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Category Archives: big coal

They Never Should Have Let Joe Machin Into The Democratic Party – They should throw him out now

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I have come to despise Joe Machin. The entire Senate turns on whether he will vote for something. He has derailed the stringent Climate Change provisions of Built Back Better bill, and acted like it was a boon that he voted for a Black Woman to the Supreme Court. He is a waste of human space. Joe Manchin helped a West Virginia power plant that is the sole customer of his private coal business. Along the way, he blocked ambitious climate action.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/08/manchin-family-coal-company-00003218

This article is from the NY Times but its tagline would not load up so I used the one above. from politico. I think if you click on the author you may get through. In fact I clicked on the active author link and it took me right through so you get 2 articles for the nonprice of 1.

How Joe Manchin Aided Coal, and Earned Millions

At every step of his political career, Joe Manchin helped a West Virginia power plant that is the sole customer of his private coal business. Along the way, he blocked ambitious climate action.

By Christopher Flavelle and Julie Tate

Photographs by Erin Schaff

GRANT TOWN, W.Va. — On a hilltop overlooking Paw Paw Creek, 15 miles south of the Pennsylvania border, looms a fortresslike structure with a single smokestack, the only viable business in a dying Appalachian town.

The Grant Town power plant is also the link between the coal industry and the personal finances of Joe Manchin III, the Democrat who rose through state politics to reach the United States Senate, where, through the vagaries of electoral politics, he is now the single most important figure shaping the nation’s energy and climate policy.

Mr. Manchin’s ties to the Grant Town plant date to 1987, when he had just been elected to the West Virginia Senate, a part-time job with base pay of $6,500. His family’s carpet business was struggling.

Opportunity arrived in the form of two developers who wanted to build a power plant in Grant Town, just outside Mr. Manchin’s district. Mr. Manchin, whose grandfather went to work in the mines at age 9 and whose uncle died in a mining accident, helped the developers clear bureaucratic hurdles.

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Seize Their Assets And Put Their Executives In Jail – Big Fossil Fuels have come to the end of their line

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If I have aired this piece before I apologized. But it is important and needs to be said again. Big Oil, Gas and Coal are the big nasty. They shit in our air, they pee in our politicians and they spit on our lawyers. They have know what they were doing pretty much all along. We should seize their assets and put their Executives in jail.

Special thanks to the GUARDIAN for the valuable work they do.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crimes-oil-and-gas-environment?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Climate crimesClimate change

Big oil and gas kept a dirty secret for decades. Now they may pay the price

Communities are now demanding the oil conglomerates pay damages and take urgent action to reduce further harm from burning fossil fuels.
Communities are now demanding the oil conglomerates pay damages and take urgent action to reduce further harm from burning fossil fuels. Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty Images

Via an unprecedented wave of lawsuits, America’s petroleum giants face a reckoning for the devastation caused by fossil fuels

Are you a fossil fuel industry insider? We want to hear from you

Supported by
guardian.org

About this content

After a century of wielding extraordinary economic and political power, America’s petroleum giants face a reckoning for driving the greatest existential threat of our lifetimes.

An unprecedented wave of lawsuits, filed by cities and states across the US, aim to hold the oil and gas industry to account for the environmental devastation caused by fossil fuels – and covering up what they knew along the way.

Coastal cities struggling to keep rising sea levels at bay, midwestern states watching “mega-rains” destroy crops and homes, and fishing communities losing catches to warming waters, are now demanding the oil conglomerates pay damages and take urgent action to reduce further harm from burning fossil fuels.

But, even more strikingly, the nearly two dozen lawsuits are underpinned by accusations that the industry severely aggravated the environmental crisis with a decades-long campaign of lies and deceit to suppress warnings from their own scientists about the impact of fossil fuels on the climate a decades-long campaign of lies and deceit to suppress warnings from their own scientists about the impact of fossil fuels on the climate and dupe the American public.

The environmentalist Bill McKibben once characterized the fossil fuel industry’s behavior as “the most consequential cover-up in US history”. And now for the first time in decades, the lawsuits chart a path toward public accountability that climate activists say has the potential to rival big tobacco’s downfall after it concealed the real dangers of smoking.

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Why Do Nuclear Power Plants Cost So Much – Because they are freakin BIG

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People are always asking why Nuclear Power Plants cost so much. They want to blame regulation, or safety measures. Maybe even because of unnecessary cost over runs. Mainly they do this because “They want to build more NUCLEAR Power Plants”. But the fact of the matter is you can’t build them cheaper and in fact given the costs of the 2 Major Nuclear catastrophes, maybe you need to build them more expensive. The simple fact, is that a new Coal Fired Plant can cost 2 billion dollars and kill the atmosphere while a Uranium Fired Plant could cost 4 billion dollars and kill us.

Anyway here is some discussion of that:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plants-so-expensive-safetys-only-part-of-the-story/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

The price is not right —

Why are nuclear plants so expensive? Safety’s only part of the story

A look at the history of nuclear power in the US, and why plant costs have soared.

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Should any discussion of nuclear power go on for long enough, it becomes inevitable that someone will rant that the only reason it has become unaffordable is a proliferation of safety regulations. The argument is rarely (if ever) fleshed out—no specific regulation is ever identified as problematic, and there seems to be no consideration given to the fact that we might have learned something at, say, Fukushima that might merit addressing through regulations.

Further Reading

Remediating Fukushima—“When everything goes to hell, you go back to basics”

But there’s now a paper out that provides some empirical evidence that safety changes have contributed to the cost of building new nuclear reactors. But the study also makes clear that they’re only one of a number of factors, accounting for only a third of the soaring costs. The study also finds that, contrary to what those in the industry seem to expect, focusing on standardized designs doesn’t really help matters, as costs continued to grow as more of a given reactor design was built.

More of the same

The analysis, done by a team of researchers at MIT, is remarkably comprehensive. For many nuclear plants, they have detailed construction records, broken out by which building different materials and labor went to, and how much each of them cost. There’s also a detailed record of safety regulations and when they were instituted relative to construction. Finally, they’ve also brought in the patent applications filed by the companies who designed the reactors. The documents describe the motivations for design changes and the problems those changes were intended to solve.

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A Town In Northern Siberia Had A 100 Degree Day – This is the last time I will write about Climate Change for awhile

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Why? Because I am tired, pessimistic and it all seems so repetitive. I am also extremely disappointed. I am disappointed in myself, my friends, my State, my Nation, and hell even my enemies. WE HAD A CHANCE to stop this thing. We had the science and even the modeling on our side and yet we failed. We misjudged the power it would take and i think we totally misunderstood the violence it would take to stop the carbon industry from continuing to sell their products. We should have elected a President who wasopposed to fossil fuels 10 – 15 years ago. We should have blown up gas stations and power plants 10 – 15 years ago. Here we are looking at a 3 Degree uptick in temperature which will kill off all but the very hardy species. We act like there is still hope. We act like there is a future. Well I am done with that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/06/21/arctic-temperature-record-siberia/

Capital Weather Gang

Hottest Arctic temperature record probably set with 100-degree reading in Siberia

Record-shattering reading continues Siberia’s hot streak, foreshadows more heat elsewhere


Temperature departures from average projected during the next three days, showing extreme temperatures in Siberia and parts of Canada. (Climate Reanalyzer)
By Andrew Freedman

June 23

A northeastern Siberian town is likely to have set a record for the highest temperature documented in the Arctic Circle, with a reading of 100.4 degrees (38 Celsius) recorded Saturday in Verkhoyansk, north of the Arctic Circle and about 3,000 miles east of Moscow. Records at that location have been kept since 1885.

If verified, this would be the northernmost 100-degree reading ever observed, and the highest temperature on record in the Arctic, a region that is warming at more than twice the rate of the rest of the globe.

On Sunday, the same location recorded a high temperature of 95.3 degrees (35.2 Celsius), showing the Saturday reading was not an anomaly. The average June high temperature in Verkhoyansk is just 68 degrees (20 Celsius).

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I WILL SAVE COAL – Shouted Donnie the Cheeto Burito from the roof tops

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Donald J. Trump is the worst energy President of all time. That takes a lot of doing. Jimmie Carter was real bad on Nuclear Power. George Bush was seriously bad on natural gas and oil. But this alleged policy maker pledged, during the the 2016 campaign, that he would SAVE coal. Under his Presidency the Coal Market has plummeted as has its usage. Even though foreign markets were promised, they have plunged too. Oil futures at one point were trading in negative territory for the first time ever and Nuclear Power Plants are closing. He is opposed to Wind and Solar as they spread across the land. I have a wind turbine within 15 minutes of my house in Riverton and I have a house with total roof solar panels around the corner from me. That says to me that the Cheeto Burito is about to lose office. We shall see.

https://thesouthern.com/news/local/southern-illinois-power-co-op-plans-to-shutter-its-largest-coal-fired-unit-this-fall/article_7ec9c134-48db-5448-953c-4a435aeddcd5.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share

Southern Illinois Power Co-op plans to shutter its largest coal-fired unit this fall

MARION — Southern Illinois Power Cooperative plans to retire its largest coal-fired generator as early as this fall, a move that is expected to save $125 million over a decade.

President and CEO Don Gulley said the tentative decision is the result of analysis and negotiations that have been ongoing since late 2019. Gulley said SIPC utilized outside consultants to help it perform a comprehensive review of operations and determine the best path forward. The decision to close Unit 4, as it is known, was based on two primary factors, he said: sustained low energy prices in the wholesale power market, and increasingly costly environmental regulations for coal-fired generators.

Perspectives on Progress: Illinois Rep. La Shawn Ford shares thoughts on ‘crisis’ in black communities

As a result, up to 26 of the plant’s 82 employees are expected to face layoffs. Those employees are to receive a severance package under the terms of an agreement ratified by the IBEW Local 702, which represents workers, Gulley said.

SIPC is a generation and transmission cooperative located on the shores of Lake of Egypt that provides wholesale electric power to seven member distribution cooperatives, and the city of McLeansboro. It is jointly owned and governed by the distribution cooperatives, which are: Egyptian Electric Cooperative Association; Clinton County Electric Cooperative, Inc.; Monroe County Electric Co-Operative, Inc.; SouthEastern Illinois Electric Cooperative, Inc.; Southern Illinois Electric Cooperative; Tri-County Electric Cooperative, Inc.; and Clay Electric Co-operative, Inc.

 

 

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I Am So Excited To Be Posting On Earth Day – The 50th Anniversary

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That’s it. That’s all I can say. Well you know me, that’s not all I can say. Like the National Geographic Magazine says, they are divided about the results. We have accomplished alot but never enough because the root cause of climate change is evil greed, better known as capitalism. As long as we practice those economics, we will continue down the drain. The drain that looks like this:

https://newrepublic.com/article/157078/climate-crisis-will-just-shockingly-abrupt?utm_source=digg

The Climate Crisis Will Be Just as Shockingly Abrupt

The coronavirus isn’t a reason to put climate policy on hold. It’s a warning of the calamities ahead.

By Melody Schreiber

As governments around the globe debate how to respond both to the coronavirus itself and the economic chaos it has unleashed, a theme that’s come up over and over is how to prioritize what makes it into spending packages. In the United States, right-left fault lines have emerged over the question of bailing out emissions-heavy industries versus a greener stimulus. On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a large-scale rollback of environmental regulations as a response to the pandemic—allowing many emitters to police themselves when it comes to pollution.

While some argue that the oxygen in the climate debate should be taken up by the pandemic instead, the two issues aren’t mutually exclusive, experts say. In a warming climate, more diseases are likely to emerge and spread, making climate change action an important part of addressing future health crises. Moreover, the perception that climate change isn’t as urgent as other crises may rely on misunderstandings about how climate-related changes will happen. The rate isn’t constant: Instead, there’s reason to believe everything from Arctic melt to Amazon deforestation might experience what’s known as “tipping points,” where small changes in nature shift into rapid and irreversible damage.

Greenland and Antarctica are melting six times faster than they were in the 1990s, according to a new study in the journal Nature. Between 1992 and 2017, Greenland and Antarctica lost 6.4 trillion tons of ice. This falls under the worst-case scenario projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the effects are already being felt in many parts of the world. The IPCC predicts that by the end of the century, 400 million people around the globe could be at risk of coastal flooding every year from sea-level rise alone.

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Paradise Coal Plant Closed Down – Is it ok to dance on somebody’s grave

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My answer to that is YES! I know in this time of Covid-19 that we are not supposed to wish people ill. Or in general, in the METOO moment say harsh things about the down and OUT! Trust me, this is more exclamation points then I have used in 10 years. The fact that it happens in McConnell’s state and against The Cheeto Burrito’s wishes is just wonderful to me.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/iconic-plants-end-spells-doom-051246740.html

Iconic plant’s end spells doom for struggling coal industry

DYLAN LOVAN
Associated Press

DRAKESBORO, Ky. (AP) — President Donald Trump tried to stop it from happening. The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, did too.

Despite their best efforts to make good on Trump’s campaign promise to save the beleaguered coal industry, including an eleventh-hour pressure campaign, the Tennessee Valley Authority power plant at Paradise burned its last load of coal last month.

The plant’s closure — in a county that once mined more coal than any other in the nation — is emblematic of the industry’s decadeslong decline due to tougher environmental regulations, a major push toward renewable energy and a rise in the extraction of natural gas. The shuttering of businesses nationwide and a reduced need for energy amid the global coronavirus pandemic threatens to deal coal yet another devastating blow.

“It’s not just one 1,000-megawatt unit closing; they’re going down all over the place,” said John Rogers, a former mine owner who lives in western Kentucky near the Paradise plant, located in Muhlenberg County.

When coal-burning plants close, coal mining loses its best customer. Since 2010, 500 coal-burning units, or boilers, at power plants have been shut down and nearly half the nation’s coal mines have closed. No U.S. energy company, big or small, is building a new coal-burning plant.

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Climate Change Is Speeding UP – Those pesky Feedback Loops l

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Only speculated on several years ago. Feedback Loops are things that speed up or slow down climate change. The two that concern us here are the most obvious, clouds and ice shrinkage. The more water in the atmosphere the more clouds and the hotter the earth – the more water. But the killer one is, ice is very very reflective. What replaces it it is not and in the case of “dark” water, it is incredibly absorptive. The question has always been when would they kick in? I always said we would know when it was too late. Here we are.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-03/climate-models-are-running-red-hot-and-scientists-don-t-know-why?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Climate Models Are Running Red Hot, and Scientists Don’t Know Why

The simulators used to forecast warming have suddenly started giving us less time.

By

There are dozens of climate models, and for decades they’ve agreed on what it would take to heat the planet by about 3° Celsius. It’s an outcome that would be disastrous—flooded cities, agricultural failures, deadly heat—but there’s been a grim steadiness in the consensus among these complicated climate simulations.

Then last year, unnoticed in plain view, some of the models started running very hot. The scientists who hone these systems used the same assumptions about greenhouse-gas emissions as before and came back with far worse outcomes. Some produced projections in excess of 5°C, a nightmare scenario.

The scientists involved couldn’t agree on why—or if the results should be trusted. Climatologists began “talking to each other like, ‘What’d you get?’, ‘What’d you get?’” said Andrew Gettelman, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, which builds a high-profile climate model.

“The question is whether they’ve overshot,” said Mark Zelinka, staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  Researchers are starting to put together a­nswers, a task that will take months at best, and there’s not yet agreement on how to interpret the hotter results. The reason for worry is that these same models have successfully projected global warming for a half century. Their output continues to frame all major scientific, policy and private-sector climate goals and debates, including the sixth encyclopedic assessment by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due out next year. If the same amount of climate pollution will bring faster warming than previously thought, humanity would have less time to avoid the worst impacts.

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Go See Broken Ground – The Southern Poverty Law Center’s new Podcast

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This pretty cool and I can’t explain alot more. Listen to one and you will listen to more.

 

https://brokengroundpodcast.org/?utm_source=Digg&utm_medium=Homepage&utm_campaign=Kingston

About Broken Ground

Broken Ground is a podcast by the Southern Environmental Law Center digging up environmental stories in the south that don’t always get the attention they deserve, and giving voice to the people bringing those stories to light. Named a “New & Noteworthy” podcast by Apple for 6 weeks in a row.

Emily Richardson-Lorente

Years of storytelling for public radio and through her award-winning video productions prepared Emily well for crafting podcast-sized stories for Broken Ground. Some podcasts she’s currently listening to include Radiolab, This American Life and On the Media.

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Pollute Till People Die _ Why does every developing Nation have to go through this

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Pollute till rivers catch fire.(like America) Pollute till people die and slums burn down. (like England) Blow up a Nuclear Power Plant. (like the Soviet Union or Japan) Pollute until thousands die. (like India). But does India Come around after Bhopal. Hell no!

There is this:

https://www.dw.com/en/new-delhi-schools-closed-as-air-pollution-worsens/a-51235841

Then there is this:

DW recommends

Amitav Ghosh: What the West doesn’t get about the climate crisis

The new novel by award-winning Indian author Amitav Ghosh, Gun Island, uses climate change as a backdrop. He tells DW about the different perceptions of the climate crisis in the East and West. (06.11.2019)

India: Delhi restricts car use as toxic smog covers city

Vehicle restrictions have been introduced in and around the Indian capital, New Delhi, as part of an effort to cut soaring levels of air pollution. Private cars will be allowed on the roads on alternate days. (04.11.2019)

India pollution: How a farming revolution could solve stubble burning

Pollution in Delhi has hit record-breaking levels and a farming method, known as stubble burning, was a major contributor. DW’s Catherine Davison went to the countryside to check out what’s being done to stop this trend. (08.11.2019)

New Delhi chokes under blanket of smog

Indian authorities have imposed new restrictions on private cars in the capital to try and bring down pollution levels. The blanket of smog led Delhi’s chief minister to compare the city to a gas chamber. (04

 

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