Category Archives: mountain top destruction

The Darkside Of The Green Revolution – Lithium extraction really messes things up

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I should very quickly say – the way things are done now. The mining industry, as it functions in the past and now, destroys things no matter what it is extracting – gold, lead or lithium. So if we are going to have a real revolution we are going to have to change the entire extraction industry. This point is larger for me than this article implies because capitalism is the problem. We as a society can achieve a carbon negative atmosphere and humans will still threaten the planet because that it what capitalism does – destroys thing. Still you have to start somewhere.

https://logicmag.io/nature/what-green-costs/?utm_source=digg

Issue 9 / Nature

December 07, 2019

What Green Costs

Thea Riofrancos

Deep in the salt flats of Chile lies the extractive frontier of the renewable energy transition.

Clean energy advocates envision an electrified home running on 100 percent renewable energy with a Tesla parked in its garage, solar shingles gleaming on its rooftop, and a smart meter dutifully collecting usage data and uploading it to the cloud. But swim upstream and eventually you arrive at the extractive frontiers of the renewable energy transition.

It was 8:45 am on the first day of the 11th Lithium Supply & Markets Conference in the basement level of the W Hotel in Santiago, Chile. There was no way for me to blend in. “Providence College” on my name tag rendered me a curiosity. Still, I was glad I remembered to wear lipstick and that my backpack had straps that converted it into a tote.

I found an empty seat in the sea of suits, almost all men but of different ages. They hailed variously from China, Australia, Chile, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Argentina. They were market analysts and prospectors; equipment salesmen and regulators; executives, consultants, and peddlers of information in the notoriously opaque world of lithium, a “space,” in Silicon Valley talk, not quite meriting the word “market.”

As I slid into my seat, the chairman of one of the largest lithium companies in the world, with a sordid past in a corrupt privatization process under Augusto Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship, took to the stage. “Mining is the spine of Chile; mining runs through our veins.” I might have been the only person in the room who immediately thought of Eduardo Galeano’s anti-colonial page-turner, Open Veins of Latin America?—?incidentally penned the same year Pinochet came to power, brutally crushing the dream of democratic socialism in Chile. But I don’t think the chairman meant to call to mind the vampiric iconography of global capital. The dead sapping the living; the blood and sweat and tortured landscapes of extraction, especially in its colonial variant.

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Go there and read. More next week, if there is a next week.

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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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Go there and read and read and read. More next week.

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Murray Coal Goes Bankrupt – Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy

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Mr. Coal goes down and the media want us to cry over his breathing difficulties. What do you want to bet it ain’t black lung. This is the guy who pioneered Mountain Top Removal. This is the guy that was responsible for the biggest mine disaster in recent history that killed men and women. This is the guy who got Trump to be “Pro Coal” and roll back environmental regulations that have poison our air. Now people’s pensions are threatened. It doesn’t get nastier than this.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/business/murray-energy-coal-bankruptcy-pension/index.html

‘Nervous and scared.’ Coal workers fear for pensions after Murray Energy bankruptcy

Matt Egan

By Matt Egan, CNN Business

Updated 10:43 AM ET, Fri November 1, 2019

New York (CNN Business)Tom Kacsmar worked underground at a coal mine for nearly four decades. The promise of a decent pension and healthcare for life kept him at this dangerous job.

Now, Kacsmar fears those benefits will get washed away by the bankruptcy of Murray Energy, America’s largest private coal mining company.
“I was a proud, hard-working coal miner my entire life. With the stroke of a pen, they’re going to cut my healthcare,” the 76-year-old retiree told CNN Business.
Kacsmar never worked a day for Murray Energy, the mining giant founded by coal king Robert Murray. But like countless other retirees, the fate of his benefits is inextricably linked to the company, which is seeking to “dramatically” slash its liabilities, including $8 billion of pension and retiree healthcare obligations.

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Go there and read. More next week. Coal is dying. YAA

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How Many Times Can I Write, Coal Is Dead – I will let you know when I get tired

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This was is the way it always going to happen. The market shifts after a slow pivot.Then it was going to bust loose suddenly. Clean Energy was going to chase coal all across the globe as it fought a rear guard action. Then it would become a novelty – OH LOOK they still use that stupid stuff. Then people will marvel at all the damage it had done and it would go away.

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/environment/2018/11/02/indiana-utility-says-renewables-save-customers-4-billion-over-coal/1837469002/?fbclid=IwAR1N_p2XCFjH-OlFdVwiFlr3-lpQufzWCNqvsJuKrEvccVWfIkz6lX20VFY

This Indiana utility may have just put the final nail in coal’s coffin

, Indianapolis Star

The embers of the coal industry have been slowly fading in recent years, despite efforts by the Trump administration to reignite the flames.

But an announcement this week from a northern Indiana utility — in the heart of a state that ranks in the top 10 for both coal production and consumption — suggests the end may be nearer than some expect.

After having already announced plans to speed up the retirement of its coal power plants, the Northern Indiana Public Service Company said this week that it will switch to renewable energy to make its electricity instead.

Why? Because it’s cheaper. A lot cheaper, they said, to the tune of more than $4 billion over a few decades. Still, those long-term savings might come with a short-term price. The utility is asking for a raise in its rates to upgrade infrastructure.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Donald Blankenship – Serial Killer released from jail

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It is true. He killed more people than Son of Sam and the Zodiac Killer and he got a year in jail. Why? Because he is a rich white and the death resulted from “mine safety violations”. So, you know, he never had a “direct hand” in their deaths. What a joke. He claims he lives in Las Vegas now, so I hope he wonders off in the desert and suffers a horrible death.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-mine-blast-ex-coal-ceo-blankenship-at-end-of-prison-term/

AP May 10, 2017, 8:05 AM

US mine blast: Ex-coal CEO Blankenship at end of prison term

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship is finishing up a one-year federal prison sentence arising from the deadliest U.S. mine explosion in four decades.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website, Blankenship was set to be released Wednesday from a halfway house in Phoenix, Arizona. He must serve one year of supervised release.

“I’m glad he had time to reflect on the pain he caused,” former U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin, whose office in Charleston prosecuted the case, said in a text message to The Associated Press ahead of Blankenship’s release. “I hope he used it wisely and will come out of prison ready to make amends.”

It wasn’t immediately clear where Blankenship will serve his supervised release. After his indictment, federal prosecutors indicated Blankenship owned homes in several states, and Blankenship said he lived in Las Vegas. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Charleston referred questions to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

A bureau spokesman and Blankenship’s attorney, William Taylor, didn’t return requests for comment

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Go there and be horrified. More next week.

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Coal Plants And Nuclear Plants Shutting Down – We are winning the war

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I have a saying. If you can’t make it work under capitalism and socialism is already leaving you voluntarily then you are pretty much done for this world. It looks like coals time has come and gone and it is the same with nuclear power too. Thank the gods that be. Now the question is, is it too late? We are walking a tight rope on that one. If we can come up with some remediations we just might pull out of this very steep climate dive. It is going to be close.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/flurry-of-coal-power-plant-shutdowns-expected-by-2016-17086

Flurry of Coal Power Plant Shutdowns Expected by 2016

  • Published: February 19th, 2014

Bobby Magill By

A flurry of coal-fired power plants — major sources of climate change-fueling carbon dioxide emissions — could be closed by 2016, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts.

New emissions regulations and low natural gas prices, partly because of the fracking boom throughout the U.S., are leading utilities to shut down coal-fired power plants and open new ones that burn natural gas. With new Environmental Protection Agency emissions standards limiting mercury, acid gases and toxic metals from coal-fired power plants taking effect in 2015, there is even more impetus for utilities to retire older coal plants, according to the EIA.

Because of those new standards, the EIA forecasts that 90 percent of the power plants expected to shut down by 2020 will actually be shut down by 2016. Those new standards include coal-fired power plants likely having to install flue gas desulfurization equipment, or “scrubbers,” which cost hundreds of millions of dollars each, depending on the size of the plant.

Utilities may decide to shutter a coal-fired power plant if coal prices, wholesale electricity prices and the costs of installing scrubbers do not make economic sense, according to the EIA.

Coal-fired power plants are feeling the heat about carbon emissions, too. Concern about coal plants’ carbon emission contributing to climate change are driving the EPA to write new carbon emissions rules unrelated to the new mercury standards. The EPA has proposed new regulations aiming to curb carbon emissions from future coal-fired power plants and is in the process of proposing similar regulations governing existing coal power plants.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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What Is It About The South – They pollute major rivers and nobody does anything about it

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I know this area is where the mantra – Government is BAD was born. Mainly because of integration and the regulation of tobacco (not to mention the moonshiners). This attack on all things paid for by taxes has continued unabated for the last 60 years. But really, 2 major rivers have suffer significant contamination in the past month and nothing has been done? Nothing. West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and now North Carolina and Virginia, and no legislation has been proposed. We do not even have testing to find out what these contaminates really are. And in the second case no studies into MGHM to say even what the chemical does. Really?

http://news.yahoo.com/nc-river-turns-gray-sludge-coal-ash-spill-024204513.html

NC river turns to gray sludge after coal ash spill

Associated Press By MICHAEL BIESECKER

ON THE DAN RIVER, N.C. (AP) — Canoe guide Brian Williams dipped his paddle downstream from where thousands of tons of coal ash has been spewing for days into the Dan River, turning the wooden blade flat to bring up a lump of gray sludge.

On the riverbank, hundreds of workers at a Duke Energy power plant in North Carolina scrambled to plug a hole in a pipe at the bottom of a 27-acre pond where the toxic ash was stored.

Since the leak was first discovered by a security guard Sunday afternoon, Duke estimates up to 82,000 tons of ash mixed with 27 million gallons of contaminated water has spilled into the river. Officials at the nation’s largest electricity provider say they cannot provide a timetable for when the leak will be fully contained, though the flow has lessened significantly as the pond has emptied.

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And earlier this was West Virginia.

Federal grand jury investigates West Virginia chemical spill

By Drew Griffin. David Fitzpatrick and Patricia DiCarlo CNN

(CNN) — A federal grand jury investigation has been launched into the West Virginia chemical spill that left 300,000 people unable to use their water supply, CNN learned Tuesday.

Sources familiar with the grand jury’s activities tell CNN that subpoenas have been issued requiring testimony for what one federal official confirms is a criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, an independent water test conducted at CNN’s request has found trace levels of the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or MCHM, remain in both untreated river water and tap water from two homes in Charleston.

The results by TestAmerica found the chemical is within the safe level of 1 part per million set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; whether that level is safe is disputed

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Ameren Gets Off The Hook From A Plan They Crafted – New low for Illinois

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I was going to start a meditation on Environmental and Energy Conservation websites today but then I got to this story in the Illinois Times. I am actually citing the one from the St. Louis Dispatch but you can find the Illinois Times one here:

http://www.illinoistimes.com/Springfield/article-10536-state-gives-ameren-a-pollution-pass.html

So here is the piece from the SLD, mainly because I hardly ever link up with them.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/state-and-regional/illinois/ill-regulators-delay-ameren-pollution-controls/article_123019f5-fe57-5971-9600-4f4c4d7281cb.html

Ill. regulators delay Ameren pollution controls

State regulators have granted Ameren Corp. a five-year delay in the installation of pollution controls at a large coal-fired power plant in southeastern Illinois after the company threatened to close other plants and cut hundreds of jobs.

The Illinois Pollution Control Board granted the delay Thursday, giving the St. Louis-based company until 2020 to install equipment to control smog, which is linked to heart and lung problems. The company had initially agreed to do it by 2015.

Ameren had argued that because of the drop in electricity prices _ driven in part by competition from natural gas plants _ it could no longer afford to finish installing sulfur dioxide scrubbers at its Newton plant under the original timetable.

Environmental groups lambasted the regulators’ decision, saying it undercuts the state’s pollution standards. Ameren said the move was necessary to save jobs.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Coal Is Going Down Down Down – It couldn’t happen to a nicer industry

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Lets see they lie, cheat and steal. But they also pollute the heck out of the environment and they get people killed. I am going to miss these guys.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/story/2012-06-12/coal-to-gas-project-denied/55557114/1

U.S. coal use falling fast as utilities switch to gas

By Jonathan Fahey, Associated Press

NEW YORK – America is shoveling coal to the sidelines.

The fuel that powered the U.S. from the industrial revolution into the iPhone era is being pushed aside as utilities switch to cleaner and cheaper alternatives.

The share of U.S. electricity that comes from coal is forecast to fall below 40% for the year, its lowest level since World War II. Four years ago, it was 50%. By the end of this decade, it is likely to be near 30%.

“The peak has passed,” says Jone-Lin Wang, head of Global Power for the energy research firm IHS CERA.

Utilities are aggressively ditching coal in favor of natural gas, which has become cheaper as supplies grow. Natural gas has other advantages over coal: It produces far fewer emissions of toxic chemicals and gases that contribute to climate change, key attributes as tougher environmental rules go into effect.

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Go there and laugh, I mean read. More tomorrow.

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Coal Is A Thing Of The Past – Some people are slow on the uptake

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As my great Grandfather used to say, this guy is so full of pig manure it’s running out of his ears. But then he was a hog farmer.

http://www.irishcentral.com/story/news/from-the-right/governments-war-on-coal-is-a-war-of-regulations-against-americas-way-of-life-148006215.html

Governments “war on coal” is a war of regulations against Americas way of life

Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 04:21 PM

The new EPA rulings will finally bring to fruition President Obama’s promise his policies will necessarily bankrupt the coal industry.

Four years ago, then-candidate Barack Obama explained his anti-coal energy policy in an editorial board meeting with the San Francisco Chronicle: “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad.”  “So if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can – it’s just that it will bankrupt them.”

But the 2010 elections saw a landslide defeat of those politicians in the house and senate who supported skyrocketing our utility rates through cap and trade and put an end to President Obama’s aspirations in a new energy tax.

But that didn’t put an end of efforts to kill the coal industry and the day after the landslide defeats of the 2010 elections, President Obama said  “Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means, not an end. I’m going to be looking for other means to address this problem.”

After that the EPA began to enact regulation by bureaucratic fiat rather than the legislative process.

Even staunch supporters in the labor unions are beginning to wake up to the fact that they are being regulated out of a job if the Obama administration has its way.  The Keystone Pipeline rejection already has hit the labor unions hard by halting the creation of 20K plus jobs in the construction industry.

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Regrettably I must say, go there and read. More tomorrow.

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