coal

If you’re wondering what you should be doing on Saturday night, well, here it is: watch some television! At 8 p.m. eastern, the world television premiere of "Coal Country" will be on the Reel Impact series on Planet Green.

Now, about the film. Earthjustice is a proud sponsor of "Coal Country," and we’ve been hosting events in San Francisco, New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Chicago to show people this powerful film and educate them on the tragedy that is mountaintop removal mining.

There’s been a lot discussed in these pages about the destruction, pollution and impacts of mountaintop removal mining, but never before has there been such an insightful and moving depiction. "Coal Country" interviews miners, activists, politicians and coalfield residents to present the true impacts of coal in Appalachia. Phylis Geller—who wrote, produced and directed the film—and executive producer Mari-Lynn Evans weave a story that really gets at the true costs of our dependence on coal.

Take the time to watch "Coal Country" on Planet Green this Saturday night. If you don’t have Planet Green in your cable package, you can purchase a copy of the DVD here. And for those not in the eastern time zone, the film is being replayed at 11 p.m. eastern, so you can watch it during prime time.

It's not enough that Tennessee's Clinch River was devastated by a toxic spill that dumped 1 billion gallons of coal ash into its waters last December. Now the Tennessee Valley Authority wants to systematically pollute the river (which leads to the mighty Tennessee River) to the tune of one million gallons a day of toxic pollutants. We're talking dumping mercury, selenium and other chemicals into a river which the Tennessee Valley Authority is supposed to be protecting. Instead the agency got permission to pollute the river with coal waste from its coal-fired Kingston Fossil Plant.

Earthjustice, Environmental Integrity Project, and the Sierra Club joined together to appeal this Clean Water Act permit, which pleases several local Tennessee residents, who have contended with the TVA's dirty water practices for years.

The U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change has announced a policy that would ban new coal-fired power plants without carbon capture and storage (CCS).

New plants would be required to capture and store CO2 equal to at least 300 megawatts of CO2 emissions from the day they go online, and would be expected to capture all their CO2 emissions by 2025. For comparison, the climate bill that passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee last week requires only 60 percent capture and storage by 2025 for new plants. Government-subsidized demonstration projects in the U.K. will cost at least £10 billion ($16.76 billion).

That’s quite an investment in coal that will not be spent on renewables. The energy plan also calls for 10 additional nuclear power plants to be built largely on sites where nuclear plants already exist, a part of the proposal that was met by skepticism from green campaigners.

Amid the hoopla for such mainstream movies as "Where The Wild Things Are" last week, another film opened in New York with its own fervent following. Nearly 1,000 people packed a premiere screening of "Coal Country," a documentary exposing the brutal impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining.

Co-hosted by Earthjustice and the Sierra Club, the screening was followed by a concert featuring Kathy Mattea, The Klezmatics, Jean Ritchie, Diana Jones and a surprise appearance by Justin Townes Earle. Two more screenings are scheduled for this month: Nov. 10 in Chicago, and Nov. 12 in Los Angeles. To make reservations and to find out more about mountaintop removal, go to www.earthjustice.org/mtr.

The devastation of the TVA spill in Tennessee, December 2008. Photo: United Mountain Defense

When is hazardous coal ash not considered hazardous? According to the Environmental Protection Agency, when you dump it in a landfill as opposed to a pond. This approach is currently being floated by the EPA in its plans to regulate coal ash later this year. Coal ash—the waste left over after coal is burned at coal-fired power plants—is full of dangerously high levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium and other hazardous metals. Cancer rates skyrocket near coal ash dumps that have leaked into drinking water supplies.

As the one-year anniversary of the Kingston coal ash spill approaches (December 22), the EPA has been working hard to prepare the first ever federal regulations of coal ash. But newspapers are reporting that the Government Accountability Office issued a report last week that indicates EPA's plans aren’t the strongest safeguards against this toxic threat.

Coal River Mountain as seen from nearby Kayford Mountain. Photo: Coal River Mountain Watch.

The halls of Congress are echoing this week with debate over proposed legislation to fight global warming—a fight that can't be won without addressing a primary cause of global warming: our dependence on coal. As the rumpus goes on there, a real-life battle between coal and the future of American energy has reached a pivotal moment in Appalachia.

In an effort to protect their familial homes and water resources, residents of West Virginia's Coal River Valley have long fought to prevent Coal River Mountain from being blown apart for the coal beneath it. Local groups like Coal River Mountain Watch, an Earthjustice client, have argued compellingly that the mountain is an ideal site for a wind power facility, which could make the region a model for sustainable, green economic growth.

Photo: NASA/DSMP

President Barack Obama handed out a passel of money today for "smart grid" projects, much of it going towards house electrical meters that can be controlled by power companies. The meters allow companies to manipulate how much electricity each house uses at any given time -- useful in times of power shortages and for being able to shift power from where it's least needed to where it's most needed. The grants also went to  modernizing various components of the grid to make it "smarter."

The federal stimulus grants, while not directly funding clean energy alternatives, are aimed at improving how the nation uses our current electrical transmission set-up, so that such alternatives as solar and wind can be more easily integrated. To emphasize the smart grid connection to alternative energy sources, the president made the announcement while standing in a new, Florida solar energy "farm." Legal efforts by Earthjustice paved the way for the facility.

Clearly, this is just a start towards a highly sophisticated electrical distribution and consumption system. To that end, a Wall Street Journal graphic illustrates a "smart grid city" experiment being conducted in Boulder, Co. In the experiment, smart metering in connection with solar powered battery storage allows total manipulation of a house's electrical input and appliances, even to the extent that the house could be feeding the power grid.

Two years after Earthjustice successfully fought Florida Power and Light's plan to build the nation's largest coal plant near Everglades National Park, the state is taking a giant leap forward toward clean energy.

Today, President Barack Obama is touring FPL's new DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia —the largest photovoltaic facility in the U.S.

"Instead of having a dirty coal plant to provide power, we have clean solar energy," said David Guest, managing attorney for Earthjustice in Florida. "It is gratifying to know that Earthjustice helped change public policy and moved our state to more common-sense technology. We are finally putting the sunshine back in the Sunshine State."

In June 2007, Earthjustice gathered evidence and experts which helped convince the Florida Public Service Commission to consider the full costs associated with polluting coal plants. It was the first time that global warming played a role in a PSC decision, and the first time in 15 years that state regulators rejected a new power plant.

At 25 megawatts, it will generate nearly twice as much energy as the second-largest photovoltaic facility in the U.S.—Nevada's Nellis Solar Power Plant.
 

Despite the insistence of multi-billion dollar ad campaigns from the coal industry, “clean coal” simply does not exist.

Even when scrubbers are installed to filter air pollution from coal-fired power plants, the mercury, selenium, and other toxic heavy metals released by coal combustion have to go somewhere. Sadly, too much pollution is ending up in America’s rivers and groundwater.

This week, the New York Times’ excellent series "Toxic Waters" takes a look at the dangers of shifting coal pollution from air to water.

When venerable television news show 60 Minutes takes notice of a story, it's got to be an important issue. On this Sunday, October 4, 60 Minutes is going to look at one of the biggest waste problems in our country: coal ash. From the preview on their website:

Most of the 130 million tons of waste generated in the U.S. every year by the burning of coal for electricity is coal ash. It is often stored in retention ponds, like the one that burst in Kingston. But nearly half of this waste stream today is recycled and used as a cement substitute, as filler under roads, in agricultural applications, and even in household products like carpeting or kitchen countertops.

Tune in this Sunday to see what else they've got to say, and tell EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to control this toxic, dangerous waste.