New coal war on the horizon? (Charleston, Bluefield: get credit, how much, refrigerators)

[David Kennedy]

Wv is like the 'briar patch...breir rabbit! he says,

"please...oh please...breir fox....please don't throw me in dat der 'briar patch...

I wuz born in dat der 'briar patch... and here we is!" jobs are like that too...happy holidays to all..

[vec101]

Hey Georgia (Moderator),
Inserted in the posts is a section "Ads by Google" -- boy, nothing like a slap in the face. Coal production is keeping our economy strong in WV. Steps are being taken in WV to promote new jobs and technology for cleaner coal. Then in the "Ads by Google", there are links for people to sign a petition (or whatever it is) fighting against coal and other links slamming coal. (The links change so may be gone by time you read this).

Yipee, yi, yaa for free speech and differences in opinion but nothing like biting the hand that feeds us.

[Threerun]

Tennessee sludge spill runs over homes, water - CNN.com

A wall holding back 80 acres of sludge from a coal plant in central Tennessee broke this week, spilling more than 500 million gallons of waste into the surrounding area.

Environmental Protection Agency officials are on the scene and expect the cleanup to to take four to six weeks.

The sludge, a byproduct of ash from coal combustion, was contained at a retention site at the Tennessee Valley Authority's power plant in Kingston, about 40 miles east of Knoxville, agency officials said. The retention wall breached early Monday, sending the sludge downhill and damaging 15 homes. All the residents were evacuated, and three homes were deemed uninhabitable, a TVA spokesman told CNN. The plant sits on a tributary of the Tennessee River called the Clinch River.

"We deeply regret that a retention wall for ash containment at our Kingston Fossil Plant failed, resulting in an ash slide and damage to nearby homes," TVA said in a statement released Tuesday. TVA spokesman Gil Francis told CNN that up to 400 acres of land had been coated by the sludge, a bigger area than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Video footage showed sludge as high as 6 feet, burying porches and garage doors. The slide also downed nearby power lines, though the TVA said power had been restored to the area.

Francis said Environmental Protection Agency officials were on the scene and estimated the cleanup could take four to six weeks. Some of the goop spilled into the tributary, but preliminary water quality tests show that the drinking water at a nearby treatment plant meets standards.

"I don't want to drink it. It doesn't look healthy to me," Jody Miles, who fishes in the Clinch River, told CNN affiliate WBIR. "Do you reckon they can bring all this life back that's going to die from all this mess?" Still, there is the potential for more sludge to enter the water supply through waste runoff. "We're taking steps to stabilize runoff from this incident," Francis said.

Although video from the scene shows dead fish on the banks of the tributary, he said that "in terms of toxicity, until an analysis comes in, you can't call it toxic. "One environmental attorney called that statement "irresponsible." The ash that gives sludge its thick, pudding-like consistency in this case is known as fly ash, which results from the combustion of coal. Fly ash contains concentrated amounts of mercury, arsenic and benzine, said Chandra Taylor, staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center. "These things are naturally occurring, but they concentrate in the burning process and the residual is more toxic than it starts," she told CNN.

Appalachian environmentalists compared the mess with another spill eight years ago in eastern Kentucky, where the bottom of a coal sludge impoundment owned by Massey Energy broke into an abandoned underground mine, oozing more than 300 million gallons of coal waste into tributaries. The water supply for more than 25,000 residents was contaminated, and aquatic life in the area perished. It took months to clean up the spill. "If the estimates are correct, this spill is one and a half times bigger," said Dave Cooper, an environmental advocate with the Mountaintop Removal Road Show, a traveling program that explains the effect of an extreme form of mining. While the full scope of the TVA spill is being determined, coal critics are already concerned about its long-term effects. Cleaning up the mess, which could fill nearly 800 Olympic-size swimming pools, could take months or years, Taylor said.

"We're very concerned about how long it's going to take" to clean the spill, she told CNN. Cooper agreed, saying, "It's 4, 5 feet deep. How are you going to scoop it up? Where are you going to put it?"

[r601020]

YouTube - Aerial footage: TVA storage pond breach in Harriman

[vec101]

Here is a very interesting documentary on Global Warming. Veeerrry well worth watching. We will probably never see it in the US. Garage TV - video filmpjes - The Great Global Warming Swindle - Documentary Film - kyoto,swindel,global,warming,co2,greenhouse,broeik aseffect,verkiezingen,klimaat,opwarming

The makers of the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle have made many science documentaries before. The thing they found most shocking when they started to make this one, was the weakness of the case for man made global warming, and the quantity and quality of the evidence which flatly contradicts it. The Great Global Warming Swindle

Also good article:
An Open Challenge to Climate Modelers for 2009 « Roy Spencer, Ph. D.

Dr. Roy W. Spencer, author of the best selling book Climate Confusion, is a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1981 and formerly was Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA. Dr. Spencer also serves as the U. S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He is co-developer (with Dr. John Christy) of the original satellite method for precise monitoring of global temperatures from Earth-orbiting satellites. He is the author of numerous research articles in scientific journals, has testified before Congress several times on global warming, and given briefings for the Cooler Heads Coalition. Great New Climate Blog from Dr. Roy Spencer | cooler heads

Interview with Dr. John Christy
Small Business Advocate Interview

Dr. Christy is in the documentary.

[vec101]

Hmmmmm....

Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama's pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for "global governance" and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change. Washington Times - Obama climate czar has socialist ties

[vec101]

Latest news kids....

JANUARY 15, 2009, 9:11 A.M. ET

On Wednesday, Mr. Obama's choice to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, described coal to a Senate panel as "a vital resource" for the country. A day earlier, Mr. Obama's nominee to run the Energy Department, physicist Steven Chu, referred to coal as a "great natural resource." Two years ago, he called the expansion of coal-fired power plants his "worst nightmare."

The comments indicated the new administration is trying to steer toward the center in the debate over the costs associated with curbing fossil fuels and the greenhouse gases they produce. Coal Industry Digs Itself Out of a Hole in the Capitol - WSJ.com

[Gottasay]

GHO, you better stop using electricity. Turn off that computer monitor...you're giving some poor mine worker cancer!....Oh, that Latte you drink everyday better be made w/ solar power!

[DCMetroGal]

Originally Posted by vec101

Hmmmmm....

Quote: Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama's pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for "global governance" and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change. Washington Times - Obama climate czar has socialist ties.

Indeed.

Originally Posted by vec101

Latest news kids....

Quote:
JANUARY 15, 2009, 9:11 A.M. ET

On Wednesday, Mr. Obama's choice to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, described coal to a Senate panel as "a vital resource" for the country. A day earlier, Mr. Obama's nominee to run the Energy Department, physicist Steven Chu, referred to coal as a "great natural resource." Two years ago, he called the expansion of coal-fired power plants his "worst nightmare."

The comments indicated the new administration is trying to steer toward the center in the debate over the costs associated with curbing fossil fuels and the greenhouse gases they produce. Coal Industry Digs Itself Out of a Hole in the Capitol - WSJ.com

Politics... hate 'em.

My wish is for people to actually research things thoroughly, take a stand- even when not politically correct, and discuss rationally without ad homenim attacks. Too idealistic?

Nice links for climate 'change', vec101!

Been digging around on this issue for a while, remembering the 'global cooling' panic of the 70's, then asking myself, "How did we go a complete 180 in 30 years?"

[millersangel]

From the Charleston Gazette. A friend in Boone Co. sent me the link by email. He lives only a few miles from an area that is considered hazardous because of the large amounts of toxic waste from mining.

He's considering moving. And he's going to the next protest despite being pro coal as most people in that county are. But a lot of people, even those in the industry do not like MTR.

The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports - News - 14 cited in protests at Massey operations*

14 cited in protests at Massey operations

By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Fourteen people were cited by State Police on Tuesday in two separate protests against Massey Energy's mountaintop removal operations in Southern West Virginia.

Early Tuesday morning, five activists chained themselves to heavy equipment at Massey's Bee Tree Surface Mine near Pettus, to protest the company's plan to blast apart portions of Coal River Mountain.

Mountaintop removal opponents chained themselves to an excavator at a Massey Energy operation on Tuesday to protest the company’s mining practices.

Later in the day, eight mountaintop removal opponents were cited after they delivered a letter to Massey Energy President Don Blankenship to a company guard shack, then refused to leave company property, police said.

The actions by the groups Climate Ground Zero and Appalachian Mountain Justice are part of a campaign to block Massey's mountaintop removal plans and put a windmill operation at the site instead.

At the mining site, the activists hung one banner that said, "Windmills, Not Toxic Spills" and attached windmill blades to an excavator.

"They shouldn't allow the wind potential on Coal River Mountain to be destroyed, and the nearby communities endangered, for only 17 years of coal," said one of the protesters, Rory McIlmoil, who has led the Coal River Wind Project campaign.

"There is a better way to develop the mountain and strengthen the local economy that will create lasting jobs and tax revenues for this county, and that's with wind power."

Massey officials did not respond to Charleston Gazette requests for comment on the protest. Company spokesman Jeff Gillenwater told The Associated Press that the protesters were trespassing and were rightfully cited. Gillenwater said the company has the right to mine the site and obtained all necessary permits.

Citizen groups are opposing Massey's latest mining operation along Coal River Mountain ridges. They argue a windmill project would provide more long-term jobs without blasting apart the hilltops and burying nearby streams. In December, Coal River Mountain Watch issued a report by consulting group Downstream Strategies that concluded a wind operation in the area would provide more jobs and tax revenue than a mountaintop removal mine.

Gov. Joe Manchin has declined to intervene in the DEP permit reviews for the Massey operation, or to voice any public support for putting a wind project at the site instead.

Citizen groups said today's action was also aimed at protesting Massey's plans to begin blasting at the Coal River Mountain operation, which is near the company's huge Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment.

All 13 protesters were given tickets for misdemeanor trespassing and escorted from Massey's property, said Sgt. M.T. Baylous, a spokesman for the State Police. The violation carries a fine of up to $100, Baylous said.

Cited in the morning action were McIlmoil, of Locust Grove, Va.; Matt Noerpel of Rock Creek; James McGuiness of Montegut, La.; Mike Roselle of Forestville, Calif; and Glen Collins of Rock Creek.

Cited in the afternoon action were Lorelie Scarbro of Rock Creek; Larry Gibson of Charleston; Charles Nelson of Glen Daniel; Missy Petty of Knoxville, Tenn.; Mary Wildfire of Spencer; Vernon Haltom of Naoma; Allen Johnson of Dunmore; and Heather Sprouse of Charleston.

Also cited during the morning incident was Chad Stevens, an Athens, Ohio, videographer with the multimedia company MediaStorm. Baylous said Stevens was trespassing to photograph the protests.

Baylous said the protesters were peaceful and that none of them were actually taken into custody or placed under arrest.

"There were no problems - no violence, no confrontations," he said. "It was all very peaceful."