Coal Archives - Global Warming is Real

Executive Order Guts Clean Power Plan : Trump’s Imaginary War on Coal has just Begun

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Thomas Schueneman | 0 Comments

This morning, under the cover of “energy independence,” U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for a rewrite of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. The Plan is the cornerstone of U.S. commitment to curbing emissions under the Paris climate agreement, so the rewrite represents a significant rollback of U.S. global warming mitigation as a whole. Unlike the rhetoric surrounding health care,…

EarthTalk: Health Impacts of Coal

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Earth Talk | 3 Comments

EarthTalk® is a weekly environmental column made available to our readers from the editors of E/The Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: I saw a chart that quantified the negative impacts on our health of our reliance on coal as an energy source. It was pretty shocking as I recall. Can you summarize what we’re dealing with here? – Mitchell Baldwin, Boise,…

Coalition Calls on White House to Institute Strong Coal Ash Disposal Regulations

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Andrew Burger | 0 Comments

A coalition of 120 organizations has sent a letter to the White House requesting the first-ever federal regulations governing coal ash disposal be strong and comprehensive. The EPA is expected to issue a final proposed rule by December 19.

The Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign marks its 179 coal plant retirement

Beyond Coal: One Less Coal-Burning Power Plant

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Thomas Schueneman | 0 Comments

Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign Marks 179th Coal Plant Retirement In response to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcement of air quality violations, White Pine Electric Power announced last week its commitment to stop burning coal at its small 60-megawatt power plant in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The plant’s two online units will convert immediately to natural gas. The facility has until 2023 to install best-in-class…

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…