After two months of asking the state government to uphold their responsibilities to the public, Coal River Mountain Watch and community residents learned yesterday that the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) had approved Massey Energy’s revision of the Bee Tree mining permit for Coal River Mountain, meaning that Massey may begin blasting whenever they are prepared to move forward.

Extensive research has shown that Coal River Mountain has enough wind potential to provide electricity for between 100,000 and 150,000 homes, forever, while creating approximately 50 well-paying, permanent jobs in an area long dependent upon sparse, temporary coal mining jobs. The wind farm would also generate as much as ten times more county revenue than the Mountaintop Removal operations would, and in a county with a poverty rate of 18.5%, this additional income would help to stimulate new economic development projects and the creation of new jobs.

Despite the fact that both the Governor and the DEP have been presented with solid evidence supporting this claim, neither have acted to place a hold on the proposed mining. While Governor Manchin has ignored public opinion in support of a Coal River Mountain wind farm, the DEP has continued to exclude public comment on the mining permits, and now Massey Energy is set to begin blasting.

In the opinion of local residents, the behavior of the DEP suggests that the agency has circumvented the intent of the law in excluding the public from the permitting process. After citizens, on their own accord, discovered the application for the permit revision – which was submitted in order to bypass the current legal restriction on valley fills and sediment ponds – the citizens requested that the revision be classified as “significant,” and that a public hearing be held so that residents could make their case to the DEP against the proposed mining, and show their support for the wind farm proposal. This request was denied outright.

Now residents fear that the onset of mining, even for this first phase, will result in the loss of an opportunity to diversify the local economy and protect their homes from the negative impacts of Mountaintop Removal mining.

According to a survey published on September 25th by the Civil Society Institute and the Citizens Lead for Energy Action Now (CLEAN), 62% of West Virginian’s oppose Manchin’s decision against “stopping Massey Energy from using Mountaintop Removal coal mining to level a section of Coal River Mountain that could have been used for a wind farm.” Manchin has also ignored the protests of over 9,800 people across the nation who have signed the petition in support of the wind farm, including more than 900 from West Virginia alone, and the letter of resolution in support of the wind farm drafted by more than 30 community members who stand to be impacted by the mining.

The Coal River Mountain Wind project was awarded Co-Op America’s national “Building Economic Alternatives” award for 2008, which is given to one individual or group each year that strives to improve local economies through social or environmental action, and serves as a testament to the significance of the wind proposal and the benefits that it would bring to Raleigh County. This is an award that should have been recognized as a source of pride by all West Virginian’s, yet the Governor once again paid no attention.

It is time for Governor Manchin to do the right thing. He has been presented by members of Coal River Mountain Watch with research showing that a wind farm is the better economic option for Coal River Mountain. He has been told that the mining that could begin on the Bee Tree permit as early as today would immediately impact 24 Megawatts of wind potential, and therefore at least two permanent jobs related to the operation of the wind farm, and he knows that once a mining operation has begun it is nearly impossible for it to be stopped. His office has also received over 4,000 emails and nearly 500 phone calls calling for the Governor to stop the mining and support wind power.

The choice being made for Coal River Mountain between wind and Mountaintop Removal was also featured on CNN on October 6th, during which the DEP Secretary, Randy Huffman, stated that “There are only certain things that allow me to deny a permit, and what’s morally right or wrong in mine or someone else’s opinion is not one of those things.” So the citizens, after presenting the moral, environmental and economic arguments in favor of wind power, are now wondering what else they have to do to get the Governor to stand behind them, for while it is in his power to rescind the mining permits and allow a wind farm to be developed, Governor Manchin has so far refused to intervene.

However, Coal River Mountain Watch, along with concerned residents of the Coal River Valley, continue to ask the Governor to do the right thing for the state and for local residents by preventing the wind potential, and so the opportunity to stabilize and diversify the local economy, from being permanently destroyed by Massey’s Mountaintop Removal operation on Coal River Mountain.

To express your dismay and indignation over the potential destruction of Coal River Mountain, and ask Governor Manchin to make the choice to respect the residents of Coal River Mountain and invest in a green economy for West Virginia call his office at 1-888-438-2731.

Central Appalachian Coal is selling for 130.00 a ton. This is essentially the most expensive coal on the planet, mined in the most egregious of methods. This can’t be a good idea.coalpricesaresoaring

I recently had the opportunity to get out of the office for awhile and explore the coalfields of Southwest Virginia. This particular region of Appalachia is stunningly beautiful. Steep mountains, deep fertile valleys, and enormous rock formations. Driving out of North Carolina I was amazed at how different the composition of the mountains were from Western North Carolina. Long ridges and exposed rocky bluffs characterize the region.

As I slowly wound my way into the coalfields of Virginia, I began to experience a certain feeling that for me, inevitably accompanies time spent in the coal country. It’s an uneasy feeling, a realization that there are terrible things happening in the region all in the name of cheap energy. The deeper into southwest Virginia we drove the more intense the feeling became. The closer you get to coal country the more apparent it becomes. Coal trucks become the prominent vehicle on the small winding roads, men are seen in reflective striped clothing,work trucks rumble up hollows covered in grey dust, coal trains dominate rail traffic. Also endemic to the region are small depressed towns that have been subject to a century of boom and bust spurts of growth and recession.

I have spent a fair amount of time in the coal producing counties of West Virginia. It is where I was first exposed to the horrors of mountaintop removal coal mining. Consequently, when I think of mountaintop removal I instantly think of West Virginia. I visualize the mines that I have actually seen, the close personal friends who are suffering from the effects of this egregious form of mining.
I am painfully aware that mountaintop removal exists, and flourishes in Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia, yet I attach Mountaintop Removal to my own personal experiences, most of which have been in the coalfields of West Virginia…this would all change after my visit to Virginia.

I came to southwest Virginia, to explore a new region of Appalachia, and to experience firsthand the terrible accounts of the destruction that is happening there due to almost unregulated strip mining.

I had the unique opportunity to tour Wise County with a man that has lived there his entire life. He spent 31 years digging for coal in local deep mines. This former deep miner is outraged, and intensely saddened by the mining that is literally destroying his home (25% of Wise County has already been strip mined). He took me to high mountain ridges that allowed unencumbered views of the mines that are ravaging the mountains of Virginia. I looked on in silence at valley fills that spill mining waste into backyards, creeks that run orange with mining waste, and homes blanketed in coal dust covered by the the near constant stream of coal trucks that scream along the small county roads.

Pick a hollow in Wise County, follow the narrow lanes that lead into them, at the head of the hollow one of two things will likely confront you. An underground coal mine, or more likely the entrance to an enormous mountaintop removal mine. There is no hiding these mines. There are no veils of trees that obscure their utterly destructive nature. The hollows are not deep enough to allow the mountain tops to vanish with little notice. In Southwest Virginia these terrible strip mines are in your face, usually only hundreds of yards from neighborhoods.
I will forever equate mountaintop removal with this experience. I now can see that this form of strip mining is more than just a threat to West Virginia, it is a threat to the environment and culture an entire region.

The North Carolina Division of Air Quality (DAQ) has announced its intent to issue and air pollution permit to Duke Energy for its proposed Cliffside power plant. The last thing North Carolina needs is another filthy coal fired power plant. Pollution from the Cliffside Plant damages our health, the environment and is a significant contributor to global warming. If you’re concerned about your health, clean air, clean water, and your children’s health, the time to act is now!
It’s not too late to stop the new coal fired power plant. You can help by submitting written comments about your concerns to the DAQ and requesting that the DAQ hold public hearings across the state regarding the Title V permit.
Requests for public hearing must be in writing and include a statement supporting the need for a hearing.
The public comment period ends October 30, 2008.
Please submit your comments and request for public hearing to:
Michael Gordon, Division of Air Quality
1641 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, North Carolina 27699-1641

The North Carolina Division of Air Quality (DAQ) has announced its intent to issue and air pollution permit to Duke Energy for its proposed Cliffside power plant. The last thing North Carolina needs is another filthy coal fired power plant. Pollution from the Cliffside Plant damages our health, the environment and is a significant contributor to global warming. If you’re concerned about your health, clean air, clean water, and your children’s health, the time to act is now!
It’s not too late to stop the new coal fired power plant. You can help by submitting written comments about your concerns to the DAQ and requesting that the DAQ hold public hearings across the state regarding the Title V permit.
Requests for public hearing must be in writing and include a statement supporting the need for a hearing.
The public comment period ends October 30, 2008.
Please submit your comments and request for public hearing to:
Michael Gordon, Division of Air Quality
1641 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, North Carolina 27699-1641

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission has approved Xcel Energy’s voluntary closings of two coal-fired coal plants, the Arapahoe Plant near Denver and the Cameo plant in Grand Junction CO. Xcel Energy is the foremost power company in the state of CO, powering 70% of the state. This is the first time that a major company has volunteered to close a plant, let alone two, in order to meet emissions quotas. Governor Ritter called for a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020. The closings will reduce the emissions by 1.4 million tons per year. This is also a product of the Renewable Portfolio Standard (2004) that requires utilities to generate 10% of their power from clean energy by 2015.

They are not to be closed until 2010 and 2012 because they must remain operational until the new plants are built. Both produce 229 megawatts of power. Plans for a replacement 480 megawatt natural gas plant have been postponed at the moment. Ultimately the coal plants will be replaced with a 200 megawatt concentrated solar power plant, where molten salt will be used to store power long after sunset. Also, Xcel’s plans for a 850 megawatt wind-powered plant have also been approved. CO is setting a precedent that is a very good step in the right direction toward our country being self-sufficient in producing it’s own renewable energy. Hopefully the rest of the country will follow suit.

Here’s what Annie Kate had to say about Bringing Down the Mountains, a book about mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia by Shirley Stewart Burns:

Sacrificed to King Coal

A review of Bringing Down the Mountains by Shirley Stewart Burns

Morgantown WV West Virginia University Press, 2007. ISBN # 978-1-933202-17-4)

Review by Merrill E. Pratt

Mountaintop removal mining (MTR) can thought of as “strip mining on steroids.” MTR is used in the Southern Appalachian coal country of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee to quickly and cheaply mine the coal that lies in the mountains.

First, the timber is clear-cut and sold. Then the part of the mountain that sits on top of the coal is blasted apart and typically dumped in the nearest valley. The coal seam is then mined and treated. This treatment results in a mix of wastes, many of them toxic, called slurry. The slurry is contained in ponds made by erecting an earthen dam in a nearby valley or hollow. Since a mountain may contain several coal seams, the process continues until all the coal is gone. Unfortunately, a substantial amount of the mountain is also gone. Mine operators are required to reclaim the area when they are done, but this “reclamation” is most often a token effort.

In Bringing Down the Mountains, Shirley Stewart Burns describes and analyzes the effects of MTR on nine counties in Southern West Virginia. Southern West Virginia, with its high-volatility, low sulfur coal was one of the first areas to be subjected to MTR. She also gives a brief history of the relationships between the coal companies; the United Mine Workers’ of America (UMWA), and local, state, and federal elected and appointed officials. Thoroughly researched, using sources from all sides of the issues involved, as well as interviews with people involved in various aspects of MTR, Bringing Down the Mountainsfocuses on mainly West Virginia, although much of the book is applicable to the other states where MTR is practiced.

The picture that emerges is a deeply troubling one. For the short-term gain of no morethan an additional 10 years’ worth of coal production (which would supply less than 5% of the United States’ total coal consumption for that time period), Burns shows how the coal companies and their allies at all levels of government have ravaged the region. Further, she details how they have done this in a way that seems almost deliberately designed to preclude any economic diversification of the area. These areas, which have always been dependent on coal production for their economic livelihood, will be virtual ghost towns when the coal is mined out and the land abandoned. In effect the land, its biodiversity, and its people are being sacrificed for a very small bit of coal over a very small time frame.

With meticulous detail, Burns documents the various negative effects of MTR. These effects include:

# Economic factors, including:

* Loss of jobs in the area even as coal production is increasing,
* No commitment by state and local governments to better infrastructure and economic diversification,
* And diminished property values

# Environmental factors:

* decreased water quality,
* loss of aquatic and terrestrial habitat,
* increased incidence and severity of flooding,
* changes in habitat as a result of “reclamation an restoration” efforts, which introduce non-native plants to the mine site.
* the destruction of some of the most bio-diverse ecosystems in the world
* and the virtual destruction of some of the earth’s oldest mountains.

# Health factors including:

* the effects of diminished water quality on the people of the area,
* the effects of the persistent coal dust (at one point so thick that the staff at an elementary school had to wash the coal dust of the entire kitchen every morning),
* and the accidents resulting from extremely large coal truck traveling on very narrow, twisting mountain roads.

# Social factors including the breakup of extended families because there are no viable jobs in the area and the destruction of the once-viable Southern Appalachian culture.

Ms. Burns also attempts to trace the relationships between the coal companies, government officials at all levels, and even the UMWA as they combine to ensure the continuation of MTR without effective regulation. Burns shows how, for over 100 years, the West Virginia state government has been essentially an extension of the coal and railroad companies. Federal agencies are not exempt from her scrutiny, either. She details how the US Corps of Engineers has issued waste disposal permits for MTR operations, even though the issuance of such permits is by law under the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency. Also detailed is how agencies at all levels (especially in the Bush administration) have re-interpreted and re-defined regulations to favor the coal companies. Successful lawsuits against the coal companies in Federal District Court are routinely overturned on appeal. Appeals from Federal courts in West Virginia are reviewed by the Fourth Circuit Court in Richmond, VA, thought by many to be the most conservative or all Federal Circuit Courts. The Fourth Circuit has yet to rule against the coal companies.

All is not gloom and doom, however. Burns also talks about organizations and individuals that are fighting the uphill battle to rein in MTR, or at minimum force the mine operators and Federal and state regulators to adhere to current mine safety and environmental protection laws. Despite great odds, there have been a few successes, including a successful lawsuit to block the forced sale of the Caudill family’s ancestral home to an MTR operation. Among the organizations highlighted are Coal River Mountain Watch, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Save Our Cumberland Mountains, and Appalachian Voices. Burns writes about the individual efforts of people such as Judy Bonds, Larry Gibson, Mary Miller, Pauline Canterberry, and US District Judge Charles D. Hadden II.

Shirley Stewart Burns is a West Virginia native with three generations of underground coal miners in her family. She has an undergraduate degree in journalism and graduate degrees in both sociology and history. Her family background and love of the region, and her dismay at what MTR is doing to her home, are evident in the passion of her writing. Her scholarship and academic background keep her passion focused on the facts. Bringing Down the Mountains is without a doubt the first book you should read if you want to learn more about MTR, how it came to be, what it does to the earth, and what is being done to try and stop, or at least slow down, this very destructive process.

To see the post at its original location, check out the Life in Small Bites Environment Blog.

The Public Welfare Foundation’s Newsroom posted this article about the Alliance for Appalachia and its two-year $225,000 grant:

New Appalachian Alliance receives $225,000 grant

Washington, D.C.–The Public Welfare Foundation has awarded a two-year, $225,000 grant to the [Alliance for Appalachia], a cooperative effort launched by 13 advocacy groups in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The Alliance aims to stop mining companies from shearing off mountaintops to get at coal deposits, a practice which the US Environmental Protection Agency estimates has damaged or destroyed at least 400,000 acres of southern Appalachian forests and 1,200 miles of mountain streams since the 1980’s.

“By combining forces, we feel very strongly we have a better chance of protecting these communities and stopping mountaintop removals,” says Mary Anne Hitt of Appalachian Voices, an advocacy group based in Boone, NC. “We’re trying to build a national network of people who will help change federal policies and educate decision-makers on mountaintop removal.”

Opponents of mountaintop mining argue that it not only wreaks havoc with the environment but that it also sinks Appalachian communities deeper into poverty. “One of the biggest tragedies of mountaintop removal is that it has left in its wake some of the worst poverty in the nation,” says Hitt. “You’d think that with all the billions of dollars being extracted out of these areas, the streets should be paved with gold. But it’s the exact opposite.”

Much of the profit flows out of state in the form of royalties to out-of-state owners or proceeds from coal sales. Automation has reduced the number of jobs in mining. “The vast majority of the profits are going out of those communities,” says Hitt, “and what’s left behind is a toxic, denuded landscape that’s not very attractive for future economic development.”

“I grew up in the mountains, and there were trees and plants and lots of wildlife,” says Terri Blanton of Berea, Ky. “People supplemented their income by collecting different herbs, ginseng being the most important of them.” Such woodland plants don’t grow back, she says, after nearby mountaintops have been leveled and the topsoil stripped away, and tougher non-indigenous grasses introduced to mined areas can’t sustain wildlife such as deer.

“It’s almost like you’ve been transplanted into the desert someplace,” says Blanton. “And mountaintop mining also destroys the water tables and the aquifers underneath. We’re having a lot of heavy metal runoff. It’s killing the streams – they’re just gravel pits, like drainage ditches. People live in the valleys, so when it rains, we’re having great floods, and all our streams are running with dirt. People down here say the Kentucky River is too thick to swim and too thin to plow.” Silt fouls drinking water, kills fish and, without mountain vegetation to hold water, the valleys become caught up in cycles of drought alternating with flash floods.

The situation could worsen by 2012, when the US Environmental Protection Agency projects that mountaintop removal mining could encompass some 1.4 million acres of Appalachian wilderness and 2,400 miles of streams, obliterating the habitat of countless birds, fish, wildlife and plants and scarring a vast landscape rich in natural and human history.

Over the summer, after years of waging often futile local campaigns to block nearby mountaintop mining operations, citizens’ advocacy groups across the southern Appalachian region decided to band together to form the multi-state Alliance. The Public Welfare Foundation, which had previously awarded grants to five Alliance member organizations over the past four years, strongly encouraged those groups to coordinate efforts and take advantage of force-multipliers such as shared research, litigation, leadership development and training and public and media strategies. In addition to the $225,000 committed by the Foundation, alliance members are seeking $200,000 from several other foundations and funding sources.

Alliance leaders say their first priority is convincing federal policymakers to retain a regulation barring surface and mountaintop mining from disturbing land within 100 feet of a stream. The US Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining is proposing to do away with the so-called “stream buffer zone” rule. Over the longer term, Alliance members plan to intensify their efforts to raise public awareness about the damages inflicted on highlands and the communities below when stream beds are buried under tons of mining rubble. In 2002, federal officials loosened anti-dumping regulations issued under the US Clean Water Act. That’s a stance the citizens’ groups hope to reverse.

“Dumping mountaintop waste into streams makes it economical for them to do mountaintop removal,” says Hitt. If filling streams with rubble is banned, she argues, it stands to reason that many mining companies will shift to more surgical coal extraction methods, creating a more conducive climate for farming, tourism and other industries.

To check out the article in its original form, visit The Public Welfare Foundation’s website.

Greenpeace International recently released the results of its study on the proposed practice of carbon capture and storage (CCS) at the world’s coal-fired power plants. CCS is an integrated process made up of three parts: carbon capture, transport, and storage, including measurement, monitoring, and verification. CCS technology must have a concentrated stream of CO2 in order to compress, transport and store the greenhouse gas. Transport of compressed CO2 will most likely be along pipelines, and the storage of CO2 will be conducted in geological formations either on land or under the sea. CCS has been touted by members of the coal and utilities industries as their answer to the harmful effects of burning fossil fuels for energy. However, Greenpeace’s new study, “False Hope: Why Carbon Capture and Storage Won’t Save the Climate,” discounts industry claims that CCS technology could save the Earth from the effects of climate change.

First on the list of shortcomings is perhaps the most important flaw with CCS technology. Analysts from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) say “CCS will arrive on the battlefield far too late to help the world avoid dangerous climate change.” As it stands today, the earliest CCS technology would be available for use on the utility scale in 2030, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does not expect CCS technology to be feasible on a commercial scale until the middle of the century. Even then, coal-fired plants responsible for between 40 and 70 percent of the electricity sector’s CO2 emissions would not be viable for use of CCS technology. But even where CCS would be a possibility, the technology would not formally arrive on the scene by the 2015 deadline set by many scientists for maximizing CO2 emissions. As the Greenpeace report puts it, “If CCS is ever able to deliver at all, it will be too little too late.”

Another problem with CCS cited by the study is that CCS technology wastes energy. Estimates show that CCS technology will use between 10-40% of a power plant’s output. This reduction in efficiency will mean that we must mine, transport, and burn more coal for a plant to produce the same amount of energy as it did before using CCS. Power stations would also require up to 90% more water to run by implementing CCS. Wide-scale adoptions of CCS could negate the efficiency gains of the last half a century.

Greenpeace also notes that storage of CO2 underground is likely to be risky. For starters, the IEA estimates that for CCS to have a meaningful impact on climate change, there must be 6,000 separate projects by 2050 which store one million tons of carbon dioxide per year each. As of now, there is no evidence that the technology will be able to handle this much CO2, especially when we consider that there may not be enough storage sites and that available sites may not be within close enough proximity of power stations. Estimates show that transport of carbon dioxide over 100 km will make CCS economically unviable. Moreover, experts are unsure whether or not it will be possible to manage burial sites for the timetables necessary, and geological formations have the possibility of leakage. Some believe a leakage rate as low as 1% could negate efforts to reduce climate change.

Furthermore, development of CCS technology and implementation on the scale required is extremely expensive. Spending so much money on new technology for coal-fired power plants will keep necessary funding away from developing renewable sources of energy. Analysts estimate that the price of carbon emissions will have to increase by a factor of five in order to pay for the building of coal-fired power stations compatible with CCS technology and the infrastructure necessary for transportation and sequestration of captured CO2. Research also shows that electricity generated from coal-fired plants with CCS technology will be more expensive to consumers than electricity generated from wind or many types of sustainable biomass. Greenpeace’s Future Investment report shows that investing in renewable sources of energy would save $180 billion annually and cut carbon emissions in half by 2050.

Within the industry itself, Greenpeace notes, there is unwillingness to develop and implement CCS technology because of the liabilities associated with it. Large scale liability risks for CCS include negative health effects, damage to ecosystems, pollution of groundwater including drinking water, and increased greenhouse gas emissions from storage leakage. Because there is no system in place to determine liability for these problems, the industry is unwilling to implement CCS until there is a framework in place to protect it from long-term liability. In fact, they are opposed to CCS unless they are relieved of ownership of the CO2 once it is transported off the power station, and potential operators will not agree to store the CO2 unless they are relieved of ownership of the CO2 after ten years. In all cases, the industry is asking their governments to take ownership of the carbon dioxide, which means that the public will assume the risk and pay for any damages resulting from CCS technology.

Finally, Greenpeace notes that CCS is just a distraction from the solutions the world already has to climate change. Greenpeace’s Energy [R]evolution blueprint shows that renewables, combined with an increase in energy efficiency, can cut global CO2 emissions by 50% and deliver half the world’s energy needs by 2050. Greenpeace says, “The same climate decision-makers who were skeptical about CCS believed far more in the ability of renewable technologies to deliver reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.” Decades of technological advancement have delivered renewable technologies such as wind turbines, solar photovoltaic panels, biomass power plants, and solar thermal collectors into the mainstream, while the collapse of FutureGen, the Bush administration’s flagship CCS project failed.

All in all, the Greenpeace study shows that CCS technology is just a smokescreen that hides the real solutions to climate change: use of renewable energy sources and greater energy efficiency. These two options are available to us today and carry none of the risks of CCS technology. To read more about “False Hope: Why Carbon Capture and Storage Won’t Save the Climate” and download it and its Executive Summary visit Greenpeace’s website.

Green Jobs for America is a national campaign to educate the public about the need for investments in good, green jobs — jobs that will fight dangerous global warming, move America toward energy independence and end our harmful dependence on fossil fuels. Led by the United Steelworkers, Sierra Club, Blue Green Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council and including other partners, Green Jobs for America is calling for better jobs and a better energy future for our children. The Green Jobs for America campaign is at work in twelve states: Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. Download the campaign brochure.

NEW REPORT: JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE GREEN ECONOMY
Job Opportunities for the Green Economy: A State-by-State Picture of Occupations that Gain from Green Investments is a new report from the Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The report examines 12 states and the people employed in occupations affected by six green economic strategies: building retrofitting, mass transit, energy-efficient automobiles, wind power, solar power and cellulosic biofuels. It also looks at what the average wages are in each state for these jobs. Job Opportunities for the Green Economy makes clear that millions of U.S. workers—across a wide range of occupations, states, and income and skill levels—will benefit from a movement to defeat global warming and transform the United States into a green economy.
Read the national report and press release.
Read state fact sheets: Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Read more about the Political Economy Research Institute and the Center for American Progress
By Robert Pollin and Jeannette Wicks-Lim of the Political and Economic Research Institute

WHO WE ARE
We’re the millions of people who are members of the labor unions and environmental organizations behind the Green Jobs for America campaign. On the face of it, we might seem like different sorts of people. But the values and causes that unite us are greater than any differences you might think we have. In fact, we’re united in rallying support here for changes that Washington needs to make.
Read more about the Blue Green Alliance, United Steelworkers, Sierra Club and NRDC.

Question Dear Umbra,

I noticed that several of the presidential primary debates were sponsored by clean coal. This was announced during breaks and several commercials aired. I have since seen several more commercials and online advertisements. Is clean coal an oxymoron? Is this a PR stunt or are there any real environmental benefits to clean coal that rival solar and wind? See www.americaspower.org.
Andrew S.
Brookline, Mass.

Answer Dearest Andrew,

The link you sent to America’s Power is a divine example of clean, selective fact presentation: “Sometimes, we tend to forget about the role electricity has on our lives. Did you know that half of the electricity that heats our homes, lights our schools, and powers our businesses comes from coal?” What about sports events? Is coal involved in sports events? Because I feel a cheer coming on.

Cleaner coal?
It’s time to turn the page on coal.
I think these penetrating insights are meant to sway us over to the coal. I do forget the role electricity has on my life, and I do forget that half of the United States’ electricity supply comes from coal. These coal people know me so well. They seem so nice. Too bad I want them all out of business.

Why? Because coal is affiliated with our most famous environmental problems here in the U.S.: Almost all acid rain is coal-derived; coal is the leading source of mercury emissions; mountaintop removal mining has destroyed ecosystems in the Southeast; and now, it is one of two fuel sources most closely affiliated with global climate change.

It is this last infamy that so concerns not only coal executives but anyone with half an ear tuned to the dire radio station of the future. Coal is a currently cheap, plentiful domestic fuel; it is also plentiful in other electricity-hungry nations such as India and China. In the U.S., electricity from coal already produces more carbon dioxide emissions than the entire transportation sector.

So clean coal is both an oxymoronic PR stunt and a general term for efforts toward better coal-derived power. The Clean Coal Technology Program of the Department of Energy started back in 1985, so in a way clean coal refers to any of the cleaning techniques (scrubbers, washing) that can make coal more palatable and less deadly to our health and planet. Coal plants have, in fact, made improvements over the past few decades in response to acid rain-related governmental regulations regarding sulfur, particulates, and nitrogen oxides.

These days, clean coal mostly seems to refer to reducing CO2 emissions. The issue of coal and global warming is simple: Coal is a horridly dirty fuel that contributes frightening amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, and we can’t afford to increase the amounts of CO2 we add to the atmosphere. Newer ideas behind the “clean coal” phrase are gasification — a thermo-chemical, non-burning way to get energy from coal — and carbon capture and storage/sequestration (CCS). Remember the great idea of sending nuclear waste into space? CCS is the carbon counterpart: Take our world-destroying gas and pump it into underground holes or deep ocean caverns.

Herein lies the dilemma: Should we spend money and time researching and developing technology to make coal less awful? Or is this a stupid misdirection of human capital, better spent on solar, wind, hydro, ocean power, and conservation? Within these basic choices lie multitudes of questions about global responsibility, costs per kilowatt, the potential of technology, the role of corporate money in government policy, and the will of the people.

Does coal have environmental benefits to rival solar and wind? No. But it’s easy to burn and there is tons of it. That bounty and our hunger for electricity complicate things. And boy, is it complicated.

Of course, this summary of the issues is necessarily and shockingly brief. But if you wish to learn more, you’re in luck: You can find a lot of satisfyingly dense information about the clean coal debate on our very own Gristmill blog.

Loyally,
Umbra

Monday June 23, 2008
Protect the coast but not West Virginia?
Offshore regions were sheltered, but this state was not

The year was 1981 when Congress decided to save the U.S. continental shelf by declaring a moratorium on offshore gas and oil drilling and exploration.

The moratorium has protected virtually the entire Atlantic and Pacific coastlines and sections of the Gulf of Mexico since.

It was probably the proper way to handle it 27 years ago. We were awash with crude oil from foreign countries that were either our friends or scared of us. Natural gas shortages were not a problem.

And, of course, to drill in the continental shelf meant there was a possibility of ecological disaster. Tourists like to turn their eyes to the sea without seeing manmade oil rigs.

And, of course, an oil spill or two could damage expensive seaside property and the sensitive marine environment.

Today, things have changed radically, and President George W. Bush is urging Congress to lift the ban on offshore drilling as a way to reduce dependence on foreign imports and out-of-sight energy prices that threaten the U.S. economy in a way it hasn’t been threatened perhaps since the Great Depression.

But that’s not what bothers me the most about all this.

My mind wanders back to1981, and I must ask why Congress really voted for the moratorium without thinking of the other ecologically sensitive places it was giving tacit approval to destroying for the sake of energy consumption.

Places such as West Virginia.

There has been very little discussion given to the way mountaintop removal mining is, in many ways, more certainly a destructive force than drilling a few miles offshore from California or Florida.

Tourists traveling to these sunny destinations don’t want to see drilling rigs for sure, but do those who travel to Southern West Virginia and those who live there want to see a bare mountaintop devoid of the hardwood that had been growing there for thousands of years?

The danger of an offshore oil well spilling crude onto the beaches is a possibility, it’s true.
But with care and regulation, it can be controlled or eliminated.

What about the mud and boulders that rain down on houses and the West Virginia landscape with frequency around mountaintop removal mines? It’s more of a certainty than seaside oil spills, I suspect.

All this begs a question: Are some states and regions meant to be protected while others are meant to give up their natural resources without a whimper?

Did Congress ever consider that the ecology of West Virginia is just as valuable as the ecology of Florida and California?

Or is West Virginia simply one of those states that is meant to be used up in order to provide the rest of the country with the energy it needs?

“California’s coastline is an international treasure. I do not support lifting this moratorium on new oil drilling off our coast,” said California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Well, some of us think West Virginia’s mountains are a treasure that needs to be protected as much as the U.S. coastline.

But that doesn’t seem to matter, does it?

I’m all for getting the coal out of West Virginia as long as doing it doesn’t bring destruction to our mountains.

And I suspect that if the moratorium on drilling offshore is allowed, Congress and the EPA will make absolutely certain the beauty of our coastline is not compromised.

Not too late for our coast. But sadly, I fear it’s too late for West Virginia.

Peyton may be reached by e-mail at david.peyton@gmail.com.