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Brian Sewell

Brian is an environmental news junkie concerned with our lagging energy policy and revealing the true cost of coal on our health, the environment and the climate. He is Appalachian Voices' Director of Strategic Advancement.

For Patriot Coal, Ending Mountaintop Removal is a “Win-Win”

Thursday, December 26th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | No Comments

A little more than a year ago, Patriot Coal announced it would phase out its use of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia as part of a settlement with environmental groups over selenium pollution. Taken at face value, statements made at that time by Patriot’s CEO Bennett Hatfield held promise that the movement against mountaintop removal, focused on exposing the poor economics as well as the irreversible environmental impacts of the destructive practice, had reached a pivotal turning point. [ Read More ]

Five Years After the TVA Coal Ash Disaster, What Do We Have to Show For It?

Thursday, December 19th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | 3 Comments

It's been five years since more than a billion gallons of coal ash flooded rivers and neighborhoods surrounding the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promised to take action, but to this day Americans are asking the EPA: "Where are you?"

We went back to December 2008 to track political and social progress around the globe, and put it side-by-side with the lack of progress the EPA has made toward protecting clean water and our health from toxic coal ash. Check out the timeline below and click it for a larger version.

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However Long Overdue, Our Energy Efficiency Opportunity Is At Hand

Tuesday, December 17th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | 2 Comments

Today’s Bloomberg View editorial bears a headline at once forehead-slapping simple and frustratingly complex: Energy Efficiency Is Long Overdue. “On a global scale, we humans are becoming more energy efficient with each passing year,” the Bloomberg piece begins. “Even so, we’re exploiting only a fraction of the technological opportunities to use energy more cost-effectively.”

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The Clock is Ticking on Coal Ash: EPA Given 60 Days to Set Deadline on Regulation of Toxic Coal Waste

Thursday, October 31st, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | No Comments

This week, a federal court gave the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 60 days to propose a deadline for rules regulating toxic coal ash. Photo from southeastcoalash.org

After years of delays and setbacks, the clock is finally ticking on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to propose a deadline for federal regulations of coal ash.

On Tuesday, a federal judge gave the EPA 60 days to file a written submission setting forth a proposed deadline for its review and revision of regulations concerning coal ash, along with its legal justification for the proposed deadline.

This victory for clean water and healthy communities came almost month after the court sided with Appalachian Voices and our allies, agreeing that the EPA has a duty to stop the delays and issue federally enforceable safeguards for the toxic coal waste. You can read the memorandum issued this week by the court here.
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Appalachian Coal Losing Another Customer: Eastern Kentucky as a Case Study

Thursday, October 24th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | No Comments

TVA’s Paradise coal plant in Muhlenberg County, Ky., relies entirely on coal from the Illinois Basin, which includes mines in western Kentucky. Recently, utilities in the Southeast have looked beyond Central Appalachia, even to reserves within a day’s drive, to purchase cheaper coal.

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Paradise Fossil Plant sits on the banks of western Kentucky’s Green River. The largest coal plant in the state, Paradise consumes approximately 7.3 million tons per year — none of which comes from Central Appalachian coal mines.

Although TVA recently announced it was cutting almost all of its use of Central Appalachian coal, a spokesperson for the utility pointed out that Paradise will still receive coal mined in Kentucky. But that portion of TVA’s coal purchases will be from mines in Kentucky’s western coalfields, just a few hundred miles from most of the state’s Appalachian coal-producing counties. Even just a day’s drive apart, the two reserves have dramatically different outlooks.

According to the most recent Kentucky Quarterly Coal Report, between April and June of this year, western and Eastern Kentucky coal mines each produced around 10 million tons of coal. But on a longer timeline, production and employment in Kentucky’s western counties have steadily increased while the state’s Central Appalachian mines have suffered.
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In Wake of Shutdown, Polls Point to Congress’s Unpopularity and Public Support of EPA

Monday, October 21st, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | No Comments

Recent polls reveal the unpopularity of Congress, and North Carolinians’ and Virginians’ support for environmental protection.

Two recent polls reveal that North Carolinians and Virginians strongly approve of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to regulate carbon emissions from new power plants and the agency’s role in protecting clean air and water for all Americans.

According to a Public Policy Polling survey of 803 North Carolinians commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council, roughly seven in ten residents say they oppose efforts to delay EPA’s work to cut carbon pollution, protect the environment and public health. So it should not come as a surprise that a majority of North Carolinians hold an unfavorable view of elected officials who suggest the EPA is overreaching or even unnecessary.
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In Defense of the Earth: An Appalachian Poet’s Presence

Wednesday, October 16th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | 4 Comments

Stream “Wendell Berry, Poet & Prophet” below or watch it on Moyers & Company by clicking here.

Widely celebrated as a caretaker of the culture and myth of rural America, Wendell Berry has a distinct drawl and speaks like he writes, eloquently but with simple words and equal parts conviction and compassion. Beyond being a renowned poet and author, Berry is an abiding presence in the environmental movement — especially among those of us who live in or love Appalachia.

A new presentation by Moyers & Company, “Wendell Berry, Poet & Prophet,” provides a portrait of the literary icon’s growth and influence, his relationship with the land and his hopes for humanity.

Among the topics covered — industrialization, wealth inequality, the indifference of elected leaders to environmental degradation — is Berry’s anti-mountaintop removal activism, and his participation in a four-day sit-in at the Kentucky governor’s office to protest mountaintop removal.
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Appalachian Coal Losing Another Customer: High Prices Push Utilities to Competing Reserves

Thursday, October 10th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | 2 Comments

TVA’s Kingston Fossil plant is one of the many coal-burning facilities in Central Appalachia’s front yard. Yet, fewer and fewer plants in the Southeast are purchasing coal from Appalachia. Instead, utilities are looking to the cheaper Powder River and Illinois basins. Photo from tva.com

We posted a piece yesterday about the retirement plans for Brayton Point Power Station in Massachusetts – the most modern coal-fired power plant in New England – and how some are calling its eventual closure a death knell for coal in the Northeast.

Or, as Jonathan Peress of the Conservation Law Foundation said in a press statement, “if [Brayton Point] can’t make a go of it, none of them can.”

Unsurprisingly, the owners of Brayton Point, like most other utilities that are retiring plants or converting them to burn other fuels, cited the surplus of low cost natural gas and the ongoing market transformation it has caused as major factors in coal plant closures nationwide.

The fact that the nation’s natural gas boom is hastening the decline of Central Appalachian coal is no secret. But it leaves out any mention of the challenge from cheaper coal and competing reserves. In turn, inescapable aspects of the forces shaping coal’s future in the region rarely see the light.
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Appalachian Coal Losing Another Customer: New England’s Largest Coal Plant to Close

Wednesday, October 9th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | No Comments

This week, Brayton Point, New England’s largest coal plant and a purchaser of Appalachian coal, was announced for retirement.

The Brayton Point Power Station, a 1,600-megawatt power plant in Massachusetts and New England’s largest coal-burning facility, has been in operation for nearly 50 years. But recently it started to seem like no one wanted to be responsible for the aging plant. Yesterday, the plant’s owner announced plans to retire Brayton Point by May 2017.

Energy Capital Partners, a private equity firm and the current owner of Brayton Point, said a number of factors contributed to the planned shutdown, including low electricity prices, a surplus of natural gas, and the need to invest “significant capital to meet environmental regulations and to operate and maintain an aging plant.”
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A Pressing Matter: Facing the Utility Death Spiral

Monday, September 30th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | No Comments

The complex tax credits, state and federal incentives, and cost of renewable energy can make your head spin. But with increased adoption and efficiency, distributed generation is creating a different kind of cycle.

The most recent issue of The Appalachian Voice includes a story about distributed energy generation, especially rooftop solar, and the ways communities, nonprofits and entrepreneurs are helping each other democratize the grid.

But as they do, we’re seeing just how much old-school utilities are entrenched in old-school models that, while a bit dated, are still dominant.

I ended that story with a bit of hope by reiterating that “regardless of the scale or speed, greater education and supportive policies have already created consumer participation and a movement to democratize the grid,” and wondering whether “utilities will use their power to lead or find that they have been forced to follow?”

Well, a lot has happened on the distributed energy frontier in the past few months. Summer is a good time to go solar after all.
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Kentucky Congressman John Yarmuth Joins Influential Energy and Commerce Committee

Friday, September 20th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | No Comments

A champion in the fight to end mountaintop removal, Kentucky Congressman John Yarmuth is joining the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Kentucky Congressman John Yarmuth joined the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce this week, putting him in the middle of debates concerning environmental and energy policy.

The committee will also oversee the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Yarmuth voted for Obamacare, and has been its lone defender in Kentucky’s federal delegation.

Yarmuth is filling the vacancy on the committee left by former Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who was recently elected to the U.S. Senate.

The panel’s ranking Democratic member, California Rep. Henry Waxman, proposed that Yarmuth serve on Energy and Power Subcommittee, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, and the Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee.

For years, Yarmuth has been a leader in the fight to end mountaintop removal coal mining. And as a Democrat from an Appalachian coal-mining state his voice is especially meaningful. Yarmuth has been a primary sponsor of the Clean Water Protection Act in previous sessions of congress and is currently a cosponsor on the bill.
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Mountaintop Removal in a Nutshell: Tremendous Environmental Capital Spent for Modest Energy Gains

Thursday, September 12th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | No Comments

To meet current U.S. coal demand through surface mining, an area the size of Washington, D.C. — about 68 square miles — would need to be mined every 81 days, according to a new study.

We talk a lot about the external costs of mountaintop removal. And by understanding the true costs that coal puts off on the landscapes, water and communities of Central Appalachia, it’s abundantly clear that the costs far outweigh the benefits to all but a few.

But still we hear arguments about the need for a balance between the environment and the economy.

As elected leaders and industry representatives delude themselves and others, yet another study has concluded that mountaintop removal is simply not worth it. Here’s the simple takeaway from the conclusion of “The Environmental Price Tag on a Ton of Mountaintop Removal Coal”: Tremendous environmental capital is being spent to achieve what are only modest energy gains.
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