coal
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Proposed coal company merger will draw green opposition
This is from a press release that just crossed the transom: The expected March 29, 2007 merger of Dynegy and LS Power will create a combined company with the most pending dirty coal-fired power plants in the United States. This plan contrasts sharply with the recent TXU decision to back away from such heavily polluting […]
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Mary Anne Hitt, director of Appalachian Voices, answers questions
Mary Anne Hitt. What’s your job title? I’m the executive director of Appalachian Voices. What does your organization do? We bring people together to solve the big environmental problems facing the central and southern Appalachian Mountains — mountaintop-removal coal mining, air pollution, and the loss of our native forests. What are you working on at […]
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Still
An extensive Christian Science Monitor analysis reveals that "nations will add enough coal-fired capacity in the next five years to create an extra 1.2 billion tons of CO2 per year." In all, at least 37 nations plan to add coal-fired capacity in the next five years — up from the 26 nations that added capacity […]
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Report from India
Daphne Wysham, co-director of the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network sends the following from Angul, Orissa, the heart of India's Coal Belt, on March 15, 2007:
The smell of burning coal in household fires hangs in the air. Bicyclists carry heavy bags of coal from the mines to sell for a few rupees. They are overtaken by huge lorries carrying more than the tonnage they are supposed to carry -- all part of the black market in coal -- down busy streets, with cattle lying nonchalantly on the road.
We visited communities that were literally on the edge of the coal mines, who had nowhere else to go, having received no compensation for their land, taken by the coal companies and the World Bank. In the heat of the summer they tell us, the temperature in these communities can reach over 130 degrees F. Spontaneous combustion of coal in the open-pit mines cannot be extinguished. Water is polluted and far away. Health care and education is non-existent. Heavy energy-intensive industry is everywhere in Angul: aluminum smelters, steel mills, sponge iron factories.
As we drove to a village on the outskirts of the dirtiest aluminum smelter in the country, Nalco, we were forced to stop as a parade of men dressed in bright orange dress, paint on their faces, were banging drums and cymbals, celebrating the festival of holi, the arrival of spring. They celebrate in colorful garb in their villages as they do every spring although just down the road, on the outskirts of the state-owned Nalco smelter, their cattle are dying in droves from bone-crippling fluorosis -- caused by the excessive fluoride produced from smelting aluminum -- and other undiagnosed diseases.
The people and animals have small tumors on their bodies; the women complain of arthritis-like symptoms and swollen joints that make it hard to do their daily work; the children show signs of genetic malformations. One boy we saw had seven fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. Another boy was deaf and retarded, his teeth also weakened, possibly by the fluoride. All the malformed children were born after the aluminum smelter was established here. Many of the women cannot be married if the men learn where they are from; similarly, cattle cannot be sold from this community. it is well-known that here a severe poisoning has taken place at the hands of Nalco. -
Coal-bashing is hot new trend in Congress, science circles, and business world
Is King Coal about to be deposed? Climate scientists, key members of Congress, enviros, and the progressive wing of the business world are plotting a coup d’état. Regime change isn’t likely to come soon, but this resistance movement could significantly alter the way the pollution-spewing sovereign wields its power. James Hansen. Photo: Arnold Adle/NASA The […]
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Oh, great
Look what the Twin Cities Pioneer Press discovered: The latest trend in the green world of ethanol is a surprising one: coal. Minnesota’s first coal-fired ethanol plant soon will begin operation in Heron Lake, and it won’t be the last. The high price of natural gas is enticing new plant owners to embrace coal power. […]
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Coal is still the enemy of the human race
When I talked to Rep. Jay Inslee, he specifically asked me to emphasize to readers the distinction between coal gasification (that is, producing electricity in IGCC coal plants) and coal-to-liquids (that is, producing liquid diesel fuel from coal via the Fischer-Tropsch process). The former might some day be environmentally tolerable, if accompanied by carbon sequestration. […]
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