Doug Pelton, Author at Global Warming is Real

A new type of cement could reduce emissions from cement production by 97 percent

Cement and CO2 Emissions

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Doug Pelton | 1 Comments

One ton of portland cement produces a ton of CO2 emissions; can alternatives reduce that by 97 percent? This summer, if you’re thinking of mixing two parts of pozzalona with one-part lime and water as a tropical drink to serve to your guests, it will surely make their their throats go dry…really dry: these are the ingredients the Romans used…

Clean coal used to mean less dust and dirt. Coal was never clean. The concept of clean coal has evolved but that reality hasn't

Clean coal was all about no dirt or dust back in 1921

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Doug Pelton | 0 Comments

“…The public wants coal and must have it.” Wall Street Journal. Editorial excerpt: September 30, 1902 (from ‘A Journal Sampler,’ July 8, 2014.) It was a time of big industrial growth in big, big cities like Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis, as coal fed the maw of uber expansion. In fact, the latter part of the nineteenth century, provided…

Waterkeeper Alliance and the Cape Fear Riverkeeper documented an area of heavy seepage flowing from this barren area at the north end of the 1963 coal ash impoundment directly into the Cape Fear River.

Coal Ash Ponds: a Slurry of Problems Nationwide

Posted on June 18, 2014 by Doug Pelton | 0 Comments

“Do you know what your coal ash pond is doing tonight?” EarthJustice, via the Freedom of Information Act, pressured the EPA back in 2012 to release the locations of hundreds of previously unknown coal ash dump sites. The latest tally puts the number at nearly 1,400 nationwide. Coal ash. It sounds benign – even perhaps recyclable – something you might…

Coal from the Powder River Basin is sold to China at below market value - costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars

Warren Buffett’s Coal Gambit and the China Connection

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Doug Pelton | 0 Comments

I wanted to see an actual coal train, its open cars heaped with fossil fuel, and to inhale a wave of coal dust as the train meandered past me. But the closest I came to any of that was near a filling station in Washington state’s Nooksack valley. Standing at the pump, I soon heard the diesels thrumming nearby as…

Despite Duke Energy's "nothing to see here" attitude, the coal ash spill on the Dan River has citizens and the federal government crying foul.

Duke Energy Blocks Input On Coal Ash Pollution

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Doug Pelton | 0 Comments

Duke Energy’s legal moves to block outside groups from weighing in on coal-ash pollution, or obtaining documents on the recent spill Disclaimer: I bought 2 shares of Duke Energy through a DRIP back in @ 1990, and sold them within a year to book a $45 profit. Another disclaimer: I’m not picking on Duke, as there are many other coal-fired…

Generating station at the Four Corners Power Plant

Energy-starved utilities and the exploitation of the Navajo: The Forgotten People.

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Doug Pelton | 0 Comments

It’s the kind of story that can easily mis-characterize the aspirations of the “Forgotten People,” who are anything but abandoned. They represent the indigenous tribes living on the Navajo Reservation, a 27,425 square-mile sector bordering parts of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico Their struggles are not unlike other Native Americans displaced during our winning of the West,…

The Navajo Generating Station in Arizona emits nearly 20 million tons of CO2 every year

Navajo Nation, National Parks, Wilderness Remain at Risk with Planned Retrofits of Coal-Fired Power Plants

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Doug Pelton | 0 Comments

Special feature by Doug Pelton Jennifer Mckay, a 38-year old research librarian with the University of Alaska, remembers the day back in 1997 when she was invited by a Navajo friend to the First Mesa, a three-hour drive east of Ganado where Mckay, an anthropology major, was interning at the Hubbell Trading Post. On the mesa located within the Hopi…