Where is clean coal found? Nowhere.
The Orwellian named clean coal is a myth spun by Big Coal. Don't believe the hype. There is no such thing as clean coal.
There are two types of coal: toxic coal and even more toxic coal.
There are two ways to mine coal: mining with debilitating social, ecological and environmental effects and mining with merely devastating damages.
There are two ways to burn coal: by letting all the toxic stuff spread out into the earth, water, and air (long term consequences be damned) or by concentrating the toxins into difficult to contain, difficult to store, and highly dangerous pollution stores (long term consequences be damned).
Coal, in any form of extraction and production, is arguably the most environmentally damaging source of energy. No matter how hard Big Coal tries to green-wash itself, coal remains toxic.
It is toxic to mine, toxic to extract, and toxic to burn.
How toxic is coal?
Wikipedia lays out the environmental effects of coal:
There are a number of adverse environmental effects of coal mining and burning. These effects include:
- release of carbon dioxide and methane, both of which are greenhouse gas
- waste products including Uranium, Thorium, and other heavy metals
- acid rain
- interference with groundwater and water table levels
- impact of water use on flows of rivers and consequential impact on other land-uses
- dust nuisance
- subsidence above tunnels, sometimes damaging infrastructure
- rendering land unfit for the other uses.
The mining of coal by mountaintop removal has turned large swaths of Appalachia into a national sacrifice zone. The extraction of coal creates toxic sludge. The burning of coal creates toxic pollution.
No technology exists to magically make coal less toxic. No technology exists to clean toxic coal. We can move the toxins around, but we can't make them disappear.
Really, just getting to the coal in the first place makes a real mess of things.
Mountain Top Removal
We have covered the social, economic, and environmental damage of mountain top removal coal mining extensively on this blog.
The majority of West Virginians oppose Mountain Top Removal. Nonetheless, among elected officials, only retiring Delegate Jon Blair Hunter (D-Monongalia) has had the moral courage to speak out against this practice:
"I introduced Senate Bill 588 because I fervently believe that God did not intend for us to destroy the mountains, the streams, the forests and His people in order to mine coal," Sen. Hunter said.
"Senator Hunter's bill would stop mountain top removal operators from continuing to use West Virginia's mountain streams as giant garbage cans to dispose of billions of tons of mining waste," said Joe Lovett executive director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. "West Virginians overwhelmingly oppose mountaintop removal, and I hope that the Manchin administration and others in the Legislature will stand with Senator Hunter to stop the permanent destruction of a huge swath of one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. It is time for the madness of mountaintop removal to come to an end, and Senator Hunter's bill is an important step in that direction."
In addition to the ecological destruction, coal mining -- accelerated by the major job reductions due to Mountain Top Removal coal mining practices -- has been an economic disaster for Appalachian communities.
Even though the US coal industry has reaped billions of dollars in revenue - Peabody Energy reported $5.2 billion in revenues in 2006 - the coal-rich regions have some of the worst poverty in the country. According to the US Census, the median income for Twilight and the surrounding region is less than $20,000 a year, and more than a quarter of families live below the poverty line.
Twilight is simply a line of double-wide trailers with no general store, set in the folds of steep hills, on a road that ends at a mountaintop coal operation.
"The coal industry just wants to keep what's happening here a secret," said Steve "Spankey" Webb, 51, of Twilight, who now works in an underground coal mine, a 33-year veteran of the business. "I know the country needs coal, but they don't worry about the people who live in these areas. They just don't care, I reckon."
Coal Sludge
Coal mining is an inherently toxic process.
Coal mining causes a number of harmful effects. When coal surfaces are exposed, pyrite (iron sulfide), also known as "fool's gold", comes in contact with water and air and forms sulfuric acid. As water drains from the mine, the acid moves into the waterways, and as long as rain falls on the mine tailings the sulfuric acid production continues, whether the mine is still operating or not. This process is known as acid rock drainage (ARD) or acid mine drainage (AMD). If the coal is strip mined, the entire exposed seam leaches sulfuric acid, leaving the subsoil infertile on the surface and begins to pollute streams by acidifying and killing fish, plants, and aquatic animals who are sensitive to drastic pH shifts.
Coal mining produces methane a potent greenhouse gas. Methane is the naturally occurring product of the decay of organic matter as coal deposits are formed with increasing depths of burial, rising temperatures, and rising pressures over geological time. A portion of the methane produced is adsorbed by the coal and later released from the coal seam and surrounding disturbed strata during the mining process.[1] Methane accounts for 9% of greenhouse gas emissions created through human activity.[2] According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, methane has a global warming potential 21 times greater than that of carbon dioxide on a 100 year time line. While burning coal in power plants is most harmful to air quality, due to the emission of dangerous gases, the process of mining can release pockets of hazardous gases. These gases may pose a threat to coal miners as well as a source of air pollution. This is due to the relaxation of pressure and fracturing of the strata during mining activity, which gives rise to serious safety concerns for the coal miners if not managed properly. The buildup of pressure in the strata can lead to explosions during or after the mining process if prevention methods, such as "methane draining", are not taken.[3]
No technology exists to magically make coal less toxic. No technology exists to clean toxic coal. We can move the toxins around, but we can't make them disappear.
The Orwellian-named Clean Coal
There are two "families" of not-so-magic technology Big Coal touts under the Orwellian-named moniker of Clean Coal.
First, they bundle any technological improvement in the coal extraction, production, and burning process into the term Clean Coal. In this manner, they give themselves credit for doing what they should have been doing all along -- keeping dangerous pollutants out of the air, water, and ground around coal mines and coal-burning factories.
Unfortunately, these "fixes" just move the problem ("Don't Drink the Water: Clean Coal's Downside"):
"Cleaner" coal technologies actually produce more toxic coal ash in the resulting solid waste than "dirty" coal technologies, says Jeff Stant of the Clean Air Task Force. These technologies pulverize low-grade fuels in a way that releases fewer pollutants into the air. But those pollutants have to go somewhere, and they end up as ash.
Second, there is a push to increase investment in coal-to-liquid fuel (and/or coal-to-gas fuel) plants. These huge factory investments -- like the one billion dollar plant proposed for Mingo County -- turn coal into liquid fuel.
So far these plants suffer from three major problems:
1) Considering all the energy it takes to convert coal to a liquid (or a gas), there's not much net gain in energy. It's like using up 90% of your existing coal to turn that last 10% into another form of energy.
2) There's no natural market for the fuel. The two potential buyers of fuel talked about for the Mingo County plant are (a) the US Government for jet engine fuel and (b) coal mining companies to mine more coal(!).
3) The coal liquefaction process concentrates toxic byproducts. Furthermore, major investment institutions will only finance utility projects if they are economically viable under expected future federal caps on carbon dioxide emissions.
No technology exists to magically make coal less toxic. No technology exists to clean toxic coal. We can move the toxins around, but we can't make them disappear.
Toxic Coal
In summary, coal factories pollute our water and pollute our air. It's bad for your health to live near a coal plant.
Yes, we need to make existing coal plants safer. No, we should not build new coal plants.
Coal to liquid fuels is an environmental disaster, a horrible idea. We need to invest in other energy solutions that provide both domestic energy independence and address the global climate crisis.
No technology exists to magically make coal less toxic. No technology exists to clean toxic coal. We can move the toxins around, but we can't make them disappear.
West Virginia's Post-carbon Future
How much longer will the coal industry survive? The Big Coal myth-making machine says 100 years or more... the truth behind our vanishing coal reverse is as few as 10-20 years of supply.
We need to start planning today for a post-carbon economy in West Virginia. We need to diversity our economy beyond natural resource extraction of coal, oil, and natural gas. We face difficult transitions ahead, the sooner we make a realistic, reality-based appraisal of our current situation, the sooner we can begin to solve the challenges ahead.
As I've said before:
Instead of postponing that day of reckoning, let's figure out how to invest for a more positive future.
I have the audacity to hope for a brighter future for even the least fortunate among us. Can we give the residents of rural coal country drinking water that won't poison their kids, clean air to breath, and a hope that someday their grand-children will have a good-paying job without moving clear across the country? Instead of investing billions of dollars in corporate welfare lets invest that money in helping the least fortunate among us. They've already suffered enough on our behalf.
Selling a false panacea of non-existence technology to clean toxic coal is a disservice to Appalachia. Get real, West Virginia. Let's start looking forward to a brighter clean, green, alternative energy future. |
