what the appalachian moutains do
Friday roundup, Feb. 17, 2012 « Coal Tattoo
Paramilitary policemen guard a tunnel entrance at the Hongfa Coal Mine where 15 miners were killed and three others hurt when the mine carriages they were in plunged into a tunnel, in Nanyang township, Leiyang city, in southern China's Hunan province, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012. (AP Photo)
As the photo above indicates, there's more bad news from China. Here's the China Daily report:
Fifteen miners were killed, and three others injured, following a mine-car crash Thursday morning in central China's Hunan province, local authorities said.
The accident happened around 12:30 am in Nanyang township of Leiyang city, after six cars of an eight-car carriage carrying 18 miners unhooked and plunged into a tunnel rapidly in the Hongfa Coal Mine, according to the Hunan Provincial Administration of Coal Mine Safety.
The 15 were killed instantly in the crash, while the other three were injured after jumping or being thrown out of the car, according to rescuers.
Interestingly:
An initial probe found that the miners had violated safety rules by riding in the mine cars, which are designed to transport coal only. Police have taken custody of the coal mine's managers.
Interesting coverage this week about coal-fired power plants and Appalachian coal markets, including this analysis from my buddy Ken Silverstein, writing for Forbes.com:
While Obama's team thinks old coal should be tossed out or cleaned up, it is also donning shale gas the new fuel champion. But if you think the Environmental Protection Agency is the primary source of coal's troubles, think again. Abundant shale gas supplies are one reason. But so too are diminishing reserves, all of which take more labor and more money to dig out.
Mountains of the Heart: A Natural History of the AppalachiansLearn more
Scott Weidensaul
Blaming coal's woes on the proposed environmental regulations tells only a fraction of the story. The rest can be explained by competition from other coal states as well as from cheaper and cleaner fuels.
Taylor Kuykendall over at The State Journal picked up on an interesting study:
While environmental regulations have received the bulk of attention when it comes time to close a coal-fired plant, closure are generally known to be a result of multiple factors. A new study conducted by Susan Tierney managing principal at the Analysis group, an economic, financial and strategy consultant group, finds market factors, not the Environmental Protection Agency, have driven coal plant closures.
"Putting aside the political context of the current debate, a closer examination of the facts reveals that the recent retirement announcements are part of a longer‐term trend that has been affecting both existing coal plants and many proposals to build new ones," Tierney wrote. "The sharp decline in natural gas prices, the rising cost of coal and reduced demand for electricity are all contributing factors in the decisions to retire some of the country's oldest coal‐fired generating units. These trends started well before EPA issued its new air pollution rules."
While environmental regulations do place "financial pressures" on coal operators, Tierney wrote, power market fundamentals, particularly thin gas-to-coal price differentials and low electricity demand are contributing "significantly" to retirement of marginal plants. Those same factors, Tierney wrote, is likely to put continued pressure on coal-generated electricity.
And The Economist reported (in part of a series of articles):
Southern Appalachian Celebration: In Praise of Ancient Mountains, Old-Growth Forests, and WildernessLearn more
James Valentine
The courts, in fact, are the source of the worst uncertainty surrounding environmental regulation. They have repeatedly forced the EPA to revise its rules, rejecting decisions reached under both Mr Obama and his predecessors. It is now assumed, says Kyle Danish of Van Ness Feldman, a law firm, that any important rule issued by the EPA will prompt multiple legal challenges. It does not help that the Clean Air Act does not allow the cost of pollution controls to be taken into account when setting certain standards. Nor is it really designed to handle so pervasive and subtle a pollutant as carbon dioxide—a flaw the Obama administration readily concedes.
UPDATED: This just in — a pretty devastating critique of the Economist stuff from The Center for Progressive Reform saying, among other things:
This call for stripping laws or regulations of clear mandates, championed for decades by Philip Howard, is a prescription for giving up our existing public protections for some future, nebulous protection system with no clear teeth. And it would lead to, among other things, a storm of action in the courts, which would have to spend years interpreting what the broad rules meant. That should be troubling for The Economist, which says it's worried about courts interpreting rules: "The courts, in fact, are the source of the worst uncertainty surrounding environmental regulation."
Greenpeace activists protesting the destruction and pollution caused by coal at the Progress Asheville Power Station hang with a banner at the plant February 13, 2012. Photo by Les Stone/Greenpeace
Environmentalists brave a cold rain to gather at the 7th annual I Love Mountains Rally Tuesday Feb. 14, 2012 at the Capitol in Frankfort, Ky. A protest against mountaintop mining removal for coal is held every year on Valentines Day. (AP Photo/John Flavell)
Down in Kentucky, as the Courier-Journal reports:
Speakers at the annual "I Love Mountains Day" rally at the state Capitol on Tuesday linked strip mining in Eastern Kentucky to tar sands oil extraction in Canada and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry the Canadian oil through the U.S. heartland to Texas.
It's all about an unhealthy dependence on fossil fuels, the speakers told about 1,000 people on the Capitol steps on a cold, wet afternoon.
"Why are we here today?" asked Steve Boyce, chairman of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, which organized the rally. "We are here as part of a growing new (clean) power movement that stretches from the Appalachian Mountains to the tar sands of Alberta and beyond."
The retired Berea College professor added, "We continue to learn over and over that what we do to the land, we do to the people."
There was also an interesting AP story about a different sort of protest involving coal:
When 200 activists in green T-Shirts marched along a pristine Myanmar beach to protest plans for a coal plant, they expected a long, tough struggle against the powers that be. But then, something bizarre happened.
A deputy Cabinet minister asked for a meeting. He listened patiently to their concerns about pollution. And then he told them the government agreed: It would halt construction of the controversial 4,000-megawatt plant on Myanmar's southern panhandle.
In a long-repressed country whose people have grown accustomed to living in fear of government authority, it all seemed too good to be true. Just last year, anyone who dared even demonstrate in public would have likely have been beaten or detained by security forces.
"We were shocked," said Aung Zaw Hein of the activist group, the Dawei Development Association, which staged the protest last month. "He asked us, 'do you love your region?' Then he said, 'We love it, too. We just need to work together.'"
In this photo taken Jan. 28, 2012, a man walks on a road to the Myanmar Dawei Deep Sea Port project site in Nabule township in Dawei, about 615 kilometers (380 miles) south of Yangon, Myanmar. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)
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