Mining coal: How important is it?

Knoxville News Sentinel ^ | 1/22/6 | DON BARGER

[SmithL]

Unless you're sitting by a sunny window, the chances are that the light falling on this page was produced by the burning of coal. Currently, more than half the electricity generated in America is coal-produced.

While coal may be abundant in the United States, it's far from cheap. Occasionally we get glimpses into what our coal consumption really costs our country. The miners who keep us in coal deserve our thanks, our respect and our commitment to developing alternative sources of energy. The health of our economy, our environment and our families depends on it.

To calculate the true cost of coal, you have to look at the complete life cycle -- from getting it out of the mountains to burning it in smokestacks. Much of the true cost of coal does not show up on your utility bill; you pay for it through your income taxes, health insurance and medical bills. The price of coal, thus, is kept artificially low by externalizing the costs.

In addition to what you pay on your utility bill, you also pay the costs of subsidies and tax incentives to producers, the cost of regulating the industry and utilities, the costs of health effects of air pollution, and the costs of cleaning up contaminated trout streams and drinking water wells.

Here in Appalachia, mountaintop removal mining has leveled some 380,000 acres of mountain peaks and scenic views and destroyed more than 700 miles of streams. Mountaintop removal coal mining has now made its way into Tennessee's mountains.

The New River watershed, the principle headwaters of the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, is one area of intense prospecting for this very destructive type of surface mining. To protect this national resource, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) has joined with a local chapter of the National Audubon Society to file an administrative petition that would require the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) to do a comprehensive study of the watershed before allowing widespread surface mining.

OSM's regulatory program has dramatically failed to protect Tennessee's mountains and streams, and the agency is under a lot of political pressure to avoid such a comprehensive analysis. NPCA is committed to seeing that the appropriate analysis is done before we irrevocably alter the headwaters of this magnificent national river.

Large-scale surface mining affects more than just the mountains it destroys. While there has been an increase in mining nationally, mechanization has produced a downward trend in coal mining jobs. Between 1923 and 1998, short tons of coal produced in the United States climbed from less than 600 million to more than 10 billion. During the same time period, the number of people employed in coal mining dropped from over 700,000 to less than 100,000, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

In light of these employment declines, the time has come to consider alternative economic futures for these areas. In the Cumberland Mountains, nature-based recreation is a big potential source of economic development. The recreational opportunities in the Big South Fork alone represent an economic benefit to the region in the range of $10 million to $16 million annually.

We cannot blindly tout coal as the energy solution for the future without addressing its associated negative impacts. Congress just committed $14 billion in the energy bill toward strategies that have no clear goal. There may be cleaner ways, but there is no clean way for us to depend on coal long term with the dramatic social and environmental costs associated with it.

National parks are one example of places that we must not fail to protect for future generations. In the meantime, we cannot, as a nation, settle for finding the right balance on a piecemeal basis. We should view coal as a transition fuel into the future rather than the future itself.

The next generation of energy production technologies is currently under development. America must take the lead in developing these new technologies if we are to maintain our economic and innovative leadership in the world and give our children healthy air, water and national parks to enjoy as we have enjoyed them.

This nation's real choice for the future health of our economy, our mountain environment and our families is whether we're selling this technology to China and India or buying it from them.

[SmithL]

Don Barger has worked for over 20 years as a community organizer in the coalfields of Tennessee, as director of the Citizens’ Mining Project for the Environmental Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., and has, since 1992, served as the Southeast regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association here in his native East Tennessee.

[icwhatudo]

Clintons "SWEET COAL" Scandal Link anyone?

In a nutshell, Indonesian James Riady (illegal campaign contibutions to clinton) got clinton to declare a huge area in Utah as a national park. Right over the world largest known reserves of cleaner burning "sweet coal". The second largest reserves are in......INDONESIA...owned by Riady.

But Abramof is a scandal?

[babygene]

"The recreational opportunities in the Big South Fork alone represent an economic benefit to the region in the range of $10 million to $16 million annually."

Wow! what a huge sum... This guy a is on another planet. Would he rather us buy our energy from the rag heads?

[SmithL]

The idea is to avoid coal, oil, nuclear, wind power, and firewood. We'll discuss all other options.

[kublia khan]

Bingo; we have a winner. the environmentalist will not be happy until every ounce of energy we consume is imported from some third world thug.

[beaver fever]

"Here in Appalachia, mountaintop removal mining has leveled some 380,000 acres of mountain peaks and scenic views and destroyed more than 700 miles of streams."

I have been covering the mining industry for five years and this is the most destructive mining method I have heard of.

In open pit mining you remove the overburden and mine the site and then bury the site with the removed over burden.

This method basically takes the over burden on ridges and dumps it into the valleys, choking creeks and rivers. The result is free flowing water is cut off and what remains is ground water in unstable soils and rock.

This mining method will result in catastrophic landslides and contaminated ground water in the future.

[patton]

Something I am curius about - doesn't this also transform huge swaths of verticle terrain into useful, horizontal terrain?

[kcvl]

In 1996, Bill Clinton issued an executive order declaring the 1.7 million-acre Utah Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to be off limits to coal mining. Of course, Utah is the only other known "low sulfur" deposit in the world. Thus, Hashim and Moctar Riady both found themselves with a global monopoly on coal worth billions of dollars.


http://tinyurl.com/cth2f

[beaver fever]

Well if you are sentimental about the mountains of Appalachia you would say yes.

But my concern is that the region is a vast water shed and that water has to go somewhere.

Whenever you mine you disturb the stability of the underlying soil and rock. Add large rainfall to unstable soil and rock and you get landslides.

Plus just the peaks of the mountains are being mined. The underlying geography still consists of mountains and valleys.

This is a cheap way to get around underground mining but anyone foolish enough to build a community on one of these landfills will see their investment washed away in the future.

[kcvl]

U.S. Pays for Clinton-Riady-China Connection

Charles R. Smith
Thursday, Feb. 1, 2001

Bill Clinton shares a close financial relationship with Moctar Riady, the Indonesian billionaire owner of Lippo Group. According to testimony before Sen. Fred Thompson, the Lippo Group is in fact a joint venture of China Resources, a trading and holding company "wholly owned" by the Chinese communist government and used as a front for espionage operations.

In 1993, before Bill Clinton was sworn into office, Lippobank Vice Chairman John Huang sought out DNC chairman Ron Brown. Huang, a major Riady-backed Clinton fund-raiser, sought to leave his six-figure job at Lippo to work as an underpaid U.S. government employee under Brown.



http://tinyurl.com/c3wza

[kcvl]

Indonesian Power Deal Blows Financial Fuse

Charles R. Smith
Saturday, Jan. 27, 2001

Californians are suffering from a blackout – not one of electric power but of the news. The mainstream media, including Time/CNN, continue to maintain that the recent financial short-circuits inside California's energy grid are all due to state economic and environmental regulations. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1994, Edison Mission Energy landed a trade trip with Ron Brown to Indonesia. As a result of that trip, Edison also ended up with a contract to build the Paiton I coal-fired power plant. Paiton I was billed as the first "private" electric plant in Indonesia. In 1994, "private" ownership in Indonesia equated into owned and operated by the Suharto "first family."



http://tinyurl.com/9t48p

[kcvl]

Nail Clinton on bribery,says Watergate counsel
Zeifman provides 3 counts to Barr

By Joseph Farah
© 1998 WorldNetDaily.com



snip


Jerome Zeifman, a Democrat who served the impeachment inquiry along with former White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum and first lady Hillary Clinton, presented his 19-page "memorandum of law and facts on bribery as an impeachable offense" to Rep. Bob Barr, R-GA, of the House Judiciary Committee late last week.

"In his conduct of the office of president of the United States, William J. Clinton has given or received bribes with respect to one of more of the following," he writes in a memorandum of law and facts on bribery as an impeachable offense. Modeling the language of his memorandum as closely as possible to the articles of impeachment drafted against Richard Nixon, Zeifman writes:


snip


"(3) Approving, condoning or acquiescing in the receipt of bribes in connection with the issuance of an executive order which had the effect of giving Indonesia a monopoly on the sale of certain types of coal."



http://tinyurl.com/9cnla

[kcvl]

That Trillion-Dollar Ripoff-- Clinton's Utah Coal Deal
various websites | 7-29-02 | The Heavy Equipment Guy

Posted on 07/29/2002 12:04:45 PM PDT by backhoe



http://tinyurl.com/c4tl9

[Hexenhammer]

The idea is to avoid coal, oil, nuclear, wind power, and firewood. We'll discuss all other options. Also, no hydro-electric power. The Pacific Northwest eco-weenies want to breach most of our power producing dams to save fish.

[patton]

Maybe - but pushing a mountaintop into the next valley is not a new way to reform real estate, in the blue ridge.

Heck, it is the only way to build an airport.

And we ain't exactly running out of mountains.

Your mileage may vary.

[kcvl]

September 21, 2003

Ruth Harkin (Sen. Tom Harkin's wife)



Ruth, an attorney, was a deputy counsel for the Department of Agriculture before joining, in 1983, the Washington super-law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP. This was the home base for Clinton advisers Vernon Jordan and Robert Strauss. When Clinton took office in 1993, he named her chairman and chief executive officer of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).

Ruthie was in the OPIC driver's seat while Ron Brown was running the Department of Commerce. No one is willing to discuss any deals they may have made together. Yet stories still are circulating that Ruth Harkin knew that when Bill Clinton designated 1.7 million acres in Utah as a national monument (the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument) and cut off all mineral extraction, billions of tons of low-sulfur, low-ash coal worth an estimated $1 trillion would be lost to the United States. Who benefited? An Indonesian company owned by China's People's Liberation Army, operating as Lippo Industries whose front man was James Riady, a dear friend of the Clintons and major donor to the Democratic Party.


http://tinyurl.com/c5j7x

[kcvl]

Uninformed Utah

When President Clinton stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon and dedicated the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah on September 18, 1996, it was a star-studded grand slam. ABC's Sam Donaldson portrayed Clinton as a savior: "While Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, actor Robert Redford and others looked on from behind a fence, the President explained why he is protecting 1.7 million acres of federal land in Utah from commercial exploitation."

What ABC didn't tell you, however, was that this was an underhanded, back-door federal land grab. Ted Koppel made this the topic of the May 15 Nightline, from Salt Lake City: "While Washington did consult with some Democratic Governors in the region, while it did talk to the Sierra Club and Robert Redford, Utah's Governor and its congressional delegation were kept in the dark."



http://tinyurl.com/949ab

[beaver fever]

Nice try.

I have written articles on over 100 major, second tier and junior mining companies and none of them have would have ever gotten a mining permit using this method.

Not even in El Salvador of all places.

Look what happened to Spirit Lake when Mt St Helen's blew up.

Any community on or below these landfills is in deep doo doo after a major rainfall or a heavy winter followed by a mild spring.

It takes several hundred years for loose rock and soil to become stable.

My advice: don't buy a 7/11 franchise in one of these valleys.

[Herakles]

I remember Anderson Cooper recently describing how dark it was at night where he was during a recent mine disaster. I though to myself "yea, it's really dark out here where people have to scratch a living out of the dirt and sometimes die to provide you highly refined city folk with electricity for lighting your streets and heating your homes while you pontificate how wonderful you are and isn't life just great because you are here on this planet".

I'll bet they never give a second thought as to how many people they have to kill to get their electricity. Then try to build s safer form of energy like a Nuke plant and oh no we can't have that.

[patton]

Hmmm. well, that is why I read - to learn.