As Congress was returning from the August recess, there wasn’t much news about the climate bill. The only energy-related news breaking through the coverage of the rancorous health care debates and town-hall tea parties was a study on “energy sprawl” published by five staff members of the Nature Conservancy.

“Renewable Energy Needs Land, Lots Of Land” was the headline of an August 28th story on NPR about the study.

“Renewable technologies increase energy sprawl,” was the headline summary on the journal Nature’s website.

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, in an Op/Ed published in the Wall Street Journal, summed up the message that was heard by legislators and the public from the news coverage of the study:

“we’re about to destroy the environment in the name of saving it.”

The interesting thing about the news coverage is that none of it addressed the actual analysis. The study didn’t actually measure the impacts of different energy technologies, but rather compiled estimates from a smattering of reports, fact sheets and brochures from government and industry sources in order to arrive at an acre-per-unit of energy figure for each energy technology. Those figures were then applied to the Energy Information Administration’s modeling of four climate policy scenarios under consideration by Congress.

So the coverage was generated not by the study’s results, but entirely by the assumptions that went into it about the relative impacts of renewable versus conventional energy technologies. Looking at the counter-intuitive findings (wind is 8 times as destructive as coal), it’s no wonder that the media took such an interest.

To put those assumptions in perspective, the habitat impact of the Mount Storm Wind Farm in the first image is assumed to be 25% greater than the impact of the 12,000 acre Hobet mountaintop removal mine in the second image (images are taken from the same altitude and perspective; the bright connect-the-dots feature in the windfarm image is the actual area disturbed):

“Garbage in, garbage out” is a concept most people are familiar with, but the problems with the “energy sprawl” study go farther than that.

When I taught a course in ecological modeling, we used a hypothetical study on acts of violence in industrialized countries to examine how you could generate any result you desire simply by choosing how to define an “act of violence.” For instance, if you wanted to show that the French are the most violent industrialized society, you might define rude treatment by waiters as an act of violence. The study does something very similar, but worse – it fails to define a consistent measure of land-use impact across the various energy technologies it purports to compare. It’s as though we defined “acts of violence” to include rude treatment only by French waiters, but not by German, English or American waiters.

While I won’t get into detail of the math and science (a full analysis and response is in preparation), here are just a few of the jaw-dropping errors and assumptions that went into the study:

• A 2 megawatt wind turbine is assumed to disturb between 100 and 120 acres of wildlife habitat (smell test: does it really make sense that one of those wind turbines you always see on television is disturbing more than 100 football fields worth of land?). These estimates were not from published studies, but from portions of brochures discussing the area required for ideal placement of a windfarm. Instead of using additional estimates from those same brochures that only 3-5% of that area is directly impacted, the study used vaguely-worded, unreferenced and unsupportable biological justifications to include the other 95-97% in their analysis.
• The acreage impacts of coal mining, from Wyoming to Alabama, were extrapolated from one mine in Illinois, and apparently one other mine, though no location, details or references were provided. In the case of Appalachian mining, a casual examination of available data reveals that many – probably most – Appalachian mines exhibit a “landuse intensity” 5 to 10 times higher than either estimate used in the study.
• The impacts of blowing up a mountain and dumping resulting toxic-laden waste into nearby valleys and streams is treated as a comparable disturbance to, say, being located several hundred yards away from a wind turbine. Worse, fragmentation of habitat (the category that increased wind’s alleged impacts by 95-97%), was only considered for renewable technologies but not for nuclear and coal, despite a wealth of published studies showing fragmentation effects as much as five times greater than the footprint of a strip mine.

It’s obvious that the authors of this study don’t spend a lot of time thinking about coal mining (the fact that they refer to underground or deep mines as “pit” mines is revealing). That could partly explain the distorted picture the study gives of the impacts of coal mining, but the assumptions are so consistently weighted against renewable energy that it gets hard to ignore. If the pattern of assumptions so consistently tilted against renewables and in favor of coal and nuclear doesn’t raise a red flag, consider the language used in the study. The EIA’s “No International Offsets/Limited Alternatives” scenario, which would emphasize rapid expansion of renewable energy technologies (and which purportedly creates the most “energy sprawl”), was renamed the “Few Options” scenario by the authors. A real gem of a PR strategy from the group that came up with “energy sprawl.”

As for the policy options that the study’s results (and assumptions) favor, the “Core” scenario from the EIA’s analysis of the Warner-Lieberman climate bill was renamed the “CCS” scenario – shorthand for carbon capture and storage. This could also represent a real tipping of the hand as to the policy priorities at the Nature Conservancy. That, in turn, would go a long way toward explaining the blind spot the Nature Conservancy possesses regarding the wholesale destruction of the most biologically diverse forests and streams on the continent through mountaintop removal coal mining. The fact that plants installing CCS will need to consume at least 15-30% more coal to produce the same amount of electricity (if and when CCS becomes available), would cause a little cognitive dissonance in anyone concerned about the environment but supportive of widespread CCS deployment.

What the study didn’t look at

From the perspective of communities impacted by coal mining, a study on energy impacts that looked no further than the land area affected by mining was never going to carry much weight anyway. EPA biologist Gregory Pond, who published a study in 2008 showing the loss of entire orders of insects downstream from mountaintop removal mines, told the news media when the study was released:

“While habitat degradation from mountaintop mining is what one sees on the surface, we found that chemical effects are quite pronounced and limit much of the expected biodiversity from what were once naturally rich, diverse Appalachian stream systems.”

The most important factors in the “what the study doesn’t look at” category, however, are the impacts of energy on people and communities. The thousands of people in Appalachia without access to clean and safe drinking water do not show up in the “energy sprawl” study’s land impact estimates. The photo on the right of a child in Prenter, West Virginia, is the lead photo of a remarkable piece of reporting from the New York Times that provides a lot of insight into the awful tragedies faced daily by families in Appalachia who are forced to drink and bathe in water polluted with coal waste.

The authors of the “energy sprawl” study stated explicitly that aquatic and health issues are not what the study was about, and it wouldn’t be fair to blame them for any failure to address those problems. It’s the inevitable distortions of the study that do the most violence to those fighting for safe homes and clean drinking water in coal and uranium-bearing regions. The lead author addressed some of those distortions directly, shortly after Senator Alexander’s “We’re destroying the environment in the name of saving it” op-ed. Here are a few excerpts from his post on the Nature Conservancy’s blog:

First, climate change is the big threat to America’s wildlife (and to our communities). Severe climate change has the potential to imperil many more species than energy sprawl.

Moreover, we show in our paper that most of the energy sprawl from now to 2030 will happen regardless of whether or not there is a comprehensive climate bill. By far the largest amount of energy sprawl will come from biofuel production, driven by the renewable fuel standard and other laws already in place.

So I say to everyone writing or blogging about energy sprawl: If you are concerned about energy sprawl, then fight for energy efficiency!

The Nature Conservancy’s tireless efforts to support energy efficiency, build awareness of climate change, and bring climate policy to the table deserve both thanks and respect. But the concept of “energy sprawl,” now that it has been associated with such a distorted picture of the impacts of wind, solar, coal and nuclear technologies, adds nothing but confusion and false impressions to the debate over climate.

The study also does a lot of harm to those working to reduce the impacts of mining and to promote green jobs in their communities. “Nature Conservancy says wind and solar are more harmful than coal” is a talking point that will be repeated in mine permit hearings, utilities commission proceedings, letters to the editor and at coal rallies across the country for years into the future.

There is no way to repair the concept of “energy sprawl” at this point. Environmental and climate advocates would do well to strike that buzzword from their lexicons and literature entirely.

Burn this blog post after reading.

cross-posted with Huffington Post and iLoveMountains.org

Watch this insightful piece from WCHS-TV Eyewitness New. From the WCHS-TV Website:

Appalachian Voices is pleased to commend West Virginia Democratic Senator Robert C. Byrd, Senator Jay Rockefeller, and Congressman Nick Rahall for standing up to Massey Energy, and demanding that the company pay to relocate Marsh Fork Elementary. Their words are an encouraging sign that the efforts of coalfield citizens to protect their health and communities is being heard at the highest levels, and that some relief may be on the way.

Senator Byrd led the way with the following words Wednesday afternoon (via Coal Tattoo).

“Such arrogance suggests a blatant disregard for the impact of their mining practices on our communities, residents and particularly our children. These are children’s lives we are talking about,” said Byrd.

“If Massey were not operating near Marsh Fork Elementary, we would not be debating what to do about moving these young students someplace safer. This is not the taxpayers’ burden to remedy. This is Massey Energy’s responsibility to address.”

Byrd added that, “Let me be clear about one thing – this is not about the coal industry or their hard-working coal miners. This is about companies that blatantly disregard human life and safety because of greed. That is never acceptable.”

“At a time when coal is under such close scrutiny, coal companies operating in West Virginia should be working together to put their best foot forward. For the sake of the entire coal industry, Massey Energy should strive to be a better and more responsible corporate citizen. And for the sake of the kids, they should address these serious environmental concerns at Marsh Fork Elementary immediately.”

Senator Byrd, as he so often has, is able to sum of what many of his constituents in the communities around Marsh Fork have been feeling for a long time. These are children’s lives at stake, and its not up to Massey or anyone else to play political games with our kids’ lives. Senator Byrd even gets in a dig at Don Blankenship’s political action committee, which is called – ironically – “And for the sake of the Kids.”

Congressman Rahall and Senator Rockefeller were equally unequivocal in their statements that the kids and the communities deserve better from Massey.

Congressman Rahall represents West Virginia’s third district, where Marsh Fork Elementary is located. He indicated that such a move could even help build public goodwill towards the coal industry.:

I certainly agree with Senator Byrd. Massey Energy should take this significant step of helping to replace the Marsh Fork Elementary School so that these children no longer have to fear the threat of adverse health effects of nearby coal operations. It would go a long way toward improving the good will of the public toward that company and the coal industry.

And junior Senator Jay Rockefeller stated clearly:

“The hazards around Marsh Fork Elementary have been weighing heavily on the minds of parents in the Marsh Fork community for some time. Protecting our children is our first and most fundamental obligation, and it is right to expect the company to help pay for the solution.”

Appalachian Voices extends our thanks to these officials and hope that they will do everything in their power to protect the children, communities, mountains, and streams from the hazards of mountaintop removal and coal slurry.

Thank you so much to Ohio Citizen Action, who have been great allies on the fight to end mountaintop removal. They have been a great part of the reasons we were able to get several member of the Ohio delegation on board HR1310, the Clean Water Protection Act. They are working hard to get Senator Sherrod Brown on board with the Senate version of the bill. When Sen Brown was a House Rep, he was a cosponsor of the HR 1310. So what’s the problem now? As Ohio Citizen Action put it,

“In the seven months since S. 696 was introduced to ban the practice, 13,411 people have sent letters, messages, and children’s illustrations from all over Ohio to Brown, urging him to co-sponsor it.”

See Senator Brown’s reaction when pressed on the issue:

Write your Senator asking him or her to end mountaintop removal today!

Please welcome two new Congressmen who realize the importance of protecting our water and stopping mountaintop removal coal mining!

Congressman Steve Driehaus is from the 1st District of Ohio and signed on as a cosponsor on October 1, 2009. Mary Rita Cooper and Robert Nienbar from Cincinnati went to visit the Congressman himself during the August recess and asked him to cosponsor the HR 1310, the Clean Water Protection Act. And the people prevailed! Good job, Mary Rita and Bob! He is our 6th cosponsor from Ohio.

Congressman Steve Kagen Wisconsin’s 8th District and signed on as a cosponsor to the Clean Water Protection Act on September 30th. Mr. Kagen serves on the Agriculture, and the Transportation & Infrastructure committee. Rep. Kagen is the 16th cosponsor in the Water and Environmental Resources subcommittee, and the 25th member of the Transportation & Infrastructure committee to cosponsor the Clean Water Protection Act.

Write your member of Congress today and ask them to cosponsor HR 131o, the Clean Water Protection Act, or thank them if they already are!

Over the summer, the Appalachian Voices Watauga Riverkeeper crew has been working with 60 Minutes to do an investigative story about coal ash waste. We are happy to report that the show will air this Sunday on October 4, 2009. The 60 Minutes crew will provide the public with an overview or a “coal ash 101″ report. It comes in the wake of the 1 billion gallon TVA coal ash spill that occurred in December of 2008 in Harriman, Tennessee.

Shortly after the show airs we will be releasing a special report about groundwater contamination from coal ash ponds in North Carolina. We think both the 60 Minutes show and our upcoming report on NC Coal Ash Ponds will be a stunning revelation for anybody that cares about water. Be sure to tune in to 60 Minutes on Sunday night and keep an eye on our Appalachian Voices and Watauga Riverkeeper Blogs next week for some breaking news. We think the toxicity and hazards of coal ash waste ponds will be a big topic of conversation next week and we want you to be a part of it!

Watch CBS News Videos Online

You can view the story on CBS’s site HERE.

Boone, NC-A broad coalition of community partners proudly announces the first ever prescription drug take back day. Dubbed “Operation Medicine Cabinet” by Captain Kelly Redmon of the Watauga County Sheriff’s Depart, the event is designed to safely dispose of drugs and keep them out of the hands of children and out of our water.

Anyone with outdated or unused prescription drugs, over the counter medications, syringes or other medical supplies are invited to drop these off at the take-back centers on Saturday October 3, 2009. It is an amnesty day, so no questions will be asked. Take-back locations will be available at the Seven Devils Town Hall and the three Food Lion stores in Watauga County: the Hwy 321 store in Boone, the Hwy 421 Deep Gap store, and the Blowing Rock store. The event will be held in conjunction with the county’s annual Hazardous Household Waste day from 9a.m. to 12 noon. For more info see the full Operation Medicine Cabinet Press Release here.

After a 14-day initial review period, the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional offices followed the lead of EPA headquarters, recommending that all 79 pending mountaintop removal mining valley fill permits be remanded into a full 60-day extended review process. The extended review will closely examine potential environmental and health impacts of the valley fills on headwater streams and watersheds, and is part of the EPA’s promise of a more stringent review process for overseeing mountaintop removal coal mining. During the previous presidential administration, a change to the “fill rule” in the Clean Water Act allowed permits for mountaintop removal valley fills to be rubberstamped without conducting any environmental or health impact assessments.

Read Appalachian Voices’ statement on the decision.

It seems all the coal industry has left is scare tactics:

“We’re scared. We’re scared for the future of the state. We’re scared for the future of the industry, and we’re mostly scared for the future of our people,” said Bill Raney, President of the West Virginia Coal Association. “They want to stay here and they want to do what they do best and that’s mine coal.” . . . “This recession isn’t going to last forever. Coal demand picks up, electricity demand picks up, we’re going to be left flat with no place to go, no place to mine because we don’t have permits because somebody traded their jobs for mayflies,” Kitts said to the crowd.

Hey, guys…

WV coal-mining employment 1880-2008

Appalachian Poverty and MTR

I’d also recommend you read the recent Hendryx study from WVU, about how coal-mining’s losses outweigh it’s benefits by $42 billion every year, including 100s-1000s of early deaths in Appalachia.

Appalachian Voices, along with the Stop Cliffside Coalition, continues to fight the construction of Duke Energy’s coal-fired power plant in Rutherford County, NC. Duke Energy wants customers to pay more dirty energy that emits global warming gases and other air pollution, destroy the Appalachian mountains, and produces toxic coal ash ponds.

To this end, Appalachian Voices has been working on getting citizens to speak out at public hearings about the proposed rate hikes. Due to grassroots pressure, the Commission is now allowing testimony regarding that portion of the hike attributable to Cliffside plant, which is an astonishing 25 to 50%. In Marion last week, over 60 citizens came in opposition of the rates hikes. Scott Gollwitzer, in-house counsel for Appalachian Voices, gave reasons to hold off on the rate hike until a final decision on Cliffiside’s air permits were finalized.

Our message on Cliffside is getting out to the media and key decision-makers. We recently had an Opinion-Editorial in the Asheville Citizen-Times published about why coal, and especially the Cliffside plant is a bad deal for North Carolina, both environmentally and economically. Our sentiments are reaching Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, who in an interview with Washington Independent expressed major concerns about the viability of cleaner coal technology and the future of coal in general. The pressure we have been applying is working, as this incredibly revealing quote from Jim Rogers suggests:

“I’m under incredible pressure on mountaintop mining,” said Rogers. “Most of the coal we use in the southern part of the country is from mountaintop mining. I’m doing the math now and looking to determine my contracts and posing the question to my team, what if we made a policy decision that we’re not going to buy coal as a consequence of mountaintop mining.”

He also suggests that an energy future without coal could be reached by 2050.

Then why build more dirty coal-fired plants, Mr. Rogers? If you want to learn more about our efforts to stop Cliffside, including actions you can take, sign up here.

Appalachian Voices, as part of the Alliance for Appalachia, has been organizing monthly mini-lobby weeks to Washington, DC since our last big lobby week in March. These mini-lobby weeks have become an integral part of our work, as they increase our power on Capitol Hill, empower citizens from the Appalachian coalfields and beyond, and sends a message to the coal industry that we are not going away any time soon. These mini-lobby weeks are one of the main reasons the Clean Water Protection Act in the House has a record 156 cosponsors and the Appalachia Restoration Act was introduced in the Senate earlier this year. This lobby week was a little bigger than usual, as we had some citizens from key Congressional districts from as far away as California & Oregon join us.

An exciting part of this lobby week was the unveiling of the new Appalachian Voices’ DC office as a headquarters for the lobby week. This office, located in the Eastern Market neighborhood will be allow to be even more effective on the Hill.

Another highlight of the week was a briefing that Appalachian Voices organized for congressional staff to talk about why the time is now to end mountaintop removal coal mining through passage of the Clean Water Protection Act.

Featured speakers were Dr. Matt Wasson, Program Director for Appalachian Voices and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth member Mickey McCoy. Mickey McCoy lives in Martin County, KY, where a huge toxic coal sludge spill destroyed aquatic life for miles in 2000. At the time, the EPA considered it “one of the largest environmental disasters east of the Mississippi”. Mickey talked about growing up in Martin County and his personal view on why mountaintop removal needs to end. His basic message: “Mountaintop removal is an assault on the Appalachian Mountains, its people, their environment, and generations to come. It is not right for our government to allow the dismantlement of an entire culture for the sake of the greed of the coal corporations.”

Matt followed up with a presentation of how crucial it is for the Congress to take action now to protect future mountains and communities from being destroyed by mountaintop removal mining. Administrative advances on reining in mountaintop removal is highly needed, but only serves as short-term solution, and ultimately can be overturned by a future administration. Despite encouraging news from the Obama administration on how they are currently dealing with the issue, the only truly permanent solution is going to literally take an act of Congress.

Matt’s presentation made the case that state regulators have failed communities, requiring strong action on the federal level, and refuted the coal industry’s claim that mountaintop removal is good for the region. He also demonstrated how coal’s relevancy is slipping both in terms of supply and demand. Coal is providing an all time low, percentage-wise, of the nation’s electricity needs and in fact how most of the easily recoverable coal is left to mine in the Appalachian coalfields. His main point was, “Without strong congressional action through passage of the Clean Water Protection Act, the coal industry will continue to use our mountain streams as dumping grounds for their mining waste.”
Watch a video excerpt of Mickey McCoy’s statement at the congressional briefing here.

The struggles of folks in West Virginia is not only getting national air time, it is finally front and center – the lead story of last Sunday’s New York Times, to be exact. The article details the Massey family from Prenter, W.Va., and their life with toxic tap water contaminated with heavy metals from nearby coal slurry impoundments and injections of the slurry into old underground mines. Accompanying the article was a heart-wrenching photo slide show with an audio interview featuring Jennifer Hall-Massey.

Read the full article at the New York Times, and also check out Jeff Biggers’ commentary and interview with a young activist from the Prenter Water Fund, a group striving to defend the citizens of Prenter and their right to clean drinking water.