Inextricably Tied to Coal

Living in an apartment building in the heart of Washington, DC I don’t feel a deep connection to coal mining. I drink my coffee in the mornings and read about the tragedy at Sago mine or China’s voracious appetite for coal. From my dining room table though, West Virginia feels far away and China could practically be in other universe.

Turns out I’m much more connected than I care to imagine. This Sunday, the Washington Post ran a great piece by David Fahrenthold about DC’s connection to mountaintop removal coal mining.

MUD, W.Va. — This is a place where “moving mountains” is no longer a figure of speech. Here, among the steep green Appalachians, mining companies are moving mountains off their pedestals to get the kind of coal that Washington needs.

Though this isolated mine is more than 400 miles from Washington, the two places share a powerful connection: coal. The D.C. region, with its need for electricity skyrocketing, has been burning steadily more coal, buying almost a third of its supply from this part of Appalachia.

Bob White in WVAMountaintop removal is a radical form of coal mining in which entire mountains are literally blown up — and it is happening here in America on a scale that is almost unimaginable.

Central Appalachia provides much of the country’s coal, second only to Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. In the United States, 100 tons of coal are extracted every two seconds. Around 70 percent of that coal comes from strip mines, and over the last 20 years, an increasing amount comes from mountaintop-removal sites. In Virginia 29 mountains have already been destroyed by mountaintop removal mining.

Dominion Power has plans to build a new $1.8 billion coal-fired power plant in Wise County — a county that has already lost 25% of its mountains to mountaintop removal. Dominion’s proposed plant would burn mostly Virginia coal, which would increase the demand for coal and thus increase mountaintop removal mining.

No matter where you live in Maryland, Virginia or DC, part of your electricity comes from coal that was mined using mountaintop removal.

Check our your connection to mountaintop removal using Appalachian Voices’ web tool that allows you to track exactly where your coal comes from.

One way you can help stop the destructive practice of mountaintop removal in Virginia is by making sure Virginia doesn’t build any new coal plants.

Take action! Sign the petition against new coal in Virginia>>

Kansas Notices Virginia Coal Fight

The Kansas City Star Newspaper has picked up on Virginia’s fight to stop Dominion power’s controversial coal plant proposed for Wise County. The artcile compares the struggle in Virginia to the notable struggle in Kansas

  • …what’s not good for Kansas also may not be good for Virginia. More dependence on coal, that is. [But,]Kansans have a strong governor, Kathleen Sebelius, who vetoed legislation that would have lifted all control of future coal-fired plants from state regulators.

What a notable difference leadership makes! Over and over again all we hear from Governor Kaine is that his hands are tied and that new coal generation is necessary.

Maybe Governor Kaine can learn something from Governor Sebelius, and be the clean energy leader that we all would like for him to be. I will happily embrace him as the environmentalist he claims to be the day he stands up for our mountains and our climate.

Want to stop the coal plant, click here to help!

The Big Lump Gets Thumped

King Coal’s year of rejection by banks, judges, and a whole lotta other folks

The Earth Policy Institute just released this revelatory chronology of really sad, horrible, and depressing events in the life of the coal industry since February 2007. What’s next — will Santa be switching to lumps of dirt?

Additional commentary can be found at http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update70_timeline.htm

26 February 2007 – James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a leading climate scientist, calls for a moratorium on the construction of coal-fired power plants that do not sequester carbon, saying that it makes no sense to build these plants when we will have to “bulldoze” them in a few years.

26 February 2007 – Under mounting pressure from environmental groups, TXU Corporation, a Dallas-based energy company, abandons plans for 8 of 11 proposed coal-fired power plants, catalyzing the shift from coal-based to renewable energy development in Texas.

2 April 2007 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide and that EPA’s current rationale for not regulating this gas is inadequate.

3 May 2007 – Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signs a bill that prevents new power plants from exceeding 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt hour of electricity generated, creating a de facto moratorium on building new coal-fired power plants in the state.

30 May 2007 – Progress Energy, an energy company serving approximately 3.1 million customers in the Southeast, announces a two-year moratorium on the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

2 July 2007 – The Florida Public Service Commission denies Florida Power & Light the permits needed to move forward with the massive 1,960-megawatt coal-fired Glades Power Park, citing uncertainty surrounding future carbon costs.

13 July 2007 – Florida Governor Charlie Crist signs an Executive Order establishing “maximum allowable emission levels of greenhouse gases for electric utilities.” Under the emissions cap, building new coal-fired power plants in the state seems unlikely.

18 July 2007 – Citigroup downgrades the stocks of Peabody Energy Corp., Arch Coal Inc., and Foundation Coal Holdings Inc., prominent U.S. coal companies. The decision reflects the growing uncertainty surrounding coal’s future in the United States. Continue reading

Dominion rejects coal and starts puppy adoption center!

(Richmond, VA) After being presented with a fossil foolie award, recognizing Thomas Farrell, CEO, for his foolish plans to build a plant in Wise County, Mr. Farrell made a sober decision to swear off coal, and instead switch all their investments into puppy adoptions.

Somewhat resistant at first, Dominion called the police to boot the unassuming citizens, who were merely looking out for the moral fiber of the CEO. But, once he talked to them, and recognized the power of their arguments and their honesty.
Continue reading

WAPO: "Power Plant Approval Could Lead to Higher Rates"

Great article by Tim Craig at the Washington Post today about the Wise County coal plant. Read the full article below. Emphasis is mine.

Kaine Says Coal-Burning Power Plant Is Necessary
Support for Wise County Facility, Which Could Lead to Higher Utility Rates, Angers Environmentalists

RICHMOND — Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has been battered by criticism from environmentalists over his support of a new coal-fired power plant for southwest Virginia, which Dominion Virginia Power says is essential to the state’s energy needs but which could also lead to higher utility rates for consumers statewide.

The controversy pits Kaine (D), who has made environmental protection a top priority, against a sizable chunk of his political base, even though the governor said he is powerless to stop the project even if he wanted to. The State Corporation Commission and other regulatory agencies issue the construction permits.
Continue reading

Coal Prices Rise But Virginia Coal Production Decreases

The demand for coal has never been higher. Developing and developed nations alike are rapidly building new coal facilities to fuel economic growth, driving the price for coal through the roof globally. According to the Washington Post, over the last five months we have seen the price of coal has increase over 50%! And if Asia’s appetite for coal is as ‘voracious’ as all the prognosticators are making it out to be, there is no price relief in sight.

This news comes at a time when we are still fighting to stop Dominion from building another controversial coal plant here in Virginia — why should we take a chance on this international coal market?

Dominion claims that we can meet our coal needs in state, helping us avoid this international boondoggle. But news on that front isn’t that much rosier. According to a Richmond Times Dispatch article:

Virginia coal production is down about 10 percent this year through March 15.

For the 52-week period that ended March 15, Virginia coal production was down 16 percent. A total of 24.6 million tons were mined, compared with 29.4 million tons a year earlier.

For those 12 months, Virginia coal production was about half what it was during a similar period less than two decades ago.

The natural conclusion that one would make from this evidence is that Virginia is running out of coal. If, as a State, we had vast easily accessible reserves we would be mining that coal and selling it for a great profit on the international market — or at least using it domestically to save our stagnating economy a few bucks.

So what will Governor Kaine do to help protect Virginians from rapidly increasing coal prices? Nothing! He is toeing the Dominion’s line about their controversial new plans for a new coal plant in Wise County. Kaine doesn’t see us heading towards a “no coal future,” a future that we aren’t asking him to deliver. We want a future where we can get a measurable percentage of our energy from clean sources such as wind and solar (okay, we do get a very small percentage of our energy from renewables… but it ain’t much) — commodities that are not subject to international markets and whose prices don’t increase exponentially as the Asian economies become stronger.

Oh, and last I checked, the prices of wind, solar, biomass, and other renewable energies have only getting cheaper — something that we definately can’t say about coal, oil and natural gas.

Contact the Governor today, and tell him to protect our energy future.

Coal Costs Rise. Will Your Power Bill Skyrocket Next?

by: TheGreenMiles

Cross-posted from Raising Kaine on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 11:00:16 AM EDT

From the front page of this morning’s Washington Post, Coal Can’t Fill World’s Burning Appetite:

Big swings in the prices of coal and other commodities are common. But while the price of coal has slipped slightly in recent weeks, many analysts and companies are wondering whether high prices are here to stay. […] If high prices last, that would raise the cost of U.S. electricity, half of which is generated by coal-fired powered plants.

Expensive or not, coal is almost always dirtier to burn than are other fossil fuels. Although its use accounts for a quarter of world energy consumption, it generates 39 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Climate change concerns could lead to legislation in many countries imposing higher costs on those who burn coal, forcing utilities and factories to become more efficient and curtail its use. Climatologists warn that without technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions, burning more coal would be disastrous.

The more you learn about coal, the more you realize Virginia is some sort of Coal Bizarro World. Everywhere else it’s dirty, but here it’s clean! Everywhere else it’s scarce and getting more expensive, but here it’s cheap and abundant! Everywhere else they’re anticipating carbon cap legislation with plans for clean energy, but here we act like greenhouse gas pollution will be free forever.

And everywhere else, our governor is seen as doing the bidding of his energy donors, but here we know there’s still time for Gov. Tim Kaine to prove them wrong. If you haven’t done so yet, take a minute right now to tell Gov. Kaine to do the right thing.

UPDATE: No New Coal Resolution in Richmond

The City Council of Richmond is officially the first and only locality to kill a resolution against the Wise County coal plant. Why? Because City Council President Bill Pantele didn’t like it. In fact, Mr. Pantele went out of his way to kill this resolution.

The resolution was originally scheduled for a full council committee hearing at the beginning of February but it was postponed at the very last minute by, you guessed it, Mr. Pantele. The decision was so last minute that not even the sponsors of the resolution knew that it had been removed from the agenda until walking into the meeting. Pantele told me himself that everyone on council had been getting “a lot” of phone calls from constituents on this. Apparently the wishes of his constituents are irrelevant.

While we waited for the resolution to be rescheduled, Dominion representatives had time to meet with each member of City Council. Continue reading

Dominion Admits – "Clean Coal" plant not actually clean

Great post from TheGreenMiles. http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=13300

——————————–Dominion Comes Clean on Coal, Admits Carbon Capture Nowhere in Sight (+)

As recently as five weeks ago, Dominion was hyping carbon capture and storage in connection with its proposed coal-fired power plant in Wise County. But in a new deal with the SCC, Dominion has finally admitted CCS is nothing more than pie in the sky:

Major provisions of the agreement include a reduction in the profit Dominion Virginia Power had wanted to earn on its investment in the plant and a settlement of the dispute concerning whether the plant can be considered capable of capturing greenhouse gas emissions.The proposed profit does not include a bonus credit that state law provides utilities for building cleaner-burning coal plants compatible with technology to capture carbon-dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide is considered a greenhouse gas.

The agreement says the proposed plant falls under state and federal definitions for a clean-coal plant but adds that whether the plant is compatible with carbon-dioxide capture is “unresolved at this time.”

I’m glad Dominion has finally admitted the obvious: When it comes to global warming, there’s no such thing as clean cloal.