Hey TVA: Have You Read Your Mission Statement Lately?

Amazingly, TVA had no legal obligation to keep this from happening!

I guess this is some kind of legal maneuver over “standing” or some such (I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer), but apparently the Tennessee Valley Authority’s lawyers claim that 58 people suing over the Kingston coal ash spill were not harmed by their 1.1 billion gallons of toxic coal slurry spill back in December 2008.

The money quote is this:

The motion filed in Knoxville said TVA has no legal obligation to keep its reservoirs safe for public recreational use and enjoyment.

Really? You so sure about that?:

Mission Statement

The mission of the Tennessee Valley Authority is to develop and operate the Tennessee River system to improve navigation, minimize flood damage, and to provide energy and related products and services safely, reliably, and at the lowest feasible cost to residents and businesses in the multi-state Tennessee Valley region. TVA’s integrated management of the entire Tennessee River watershed optimizes the benefits of the water resource. Major functions of the corporation include:

• Management of the Tennessee River system for multiple purposes including navigation, flood control, power generation, water quality, public lands conservation, recreation, and economic development;
• Generation of electricity;
• Sale and transmission of electricity to wholesale and large industrial customers;
• Stimulation of economic development activities that generate a higher quality of life for citizens of the Tennessee Valley;
• Preservation and environmentally-sensitive management of TVA assets and federal lands entrusted to TVA; and
• Research and technology development that addresses environmental problems related to TVA’s statutory responsibilities for river and land management and power generation.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, but it sure sounds to me like TVA has a legal obligation to keep its reservoirs safe for public recreational use and enjoyment. We're always hearing about TVA's tri-fold mission of power generation, economic development and natural resource management. It's something they tout everywhere, including places like this:

What is TVA?

The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federal corporation and the nation’s largest public power company. As a regional development agency, TVA supplies reliable, competitively priced power, supports a thriving river system and stimulates sustainable economic development in the public interest. TVA operates fossil fuel, nuclear and hydropower plants, and also produces energy from renewable sources. It manages the nation’s seventh-largest river system to reduce flood damage, produce power, maintain navigation, provide recreational opportunities and protect water quality in the 41,000-square-mile watershed.

I realize lawyer-types like to weasel their way around the law by saying things like "our client has no legal obligation to keep its reservoirs safe for public recreational use and enjoyment," leaving us all to assume that whatever river and land management they've done up to this point has been out of the goodness of said clients' hearts. But having worked for TVA in a former life and constantly having their trifold mission drilled into my head I am thinking ... no. I have to say all of us in the Tennessee Valley are certainly operating under the assumption that there is a legal obligation to manage the river system for things like recreation which, let's face it, is a key part of the economic development picture.

But again, I'm not a lawyer. I will say this: if the courts agree that TVA has no legal obligation to keep its reservoirs safe for public recreational use and enjoyment, then the first order of business should be amending the TVA Act to make sure that they do.

All Of Those Leaky Offshore Oil Wells

Well this is just peachy. AP has discovered the Gulf of Mexico is littered with over 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells, some dating back to the 1940s. None are being monitored to determine if they are leaking which, considering the age of some of these wells, they undoubtedly are.

I wrote about one such well three weeks ago. Taylor Energy’s Ocean Saratoga rig has been leaking 10 miles off the Louisiana coast since Hurricane Ivan hit back in 2004! (Remember when John McCain said hurricanes don’t affect offshore oil rigs? Yeah, me too.)

The Ocean Saratoga leak has been small -- an estimated 14 gallons a day -- but over six years it’s created a 10-mile-long oil slick captured on satellite. Worse, Taylor Energy says they’ve been working all this time to plug the leak. Okay, I’m going to call bullshit on that. Six years, people? You can’t stop a small oil leak after six years? If that’s the case, then things look pretty dim for BP's gusher. Excuse me for saying this, but I don't think the folks at Taylor Energy are trying very hard.

Anyway, I’m not surprised that the AP has uncovered leaky oil and gas wells going back decades. I’m not surprised that this is suddenly a news story. But I am surprised that people in the industry whose business it is to know about such things have basically kept quiet about it. I’m disturbed that the Interior Dept. has not conducted inspections, nor did it mandate that the oil industry do so. I'm tired of us ignoring things until a major disaster occurs, at which point we pass some legislation which inevitably is ignored.

I’m not surprised, but I’m very, very bothered by this:

Regulations for temporarily abandoned wells require oil companies to present plans to reuse or permanently plug such wells within a year, but the AP found that the rule is routinely circumvented, and that more than 1,000 wells have lingered in that unfinished condition for more than a decade. About three-quarters of temporarily abandoned wells have been left in that status for more than a year, and many since the 1950s and 1960s — even though sealing procedures for temporary abandonment are not as stringent as those for permanent closures.

As a forceful reminder of the potential harm, the well beneath BP's Deepwater Horizon rig was being sealed with cement for temporary abandonment when it blew April 20, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in the nation's history. BP alone has abandoned about 600 wells in the Gulf, according to government data.

(Before we go any further, let me say the very first thing on the agenda for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation & Enforcement (formerly MMS) should be an immediate and thorough assessment of all abandoned oil wells.)

There seems to be a pattern here. After the Kingston coal sludge disaster, we learned about more leaky TVA coal sludge ponds. But what was done about it?

The EPA has spent the past year assessing coal ash containment facilities. Last month they announced two options for dealing with coal ash, one regulating it as “special waste” and one treating it as “non-hazardous” which means basically keeping things exactly the way they are:

The EPA itself admits that under its weaker option, many states will not adopt strict federal guidelines and that approximately 50% of the coal ash generated in the U.S. will continue to be managed under state programs that do not require basic disposal safeguards.

I wonder which option the coal industry and electrical utilities support?

It cannot be stated often enough or loudly enough: there is a cost to our inaction and denial. We simply can no longer afford to put the needs of the energy industry above the needs of everyone and everything else. We can no longer tolerate one industry riding roughshod over everyone and everything else.

We cannot allow Big Oil and King Coal to dictate the health of the water we drink and the air we breathe, to destroy an entire fishing industry for which we have no alternative. Oil and coal are important to our economy right now, that’s a fact of life. But they are transient. Guess what: we have alternatives to oil and coal. We don't have alternatives for clean air and water.

My message to Big Oil and Big Coal is a simple one: you’re selfish, greedy and irresponsible. Sorry guys, but you know it's true. You're important, but we do have alternatives. On top of which, your business depends on a finite resource. God stopped making dinosaurs a few million years ago. So if you want to keep playing on our playground, quit being bullies.

Learn to share.

The Value Of Things

I had plans to do a really awesome Earth Day message but this isn’t it.

I’ve been so angry at our Tennessee state legislature over its asinine mountaintop removal mining inaction and the even more asinine commentary we heard from these nimrods up at the legislature.

Folks like Rep. Frank Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains, who said:

"If we're going to have elk, you gotta have somewhere for them to stay. If they don't stay up in these highland balds, they're going to be down on the highways and they'll be down on my farm and spreading disease and tearing down fences and getting out on the road killing people. An elk weighs 1,500 pounds. A deer weighs 300 pounds. If you hit an elk, the people in the front seat are probably dead, at least one of them."

”Highland balds?” For elk? Are you kidding me? There’s just so much stupid in that comment I don’t even know where to start, but how about the fact that habitat destruction is why we haven’t had free roaming elk in the state of Tennessee since 1865. We just reintroduced them to the Smoky Mountains in 2001 and you’re already worried about the roadkill? Yeah, let me just say I’m laughing my ass off at you.

One of the things that annoys the hell out of me about the whole coal debate is when people say it’s “cheaper” than other alternatives right now, so goshdarnitall, we’ll just have to suck it up and blow the tops off those mountains and dump the tailings in those streams because we have to stoke the furnace of progress! You know, I’ve already blogged about how that’s cooking the books, about how these figures always ignore things like Tennessee’s $1.2 billion+ coal ash spill, all of the other leaky coal ash ponds, not to mention miners dying in Massey Energy coal mines, health problems like cancer and heart disease downstream from surface mines, and on and on and on.

But it’s bigger than that. We also don’t factor in the value of what we’ve lost when we destroy those mountains and streams. We don’t consider that a forest isn’t just a piece of land or something pretty to look at or even the economic value of its timber. It’s a living system and it performs a function. Forests and streams provide water storage, flood management, even reduce the severity of floods. Trees take the Co2 and pollutants out of the atmosphere and replace it with oxygen, earth’s natural breathing mechanism provided to us, free of charge.

And here’s the thing: we haven’t invented a substitute for these natural living systems! When they’re gone, we’re all screwed. We have no air-scrubbers, no one has created the photosynthesis machine. The reason we can’t put a value on this is because it is truly priceless. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Removing a mountain top to mine the coal is like taking all the sinks and toilets out of a new house and selling them at a yard sale. Sure you got some cash for the fixtures, but where are you going to pee and wash your dishes? You can’t keep borrowing your next door neighbors’ bathroom and sink because, ironically, they sold their fixtures at the same yard sale.

Maybe once upon a time we thought one little ol’ mountain didn’t matter but we’re at a point where we’re throwing things out of balance. Water is getting polluted, our weather patterns are getting disrupted. People are getting sick.

And to not care about that reality of life on earth just to score a political point, punch a hippie, throw your friends at Big Coal a bone, or whatever is just so ignorant and short-sighted. It really boggles the mind.

Don't Hate The Player, Hate The Game

Well okay, hate the player. Massey Energy and Don Blankenship are certainly deserving of our scorn. But while our hearts go out to the families of the West Virginia coal miners who lost their lives, and our anger is turned on Massey Energy, which appears to have bought every politician which has stood in its way, we all need to look in the mirror, too.

Coal produces 54% of our electricity in this country. Every time you flip a light switch or crank up the air conditioning or purchase another appliance, think about where we get the juice to power that equipment. Think about what you are doing to keep the Massey Energies of this country in business.

Look, folks: coal ain’t cheap, regardless of what TVA’s Tom Kilgore and the folks at Big Coal would have you believe. It just looks cheap because when they’re crunching the numbers, they only count part of the cost. They don’t factor in the cost of cleaning up all those leaky coal sludge ponds, and the environmental and health costs associated not just with coal burning but also things like mountaintop removal mining.

(And while we’re talking about this, good for Senator Lamar Alexander, who last year introduced a bill that would basically ban mountaintop removal mining. This is so huge and significant and Lamar deserves a flood of phone calls thanking him for taking this step. And every other senator needs a phone call asking them to support the Cardin-Alexander Appalachian Restoration Act.)

However, it’s not enough. We need to do more, and we need to do it faster. West Virginia, Kentucky and other Appalachian states need to transition their economies away from the coal mines which have forced people to choose between poverty and poison. And some choice that's been: these states are still among the country’s poorest. People need jobs but they shouldn’t have to choose between poisoning their communities and risking their lives just to put food on the table.

Hate the player all you want, folks. But the problem is the game.

There are things we all can do to cut our coal consumption. At the Beale household we swapped out leaky old windows. When we remodeled our house we purchased energy-miser appliances. I close our blinds in the summer to keep the sun out, which does an amazing job of keeping the house cool. We changed our light bulbs to CFL’s. We signed up for TVA’s Green Power Switch program. And lastly, we put up a solar array on our roof, so NES actually pays me. I am sure we still use some coal, but not as much as we used to.

If you need some ideas on simple things that can save you lots of money in utility bills, as well as the true cost of coal, check out the film "Kilowatt Ours."

We aren’t perfect at the Beale household. Our house is old and there are energy leaks all over the place, especially around old door frames. We use way more electricity than we should. But it’s a start.

Meet Big Coal's Candidate

Did Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey ask former Republican state Senator Raymond Finney to drop his bill banning mountain-top removal mining at the behest of a big contributor?

A NewsChannel 5 investigation revealed the powerful leader of the state senate, Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey, who is also running for governor, gets far more from coal interests than anyone else. One former senator claims Lt. Governor Ramsey asked him to drop a bill that would have banned most types of mountain top mining.

[...]

Since 2009, people with an interest in coal contributed more than $300,000 to people running for office in Tennessee. We found that more than $195,000 went to the powerful leader of the state senate, Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey or his political action committee.

The NewsChannel5 report points out that coal is a small industry in Tennessee, employing fewer than 400 people. Yet when asked if he’s the “pro-coal candidate,” Ramsey responded:

"No, I'm the pro-business candidate. No, I'm pro-jobs candidate. That's exactly what I am," Ramsey responded.

Yeah well you’re also an idiot if you think anyone buys that line of BS. How many jobs do tourism and outdoor recreation provide? How about the jewel of Tennessee, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park? How many jobs do our beautiful mountains brings us, clean water for sport fishing and deer hunting in our mountains? More than 400? I think so--squared. And squared again.

You know what I find interesting? The fact that just one new solar energy project -- ONE -- will employ more people in its new Knoxville plant than the entire coal industry in the entire state of Tennessee.

Cripes. What a maroon. You’re not pro-jobs. You’re pro Ron Ramsey’s campaign account. And you’re certainly not pro-Tennessee, pro-clean air, pro mountains.

What a fraud.

Free Hand Of The Market Alert

A "Friends Of Coal” specialty license plate?

Is this a joke?

Sadly, no. Even worse is why they want the money:

Under their plan, the proceeds would go "to Tennessee surface mine reclamation fund to be used for reclamation and revegetation of property affected by mining and exploration operations."

Oh, I’m sorry, I thought that fell on your balance sheet. You know, it’s the cost of your fucking business. You want to fundraise for that via a state vehicle like specialty license plates? Well whoop-ti-do. Why don’t we have a specialty license plate for every business out there? Accountants, law firms, insurance companies, you name it. We could let the proceeds go toward buying copier paper and printer toner cartridges. Come to think of it, how about a specialty license plate for bloggers to pay for our ISP connections? Hell that makes more sense, since few of us make money off our blogs anyway.

I mean Jesus Christ on a blown-up mountain top. Who thought this was a good idea?

Not just no but HELL NO.

Sadly, with 0ur clueless, dysfunctional, wackadoodle state Republicans in charge, I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that a “Friends of Coal” specialty license plate is the first one approved. Because there’s nothing conservatives like more than an opportunity to piss off liberals--it is, indeed, the only reason they exist. They just love to show us Dirty Fucking Hippies who’s boss, don’t they?

Specialty license plates were created to support non-profit ventures: the arts, schools, state parks. Not a for-profit business raking in fistfuls of dollars while destroying our environment.

How about a specialty license plate for people who can't afford healthcare?

A Friend Indeed

A specialty license plate for “Friends Of Coal”??

Seriously?

You’ve got to be kidding me. Even worse: the co-sponsors (both Republicans, naturally--State Sen. Mike Faulk of Kingsport and Rep. Jon Lundberg of Bristol) are both within shouting distance of Kingston, site of the massive coal ash spill of 2008.

Hey, Roane County: looks like they just flipped you guys the bird. That’s some kind of messed up neighbors y’all’ve got.

So in conclusion: the same week we learn House Republican Caucus chair Glen Casada, anticipating last week’s SCOTUS decision, filed a bill to lift corporate campaign spending bans in state races, we have two guys from East Tennessee wanting a “Friends Of Coal” specialty license plate.


Good to know they are looking out for the little guy.

Choosing Between Poverty & Poison

I’m watching a re-run of CBS 60 Minutes’ piece on toxic e-waste sent to China. This quote from Jim Puckett of watchdog group Basel Action Network resonated:

“It’s a helluva choice between poverty and poison. We should never make people make that choice.”

Damn straight. It’s what we’re talking about when we discuss “environmental racism” and “eco-justice.” It’s also little different from how we are dealing with the toxic coal ash from last year’s Kingston Fossil Plant spill, save by degrees. Indeed, the toxic coal ash from Kingston is now being hauled to a landfill in economically depressed, predominantly African American Perry County, Ala. And it’s causing a rift in that community because we’ve basically asked those folks to make a choice we never should have burdened them with.

These stories always seem to follow the same pattern. On the one hand there is the lure of money and jobs:

A per-ton “host fee” that the landfill operators pay the county will add more than $3 million to the county’s budget of about $4.5 million.

The ash has created more than 30 jobs for local residents in a county where the unemployment rate is 17 percent and a third of all households are below the poverty line.

Money is great but short term profits are not worth long term environmental and health damage, say many in the community:

“I won’t feel comfortable,” wrote W. Compson Sartain, a columnist for The Perry County Herald, “until I see a delegation from E.P.A. and T.V.A. standing on the courthouse square, each member stirring a heaping spoonful of this coal ash into a glass of Tennessee river water this stuff has already fallen into, and gargling with it.”

(Sartain might be interested in United Mountain Defense’s challenge to “clean coal” pitchman/sport fisherman Jeremy Starks, as well.)

And, as always, there is a general lack of education and information about the risks:

Mr. Cureton reasoned that the ash, a byproduct of burning coal to produce electricity, could not be more dangerous than the remnants of the coal that heated his schoolroom growing up, or the ash his father, a farmer, sprinkled at the base of his fruit trees.

But coal ash from a power plant has a higher concentration of toxins because mercury, arsenic and other substances that are filtered out by air pollution controls end up in the ash. Since the spill in Tennessee, the Environmental Protection Agency has promised to issue new regulations for coal ash, potentially classifying it as a hazardous waste.

People like Mr. Cureton, who I have no doubt is sincere in his efforts to do the best for his community, are why issues of environmental racism and eco-justice are so pernicious. But I’d remind these people that there is no such thing as a free lunch. And if taking this coal ash waste were such a great thing, well, we’ve got some landfills here in Tennessee, in counties that could use those jobs and that money. Gotta ask yourself why we’re shipping it out of state to begin with.

Of course, none of this would be an issue if “clean coal” were as “clean” as the coal lobby likes to pretend.

I use the pronoun “we” for a reason in this post. Because this is our mess. We all created it, in our use electricity. Of course, we have few choices if we’re going to live a normal life in this culture. But there are things we can do. We can conserve. We can sign up for programs like TVA’s Green Power Switch. And some of us can help generate alternative fuels by putting solar panels on our roofs.

And maybe in this way we can bring some justice and jobs to our neighbors, instead of dumping our toxic trash on them.

Because we should never ask anyone to choose between poverty and poison so we can prosper and live in comfort.

Lamest Marketing Idea Ever

This would be the coal industry’s new coloring book for kids which features “Power Rock” (pictured at left) and his sidekick “Spurt.” Is it my imagination or is Power Rock giving me the evil eye?

It all comes from Families Organized to Represent the Coal Economy (FORCE, which pretty much describes what the coal industry is trying to do to Americans). Ironically, FORCE is a coal industry group which does not actually allow families to join. Instead, as Grist discovered:

"membership is through coal and coal related company sponsorship. When a company joins it agrees to distribute FORCE materials and information to its member employees. This distribution network helps FORCE maintain a low overhead while supplying high quality service to its members.”

Apparently membership is just for

“Any Pennsylvania company doing business with the coal industry...”

Oh, I see. So in other words, if you work for a Pennsylvania coal company, you will likely get coal industry propaganda to take home to your kids.

Sorta like a drug pusher making sure the next generation of addicts is secured.

One problem though: media releases issued under the name “Families Organized” does sorta indicate that it’s an organization of families, not businesses. But in this era where truthiness is more important than fact, I’m sure our clueless, Google-challenged news media won’t even notice.

“Clean Coal” Lobby Hired Bonner & Associates

Well, knock me over with a feather! It seems that it was none other than the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) who hired the lying lobby firm Bonner & Associates. And they are shocked, SHOCKED to find lies and astroturfing going on, such as faked constituent letters, to defeat the cap and trade legislation.

Yeah. Okie dokie.

Report: Big Problems At TVA Coal Ash Sites

Can’t say we didn’t see this one coming, but at least it’s now official:

Consultants hired by the Tennessee Valley Authority report widespread problems with how the federal utility is running and maintaining its coal ash storage operations.

By the way, TVA is not just a "federal utility," it is a federally owned corporation. But I digress:

The report by McKenna Long and Aldridge of Atlanta follows the massive spill of more than 5 million cubic yards of coal ash December 22 at the Kingston Fossil Plant about 40 miles west of Knoxville.

The consultants said the "necessary systems, controls and culture were not in place" to properly manage the coal ash sites at TVA's 11 coal-fired power plants.

The report found TVA had no standard operating or maintenance procedures and failed to conduct annual training for engineers doing inspections. It said there was little or no internal
communication between the four TVA divisions responsible for ash retention.

The firm presented its findings to the TVA board Tuesday.

Hmm, with that in mind, I remind everyone that last February TVA shuffled its executive staff around, moving former coal operations chief Preston Swafford to head TVA’s nuclear operations.

Let’s hope Mr. Swafford manages TVA’s nuclear waste better than he did its coal ash.

House GOP Circulates Anti-Climate Bill Document Written By Coal Company CEO

[UPDATE]:

ThinkProgress has more.

----------------------------

Wow, you know it’s bad when you’re so deeply in bed with the country’s largest coal company that you forget to take the CEO’s name off of a PowerPoint presentation you’re circulating:

House Republicans are circulating a PowerPoint document that purports to show the regional breakdown of costs for energy consumers under the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill. The header: “Most States Lose Under the Pending Climate Bill.”

The catch? It appears to have been authored by the coal giant Peabody Energy.

[...]

A line at the bottom of the document reads, “Based on Energy Information Administration (EIA) and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data”—but there’s no indication of the particular studies used. (The CBO numbers likely come from a report that the CBO itself says is not about Waxman-Markey and almost certainly overstates costs, since it only quantified costs, not benefits.)

Dig a little deeper by looking at the “properties” of the PowerPoint document and you learn that it was produced by Peabody Energy—with CEO Greg Boyce listed as the “author” and communications services manager Chris Taylor listed as the “manager.” Yes, the world’s biggest coal producer is literally writing Republican talking points. Oops!

Oh, oops indeed.

Meanwhile, the Democrats aren’t getting off scott-free, either. My e-mail in-box has been flooded with calls to remove a “Trojan Horse” inserted in the climate bill:

Unfortunately, members of the House who answer to the worst polluters have succeeded in including a Trojan Horse at the heart of the legislation - a prohibition on Obama's EPA being able to use the Clean Air Act to take additional action on CO2.

This little known, almost secret provision actually guarantees that the United States will fall short of doing what the scientists tell us must happen - a reduction of 80% of CO2 emissions from their 1990 level.

The coal and oil lobbies are spending every last ounce of energy and creativity to hold onto their old business model, instead of working towards a clean future. Isn’t that the same short-sighted thinking that kept GM making gas-guzzling SUV’s for the American market while manufacturing fuel efficient cars for overseas buyers? They kept saying Americans wouldn’t buy the cars Europeans were buying. Once again: Ooops.

And I don’t get these global warming deniers who refuse to believe that climate change is caused by human activity. That’s asinine but fine, if you want to believe that, go ahead. That still doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop polluting our air, blowing up Appalachian mountains, dumping billions of gallons of toxic coal ash sludge on rural communities, and giving our children increasing levels of asthma and the like when there’s a cleaner alternative. The excuse that “those green companies are just trying to make money” is pretty stupid, too: I thought making money was the engine that drove our economy?

Obama Will Do What Bredesen Will Not

Scrap Bush’s last-minute mountain-top mining rule, that is. From the Washington Independent:

“In its last weeks in office, the Bush Administration pushed through a rule that allows coal mine operators to dump mountaintop fill into streambeds if it’s found to be the cheapest and most convenient disposal option,” Salazar said in a statement. “We must responsibly develop our coal supplies to help us achieve energy independence, but we cannot do so without appropriately assessing the impact such development might have on local communities and natural habitat and the species it supports.”

Yet no one is under the delusion that the change will end the practice of mountaintop mining, in which companies blow apart the tops of mountains to reach the coal seams within, often pushing the soil, rock and debris into adjacent stream valleys. Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, issued a statement Monday applauding the administration’s move, but warning that much remains to be done to protect the ecosystems and communities near mining operations.

True, no one is under that delusion. Which is too bad. But this is a start.

I live for the day when we can rally at the state capitol and demand that our Governor, who purports to be a Democrat, ban this heinous practice in Tennessee. Bredesen has already said he won’t do so, citing the most BS reasons.

Mountaintop removal mining, unchecked by the government, amounts to a huge government subsidy of the coal industry. "Clean coal," indeed. The price of this practice is never reflected in the cost, but the day will come when we have to pay the piper.

I live for the day when consumers such as myself can sufficiently express our distaste of the coal industry in our consumption choices. True, there’s the “Green Power Switch” (which I’ve done for a couple of years) and alternative energy sources -- I have solar panels on my roof. But like it or not, I’m still consuming coal.

Coal consumption is built into the system. I have no way of living coal-free and if anyone wants to choose an alternative energy source, say solar panels on the roof or a windmill in their backyard, the costs are passed on to the consumer, while other technologies enjoy government subsidies.

It’s time to level the playing field.

Maryland Learns The Truth About Clean Coal

So much for "clean coal": a 4,000-gallon coal ash spill at a Maryland paper mill narrowly avoided disaster by, luckily, being only 4,000 gallons (Tennessee’s was over a billion gallons).

In other news: paper mills create coal ash sludge? Apparently, yes:

The ash comes from coal the company burns to power the mill. Three 800-foot pipelines carry the ash to a 1.2 million gallon storage lagoon across the river.

Wow, that’s alarming news. How many smaller coal sludge lagoons dot the landscape across the country, I wonder? Who’s regulating them? Who's monitoring them? Who's watching the pipelines to make sure there aren't any leaks, which is what happened here?

These coal ash ponds contains arsenic, radioactive elements, and other toxins. And apparently they’re as common as swimming pools in Southern California.

The New Face Of “Clean Coal”

[UPDATE]:

Vis Kathryn S in comments, how could I forget Frosty The Coal Man?

--------------------------------

How to tell your PR campaign is floundering: they unveil an insanely stupid cartoon mascot :


Oh wow, that’s so kewl. Put a pair of sunglasses on a lump of coal and we can forget about all the billions of gallons of coal ash sludge that destroyed a big chunk of Kingston, Tennessee.

They must think we’re really, really stupid.

[UPDATE]:

Vis Kathryn S in comments, how could I forget Frosty The Coal Man?

Honesty

This video just about broke my heart:

Your Tax Dollars At Work: “Clean Coal” Division

Boosters of the mythic “clean coal” are lining up for federal grants to see their shiny-sparkly vision of clean energy become reality. Guess they figure there’s a pony under all that coal ash.

The latest is from Holland, Michigan, America’s tulip capital:

The U.S. Department of Energy will soon be looking at a Clean Coal Power Initiative grant application that could lead to carbon capture and sequestration at Holland’s James De Young power plant. The road to this point has been a long one, however, and is far from an eventuality.


The grants — totaling $300 million — would allow Praxair to test full-scale carbon capture and sequestration. It is estimated a grant for a 78-megawatt boiler project at the Holland Board of Public Works’ plant could be about $150 million.


Praxair Inc. is set to file its application for the DOE grant Monday, Jan. 12.

$300 million is a mere pittance compared to the $1.9 billion in federal funds Illinois legislators are begging new Energy Secretary Steven Chu to reinstate for that state’s FutureGen project. And that's just the tip of the iceberg:

Among other things, the coal industry is asking for money to help expand and, ideally, commercialize carbon capture and storage projects—widely seen as the most plausible way for the coal industry to reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide—as well as for additional investments in coal research and technology. And like many energy groups, it is asking the federal government to get serious about expanding the transmission grid, which in coal's case would allow new plants to be built closer to mines, thereby lowering costs.

Says Luke Popovich of the National Mining Association: "The bigger point here is that you can't talk seriously about a green energy grid and a greener, less impactful energy supply without spending on carbon capture and storage, because not only the U.S. but the developing world especially will increasingly use coal owing to its low cost and abundance."

Uh, yeah. But what exactly are we going to do with all of that carbon we’ve “captured”? And if we can spend $1.9 billion to figure that out, then why can’t we spend $1.9 billion to figure out how to put a solar panel on the roofs of America’s homes and businesses?

All Of Those Leaky TVA Ponds

Folks, when I said the TVA coal sludge spill wasn’t the first and won’t be the last, I wasn’t kidding. And when I said the Kingston disaster should be coal’s Three Mile Island, I meant it.

Witness this news item from this morning (h/t, reader fuzed-T):

TVA waste pond ruptures in Ala.; spill contained

STEVENSON, Ala. (AP) — A waste pond at a coal-burning power plant in northeast Alabama ruptured early Friday, but the spill was quickly contained, utility officials said.

The spill, about 30 miles southwest of Chattanooga, Tenn., was the second rupture at a Tennessee Valley Authority facility in recent weeks. In late December, a dike burst at a plant near Kingston, Tenn., releasing more than 1 billion gallons of toxic-laden ash into a neighborhood.

The leak was discovered at about 6 a.m. Friday at the plant near Stevenson, said TVA spokesman John Moulton. Most of the material from the leak flowed into a settling pond at the plant site, but some spilled into nearby Widows Creek, he said.

The leak has stopped and the TVA is conducting temporary repairs on the pond, Moulton said.

The federal utility said the pond contained gypsum, a material that is captured in air pollution control devices at the coal-burning plant, and is different than the type of sludge that spilled in Tennessee. Gypsum is a naturally occurring mineral that contains calcium sulfate, which is used to make wall board, cement and fertilizer.

Gypsum is what my friend at TWRA said is used to mix with coal ash, which is then manufactured into drywall and cinder block.

Anyway, rumor has it that TVA’s Johnsonville Fossil Plant outside of Waverly, TN is operating with a sludge pond (pictured at right) which is 20 years past its life expectancy. That should set off alarm bells, considering TVA brags on the Johnsonville website that this fossil plant "consumes some 9,600 tons of coal a day."

I don't mean to alarm anyone--or hell, maybe I do--but leaks have been reported at the Johnsonville sludge pond since 2003. Also:

Newschannel 5 also learned the state reported erosion in 2006 at a dike at TVA's Cumberland Fossil Plant in Stewart County.

Gosh I feel so much better now. Not.

Meanwhile, back in May TDEC approved reissuing Johnsonville’s permit to dump

ash pond discharges, water treatment plant wastes, discharges from sump stations, discharges from metal and non-chemcial metal cleaning, discharges from coal yard drainage, and storm water runoff through Outfall 001; steam condenser cooling water, miscellaneous equipment cooling/lubricating water through Outfall 003; metal cleaning wastewater via IMP 005; intake screen backwash through Outfall 010; settled ash slurry from the main ash pond, runoff from ash stacking, and direct rainfall onto the sedimentation pond through Outfall 011; air conditioner noncontact cooling water through Outfall 013; Electrical Control Building noncontact cooling water through Outfall 017

into the Tennessee River.

I’m sure we have nothing to worry about and everything is just peachy. Really.

Lamar Alexander Destroys The Landscape

Paging Sen. Lamar Alexander! Yes, I’m talking to you, buddy. You’re shameless, you know that?

Your pitiful performance at yesterday’s TVA ash spill hearings are made all the worse when one remembers your previous jihad against wind power because you thought turbines "destroy the landscape.” Of course, it’s hard not to remember that and immediately think of your opposition to the CapeWind project on Nantucket Sound that would have interfered with the view from your $800,000 Cape Cod land.

You wanna talk about destroying the landscape? Check this out:



The first one is how they get the coal, by removing the tops of mountains.

And here’s a coal sludge pond on a good day, you know, a day where it hasn’t busted its dike and flooded a community. Do you like that landscape Sen. Alexander? Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

As guess as far as those hearings yesterday goes, Alexander forgot what the word “oversight” means, because that’s what they were supposed to be about. Instead we got questions from the Senator on the cost per kilowatt hour to generate electricity, comparing coal to other means such as hydro, solar and, ooopsie daisy, wind. Guess who came out on the top end of that cost analysis? Of course, that doesn’t include the $100 million+ clean-up costs associated with an accident at just one coal fired plant. And even TVA CEO Tom Kilgore admitted that those costs are for older coal-fired plants, not new ones.

Look, I’m not a big proponent of wind power per se. I’m more of a solar girl, truth be told. But I’ve seen wind farms out West and I don’t find them especially ugly; they can be quite beautiful in a hi-tech sort of way. Not everyone has the same taste, I get that. But if you’re going to oppose a form of alternative energy, doing it on aesthetic grounds is pretty moronic when the one you’re touting is probably the ugliest blight on a landscape one could imagine, from start to finish. And let’s face it, Alexander’s economic argument just doesn’t hold water.

I’ve long believed that Lamar Alexander is one of those people who is riding a “moderate” image that is completely undeserved. He talks the talk but when push comes to shove he doesn’t walk the walk.

Here’s a brief look at his record on energy:

• Voted NO on tax incentives for energy production and conservation. (Jun 2008)
• Voted YES on removing oil & gas exploration subsidies. (Jun 2007)
• Voted YES on making oil-producing and exporting cartels illegal. (Jun 2007)
• Voted NO on factoring global warming into federal project planning. (May 2007)
• Voted NO on disallowing an oil leasing program in Alaska's ANWR. (Nov 2005)
• Voted NO on $3.1B for emergency oil assistance for hurricane-hit areas. (Oct 2005)
• Voted NO on reducing oil usage by 40% by 2025 (instead of 5%). (Jun 2005)
• Voted NO on banning drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Mar 2005)
• Voted YES on Bush Administration Energy Policy. (Jul 2003)
• Voted NO on targeting 100,000 hydrogen-powered vehicles by 2010. (Jun 2003)
• Voted NO on removing consideration of drilling ANWR from budget bill. (Mar 2003)
• Keep efficient air conditioner rule to conserve energy. (Mar 2004)
• Rated 0% by the CAF, indicating opposition to energy independence. (Dec 2006)
• Open the Outer Continental Shelf for oil & gas leasing. (Jun 2008)
• Establish energy security strategy with domestic production. (Jul 2008)

And now we’re stuck with him for another six years.

Lamar Alexander: Wanker Du Jour

It was really nice of Sen. Alexander to spend his time at these TVA hearings boosting the TVA board he helped create and touting the cost-effectiveness and other wonderful properties of “clean coal.”

No questions to Kilgore at all about how this is going to increase our utility bills. No questions about whether Mr. Kilgore might want to forego his million-dollar “incentive” bonus.

I guess Lamar has forgotten who he represents in the Senate. It sure isn’t us.