| The last three posts by Ken Ward, Jr. at Coal Tattoo are all must-read links.
First up, in "Climate and CCS debate: Coal can't have it both ways" he points out an inherent contradiction by "clean coal" advocates.
Coal lobbyists want to argue that "clean coal" is here, but then also demand that the climate legislation working its way through Congress be further watered down, to give them more time to perfect and deploy carbon capture and storage technology.
The reality is, coal-to-liquid with carbon-capture and sequestration is far from here today. There are few small pilot projects with significant questions about if they can scale. (See his diary for links.) It's not clear if the technology will ever work.
Next up, Ken Ward, Jr., answers my question about Approximate Original Contour.
The entire post is well worth reading, here's a flavor from the introduction.
On one level, the answer is simple: The U.S. Office of Surface Mining and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (at least in West Virginia - in other states, it would be their local regulatory authority). Those are the agencies who write the rules. As for how to get them to do their jobs ... that's beyond the scope of one little blog post.
WVDEP officials tried years ago to more clearly define AOC, something they said was needed if they were ever to enforce the rule. But OSMRE stopped the state from doing so, and has repeatedly delayed any plans for a federal rulemaking that would help clarify the term. West Virginia, though, has adopted its own AOC formula, and most experts think that has resulted in a reduction in the size of valley fills that bury streams.
The Federal Government comes off worse than the state, but the long and the short of it is there's been more than enough time for the regulations to be more tightly defined. There's been a failure of political leadership to make that happen.
Finally, there's an excellent guest post by Gene Kitts of International Coal Group providing a coal industry justification for mountaintop removal. Unlike the fluff that comes from many industry trade groups (and, admittedly, issue advocacy groups at times, too), this post is full of details on why some sites are more appropriate for surface mining (e.g., mountaintop removal) instead of underground mining.
Again, here's a flavor, go read the entire piece (and interesting comments).
Why do we surface mine in Central Appalachia?
It's certainly not because we like the public attention and we really don't enjoy the struggles with regulatory agencies, the years of permitting delays and the seemingly endless litigation. The fundamental answer is that coal is surface mined because that is the method necessary to recover the resource.
Starting with the basics
Why do we surface mine a coal seam or group of seams instead of deep mining that reserve?
The answer is generally determined by geology and topography. However, in many cases the coal reserve has been previously deep-mined and surface mining recovers what was left. Surface mining through abandoned deep mines, recovering the blocks of coal that were left decades ago, is relatively common. Contour mining along the outer boundary of old deep mines has been a widespread practice for years. The advent of the highwall miner, which is a more productive successor to a coal auger, has encouraged this trend.
There's a lot of room for critique on the assumptions are what makes something economically viable. In terms of how mining companies have operated absent considerations of negative externalities (the many costs that other people bear for the negative effects of coal mining), it is a really interesting read. |
