Coal | Grist

Time to Speak Out Against the Biggest Polluters 0
Posted 4 days, 8 hours ago
Where's the Love?

Why won’t Lisa Jackson/Nancy Sutley visit a mountaintop removal site? 0
Posted 4 days, 12 hours ago
Cleaning up after the enemy of the human race

Is “we’re going to burn the coal anyway” an argument for carbon sequestration? 40
Posted 1 week, 1 day ago A frequent argument one hears in favor of a heavy focus on carbon sequestration goes like this: fossil fuels are fantastic energy carriers, dense, portable, and cheap. People will burn them up no matter what. So we might as well figure out a way to make them low-carbon by sequestering their emissions. It's a way to buy time as we figure out other clean energy options. It's a seductive argument -- it sounds easier to convince people to clean up what they're already doing than to persuade them to do something entirely different. But I don't think it holds up under scrutiny.
Fourteen Democratic senators stick up for coal 5
Posted 1 week, 2 days ago Thursday, 14 Democratic senators affirmed their allegiance to the profits of polluting industry at the expense of the health and jobs of their constituents. In a letter to Senate leaders, a bloc of senators with powerful coal interests in their states called for "fair emissions allowances in climate change legislation." Their definition of "fair," unfortunately, turns out to be full taxpayer subsidies for global warming polluters.
Child Labor, Coal Ash, Coal Slurry

Big Coal and child victims 0
Posted 1 week, 2 days ago Nov. 13 marks the 100th anniversary of the Cherry Mine Disaster in Illinois, when an estimated 259 coal miners lost their lives to fire and the buildup of "black damp" or toxic gases. While we take time to reflect on the heroic sacrifices of coal miners and their families this week, the Cherry Mine Disaster remains a haunting reminder of the secret legacy of child labor in our coal mines -- and its unconscionable use today.
Rally at Penn State: Students Taking Lead on Clean Energy 0
Posted 1 week, 3 days ago
Lawsuit accuses Virginia power company of poisoning Dominican community with toxic coal ash 0
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago A civil lawsuit in state court in Delaware charges AES Corp. -- one of the world's largest power companies -- with illegally dumping 160 million pounds of toxic coal ash waste onto beaches in the Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic, leading to serious health problems for nearby residents.
country stars turn coal into platinum

Coal Country CD benefits anti-mountaintop removal groups 0
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago As a companion CD to the provocative new film, Coal Country, the wildly eclectic Coal Country Music CD hits the stores today with a blockbuster list of Nashville's alt-country scene like John Prine, Kathy Mattea, Jason and the Scorchers, folk and bluegrass legends Ralph Stanley, Jean Ritchie, Tom T. Hall and Gillian Welch, rockers like Natalie Merchant and Bonnie Raitt, and a few other surprises -- as in, Grammy Award-klezmer band The Klezmatics and their beautiful rendition of Woody Guthrie's "Heaven."
Memo to North Dakota

To unlock wind power, put a price on carbon 7
Posted 2 weeks ago Why does wind power account for just 2% of North Dakota's electricity generation - barely matching wind's national share? One obvious reason is lack of transmission capability to reach load centers. But another is the extraordinary cheapness of coal.
Another coal plant bites the dust 4
Posted 2 weeks, 1 day ago Minnesota and South Dakota residents stopped a coal-fired power plant project and prevented about 4.7 million tons of CO2, or the equivalent of the pollution from roughly 670,000 cars, from entering the atmosphere every year.
Coal River Mountain: destruction stops here

Blowing up our clean energy future 1
Posted 2 weeks, 2 days ago Right now, Coal River Mountain represents the best and worst our country has to offer. It is one of the most dangerous examples of blasting for dirty coal and one of the most profound examples of hope that exist in our country. It is a crossroads.
tallying toxic threats

Congressional watchdog issues update on coal ash regulation efforts 0
Posted 2 weeks, 3 days ago The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency still does not know the exact number of coal ash dumps at the nation's power plants, but it's moving ahead with plans to regulate them.
back to the future, as plunder of Appalachia continues

Interior will consider mountaintop removal rule in 2011? 0
Posted 2 weeks, 5 days ago While anti-mountaintop removal protests spread across the nation, a legal representative for the Department of Interior filed the DOI's intention to consider a revision of the blatant Bush-era hijacking of the 25-year-old stream buffer zone rule, which was intended to stop mine waste from being dumped within a 100 feet of streams ... in 2011.
Worth 1,000 words, and several degrees Centigrade

A scary photo for Halloween 1
Posted 3 weeks ago Even back in 1891, they knew what was coming.
things that go pumpkin the night

The most frightening story this Halloween is ... pumpkintop removal 1
Posted 3 weeks, 1 day ago I want to draw attention to one of the gravest -- but least publicized -- environmental crimes of our times. It is one of brutal violence, utter waste, and total disregard for the earth's resources. Yes, I'm referring to ... pumpkintop removal.
Blasting begins on Coal River Mountain

The True Impact of Coal Mining 0
Posted 3 weeks, 1 day ago
Coal River Mountain protests spread across the nation 1
Posted 3 weeks, 1 day ago As millions of pounds of explosions rip across their mountain communities, scores of residents from the Appalachian coalfields have joined with supporters from across the country in a series of sit-ins, die-ins, protests, and a haunting "Day of the Dead" funeral procession and sit-in in the courtyard of the headquarters of the EPA.
LEED COAL CERTIFIED

University of Kentucky dorm renamed Wildcat Coal Lodge despite student protests 0
Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago University of Kentucky President Lee T. Todd Jr. and several members of the UKY Board of Trustees refused to consider any formal student statements this week during their meeting to barter away the name of a Wildcat basketball dorm for Big Coal donations, and then fled to a back room as students made their testimonies.
video shows Google Earth tools in mountaintop removal campaign

Google Earth salutes Appalachian heroes 0
Posted 3 weeks, 4 days ago Google Earth just released a wonderful series of videos on citizens groups and environmental heroes who are using Google Earth tools in their campaigns.
8 arrested at deadly Fisk Coal-Fired Plant

How green is Chicago? 0
Posted 3 weeks, 4 days ago On the same streets in the Windy City, where a young liberal Democratic activist named Francis Peabody peddled "smoke-free clean coal" in the 1890s, an estimated 400 Chicago residents marched to the infamous Fisk Generating Station coal-fired plant for the Chicago 350 Climate Action.