is at the tail end of a long trend. There will be more coal plants, to be sure, but I’d be willing to bet there won’t be many more at the scale of Prairie State. So it’s only fitting that its debut be marked by broken promises and threats.

Coal ash, in its uncontained form, seen in Tennessee.

Midwest Energy News has the story. In 2005, while seeking a permit to begin construction, the company told the local zoning board that the tons of ash produced by burning coal would be shipped out of the county to permitted disposal sites. That was good enough for the county. Zoning variance granted.

About a month ago, shortly after the first generating unit went live, Prairie State Generating Company paid county officials another visit.

On June 26, the Washington County Board met behind closed doors with the lawyer from Prairie State and passed an amendment to an ordinance that granted the company permission to build a 720-acre coal ash landfill on flat farmland near the controversial Marissa, Illinois, plant.

The amendment allowed the company to bypass the normal zoning process, which would have involved public hearings, and negotiate a contract for the landfill with the county—all out of the public eye.

Why did the board agree?

“Our attorneys and powers that be told us there was a good chance if we did not negotiate they could go ahead and do it on their own,” he said. “So if we tried to fight, nothing would be gained other than a big bill over court fees.”

So did Prairie State actually threaten to sue Washington County if they failed to approve the landfill, and if so, on what grounds?

“That was never explained to me,” said Brent Schorfheide, another member of the Washington County Board. [Board member Gary] Suedmeyer said he was not at liberty to say because of the closed proceedings. And when asked that question, Prairie State spokeswoman Ashlie Kuehn responded, in an emailed statement, “no comment.”

Democracy in action.

Coal ash is unpleasant stuff, as residents of Harriman, Tenn., can attest. In 2008, a pond containing coal ash overflowed, sending billions of gallons of a coal-ash slurry downstream, destroying or damaging more than 50 homes. The dusty residue “contains arsenic, mercury, lead, and over a dozen other heavy metals, many of them toxic” — not the sort of thing you want in your house or your lungs.

Unlike in Tennessee, Prairie State plans to contain the ash in a dry form, periodically wetting it in hopes that tames the dust. Eventually, they expect the pile of ash to reach 250 feet — the height of a 25-story building.

At least Prairie State explained why it changed its mind about promising to house the ash in a remote location.

At the June 26 meeting, … [local resident Dale] Wojtkowski mentioned that Prairie State’s president had promised under oath in 2005 that there would be no coal ash disposed of in Washington County.

“It just kind of amazed me the answer I got: that it was because the people who owned the property were unwilling to sell it at the time,” Wojtkowski said.

And as everyone knows, if a situation changes in any small way, sworn oaths are automatically called off. It’s what makes our system great.

Congratulations, Prairie State. You’ve done your best to ensure that the coal era is remembered in its most accurate light: unconcerned about the impacts on people, and putting profits first.

Click to embiggen. (Image courtesy of the Energy Information Administration.)

What gives? Who’s using all of that coal? Is it being put into baby and/or puppy food?

No. A lot of it is going overseas.

As we reported earlier this week, American coal is partly responsible for China’s huge increase in coal consumption. But that’s just one part of the puzzle. Yesterday, Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee released a report, “Our Pain, Their Gain: Mountains Destroyed for Coal Shipped Overseas” [PDF], that outlines the scale of America’s coal exports.

Coal exports have nearly doubled since 2009 to 107 million tons last year, now accounting for almost 12 percent of U.S. production. Three out of every four tons that are exported come from the Appalachian region, and often this coal is produced by mountaintop removal mining — a devastating practice that has blanketed communities with soot, contaminated drinking water, and destroyed 2,000 miles of streams.

Some key data points from the report:

• 97 mountaintop removal, steep slope, and surface mines in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Virginia exported American coal overseas in 2011, compared to 73 in 2008.
• Coal exports from surface mines in these four states have grown by 91 percent since 2009 to 13.2 million tons in 2011.
• Twenty-five of these mines exported more than half of their production in 2011. And six of these mines exported nine out of every 10 tons they produced last year.
• Overall, these 97 mines exported 27 percent of their production in 2011.

There are two ways to address the problem. The first is the approach taken by the House Democrats: raise awareness of the issue. The second is to restrict the ability for coal to be exported.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) is trying the second approach on the other side of the country. This week, he called for “a sweeping federal review of coal exports from the Northwest.”

The government should look at the effects of large-scale exports from all the Northwest coal export projects in the hopper, and evaluate mining, local impacts such as train and barge traffic and global issues such as global warming.

Most of the coal exported from the country goes out from ports on the East and Gulf coasts. Merkley’s actions would specifically impact proposed expansions of shipping points on the West Coast.

Chart created by Sightline using data from EIA’s Quarterly Coal Report.

Anyway, it occurs to us: There are three ways to address the problem. The third is to transition away from coal and make other means of energy production the norm around the world. It’s just that raising awareness of exports and trying to completely shut off ports — however long the odds of success — are far more likely to happen over the short term.

Here’s our mantra. Let’s take the coal out of power production, and keep it where it belongs: a few hundred feet underneath dirt and trees in Appalachia.

A ship unloads coal. (Photo by Martin Cathrae.)

Let me share an remarkable story with you. It’s about coal: the people it harms, the arrogance the industry has developed over years of being coddled, and the way it’s all starting to fall apart.

Up to the northeast of Las Vegas, off of I-15, is the 48-year-old Reid Gardner coal-fired power plant, owned by NV Energy.

It spews lead, smog, mercury, and carbon dioxide, but for our present purposes, let’s focus on its gigantic ponds and piles of coal ash. Not only are they leaking chromium into the groundwater (see this report [PDF] for more on that), they blow great white clouds of coal ash across the community of Paiute Native Americans in the adjoining town of Moapa. Lots and lots of Moapa Paiutes are getting sick and dying. EPA is in the midst of considering whether to require expensive upgrades to the plant; the anti-coal movement is agitating to shut it down.

Anyway, that’s the background. So last week, a local Las Vegas NBC affiliate decided to do a news report on it. Here reporter Reed Cowan presents the Paiutes’ perspective, along with NV Energy’s contention that the coal ash does contain arsenic, lead, and other heavy metals, but that it is “technically not toxic.”

As you see at the end there, the intent was for this to be a two-part story, and for the second part to convey NV Energy’s perspective. Watch what happened:

Wow.

So first off, NV Energy’s attempts to shape the story were so ham-handed, pissed the reporter off so much, that he led by revealing their behind-the-scenes attempts at manipulation.

Then NV Energy sent out, for an interview, the employee whose job it is to monitor coal-ash ponds and dust. When asked what’s in all that coal ash, he replies: “I don’t know.” Again, NV Energy chose this guy.

Then NV Energy drags the reporter inside to witness a pregnant employee, the logic, I suppose, being, “She breathes the dust and she’s pregnant. So what’s the problem?” She shows off the monitoring equipment, except, um, there’s no monitoring of the coal ash. But she’s pregnant! So.

Then! The NV Energy PR guy steps in and starts trying to guide Cowan’s questions. He suggests that the Moapa Paiutes are just being emotional. This from the guy showing off the pregnant employee.

The crude manipulation clearly infuriated Cowan, because the two-part series then became a three-part series. He decided to ask some actual scientists what’s in the air:

NV Energy insists that the air and dust are perfectly healthy. They tested it in their labs and everything cleared. So.

Cowan and crew take the sample to an independent scientific lab for testing, and oops! The concentrations of chemicals — chromium, arsenic, etc. — are high enough to be toxic. The chemist says, “If I had this kind of exposure in my laboratory, I would evacuate the laboratory until it got cleaned out.” Ouch.

The story finishes with a Moapa Paiute saying, “It’s as simple as death. Slowly but surely, we’re all dying off.”

In the wake of all this, EPA has delayed its decision on air-pollution controls at Reid Gardner to allow for more public comment. Nevada Sen. Harry Reid (D) said in a statement, “Significant comments on the proposed permit, as well as new modeling analyses, indicate the strong need to protect public health and visibility on our public lands with the best possible technology.” Yeah.

To me, this story is highly illustrative. Coal companies and utilities have been operating outside scrutiny for so long, they seem completely unprepared to account for themselves. Whatever you can say about oil companies, they’ve been under attack long enough to have developed slick PR. Coal companies are killing people, they don’t seem aware or concerned, and they can barely even competently pretend to give a sh*t.

House Republicans are trying to block efforts to protect coal miners from black lung disease. This comes just days after the Center for Public Integrity released a big report showing that black lung is making a comeback:

From 1968 through 2007, black lung caused or contributed to roughly 75,000 deaths in the United States, according to government data. In the decades following passage of the 1969 law [that first addressed black lung], rates of the disease dropped significantly. Then, in the late 1990s, this trend reversed.

Click to embiggen.

The Charleston Gazette explains how efforts to halt this trend are being stymied:

House Republicans are seeking to extend their measure that blocks the Obama administration from moving forward with a new rule aimed at combating the resurgence of deadly black lung disease, which experts say has reached epidemic proportions in the Appalachian coalfields. …

If approved, the language would forbid [the Mine Safety and Health Administration] from using any funds from its budget to finalize its October 2010 proposal to tighten legal coal-dust limits and improve other protections for miners.

“House Republicans’ proposal to stop modern protections against black lung disease for our nation’s miners is outrageous and should be defeated,” said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and ranking minority member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts said the budget measure “amounts to nothing more than a potential death sentence for thousands of American miners.”

“Preventing black lung isn’t a matter of overregulation,” Roberts said. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

Emphasis added. The industry response?

Industry officials argue that recent increases in black lung rates are a regional problem and don’t require a new nationwide rule. Industry supporters in Congress have claimed that black lung rates have not increased and have blamed miners for not protecting themselves from excess dust.

That’s three arguments:

1. The increase is regional.
2. Cases haven’t increased.
3. It’s the miners’ fault.

Responses:

1. No, it isn’t.

   Click to embiggen.

2. Yes, they have, as reported above.
3. Of course it isn’t. From the CPI report:

Donald Marcum knew he was at least a passive participant in something that was against the rules, maybe even criminal. Every couple of months, his bosses had to send MSHA five samples showing they were keeping dust levels under control. The man with the greatest potential exposure — often Donald because he was running a continuous mining machine, which chews through coal and rock and generates clouds of dust — was supposed to wear a pump to collect dust for eight hours.

That almost never happened. Most of the time, he said, the mine foreman or someone else would take the pump and hang it in the cleaner air near the mine’s entrance.

When MSHA inspectors showed up to take their own samples, it wasn’t so easy to cheat. Donald would actually wear the pump, but he and his co-workers would mine only about half as much coal as they normally did, generating far less dust.

If it’s the miners’ fault, it’s only because they understand the games they need to play to keep their jobs.

If opponents of better regulation were smart, they’d take a page out of the playbook of Big Tobacco, back when it, too, was trying to argue that it shouldn’t be regulated. Here’s an opinion piece that ran in the Chicago Tribune in 1998. Its author was an employee of the libertarian Cato Institute.

Prof. W. Kip Viscusi of Harvard Law School calculates that the extra health-care costs of smokers are about 50 cents per pack of cigarettes. But smokers do not live as long as non-smokers and, thus, smokers create savings for taxpayers that usually aren’t considered. Because smokers die earlier than non-smokers, taxpayers save expenditures that otherwise would be made for pensions as well as nursing home care and other costs related to conditions associated with old age.

When those savings are computed (at a 3 percent discount rate), they more than offset the costs that smokers create. Smokers actually save society about 32 cents per pack smoked.

That’s the argument that the mining companies and their friends on Capitol Hill should make. Take the head of the mining union’s concerns and run with them. Embrace that death sentence. Own it. Remove all the regulations in their entirety. The miners will die much faster and not be a drain on the government as their lungs atrophy and they slowly, eventually stop being able to breathe. Saves tax dollars. Plus, it’s a job creator: you don’t have much choice but to replace the dead guy.

Politics really isn’t that hard once you stop caring about the people you’re supposed to represent.

Image courtesy of NIOSH.

From The Guardian:

The average Chinese person’s carbon footprint is now almost on a par with the average European’s, figures released on Wednesday reveal.

… [T]oday’s report by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the European commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) show that per capita emissions in China increased by 9% in 2011 to reach 7.2 tonnes per person, only a fraction lower than the EU average of 7.5 tonnes.

The population of Europe is 595 million. The population of China is 1.35 billion. In otherwords, China emits 9.75 billion tons of CO2 to Europe’s 4.46 billion. Less per person, but far more overall.

But it’s not all the fault of the Chinese:

The figures published on Wednesday — like most official data on carbon emissions — are based on where fossil fuels are burned. A recent UK select committee report argued that it was also important to consider the import and export of goods when considering national responsibility for climate change. This would affect today’s data, because previous studies have suggested that almost a fifth of Chinese emissions are caused by the production of goods for export. [emphasis added]

Not only are U.S. consumers largely responsible for China’s emissions, we’re also still the reigning per-person champs.

The figure for the US is still much higher — at 17.3 tonnes — though total Chinese CO2 emissions are now around 80% higher than those of America. This widening gap reflects a 9% increase in total emissions in China in 2011, driven mainly by rising coal use, compared with a 2% decline in the US.

Where does that coal come from? Much of it comes from the United States.

In a better world, carbon emission would be an Olympic event, assuring us yet another gold. Or I guess maybe a better world wouldn’t have a problem with carbon emissions.

Either way.

The footage above was captured by a teenager in Afghanistan. The Wall Street Journal:

Children as young as 10 toil in illegal mines, often for 12 hours a day, activists say. Afghan officials agree the problem is stubborn despite recent efforts. The boys represent a thorny obstacle to the nation’s push to transform its antiquated mining industry into a modern economic engine. …

“I saw some children working there loading and unloading donkeys,” said Khalilulla … “All the people working there are extremely poor and don’t have any other job to feed their families except working in the mines.”

By Afghan government estimates, as many as a third of the nation’s children—more than 4 million—take part in some sort of work, from picking fruit to mining coal. U.N. officials estimate about 18% of Afghan children work—1.4 million between the ages of 6 and 15.

The United States banned child labor in 1938. Not as long ago as one might assume, but still two generations. Child labor is illegal in Afghanistan — but so was the mine in the footage.

A 2010 report by the Bamiyan provincial Human Rights Commission, an independent group, showed that 212 children between ages 12 and 18 were working in two unlicensed mines, including the one in the video, said Abdul Ahad Farzaam, the commission’s director. “Our investigation indicates those children were working there even during the night,” he said. “The environment isn’t suitable for children at all.”

It is not. It is also not terribly suitable for American adults, as a recent report from NPR detailed. Black lung disease, once on the brink of eradication, is back. Why? Not because we don’t have laws. Because they aren’t strong enough.

A post at Media Matters connected the dots between lax mine regulations, unsafe working conditions, Republican obstructionism, and media silence on the subject. It’s a really great exploration of how the coal industry and its advocates obscure the spike in black lung.

Perhaps what’s needed is more citizen journalism as from that Afghan teenager. Or from Charles Scott Howard, whose videotaped exposés against Arch Coal cost him his job, until a court reinstated him.

Sunshine, in Justice Brandeis’ words, is a terrific disinfectant. Underground, you sometimes have to use the light of a videocamera.

Photo by Rob Wassell.