The Front Porch Blog

Shutdown Continues: Appalachian Public Lands Feel the Pressure

Wednesday, October 16th, 2013 | Posted by | No Comments

By Nolen Nychay
Editorial intern, Fall 2013

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park reopens today with state funding; meanwhile, hundreds of parks remain closed during shutdown. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

It is day 16 of the government shutdown, and while a resolution is being negotiated, budget cuts and furloughs at federal agencies continue to affect workers and communities near public lands.

Both the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service have closed all offices outside of crucial emergency and monitoring services, according to agency websites. As a result, hundreds of national parks, many national forest facilities and 700 miles of the Appalachian Trail have closed.

Some undeveloped campgrounds, trails and recreation areas, however, remain open for public use within certain national forests. Because maintenance and volunteer cleanups are furloughed, the parks are encouraging users to pack out their waste and minimize their environmental impact. State donations to the National Parks Service have helped reopen a handful of national parks, including The Great Smoky Mountains National Park which set to reopen today thanks to donations from Tennessee and North Carolina.
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How the Government Shutdown Effects Rural Energy Efficiency Programs

Tuesday, October 15th, 2013 | Posted by Rory McIlmoil | No Comments

In states such as Kentucky and South Carolina, electric cooperatives are pursuing ways to reduce their members energy costs. But the government shutdown is affecting the funding outlook for energy efficiency programs nationwide. Photo by KFTC.

While many rural electric cooperatives are waiting eagerly for the government to get back to work, others are moving forward on energy efficiency.

While some rural electric cooperatives are large and have the ability to provide valuable services to their customers, others are smaller, cash-strapped, and face administrative and financial challenges on a daily basis.

To reduce electricity costs for the customers, some co-ops look to federal funding to support programs that they see as beneficial to their customers.

The general consensus among co-ops is that federal funds are a vital source of support for providing reliable electricity and helping their customers pay their electricity bills — especially in rural areas where those bills tend to be higher and constitute a greater portion of a family’s income.
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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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Energy Efficiency Programs Survive the Government Shutdown

Thursday, October 10th, 2013 | Posted by Rory McIlmoil | No Comments

Despite the government shutdown, energy efficiency programs offered by federally-owned TVA and its partner utilities are helping businesses across the Southeast grow and thrive.

Although TVA is a government-owned electric utility, the ongoing government shutdown has not affected its operations. As a result, businesses across the Southeast are able to continue saving money and energy thanks to TVA’s Energy Right Solutions for Industry program.

For instance, on Oct. 8, TVA representatives and Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant handed a $2 million check to steelmaker Severstal Columbus as a reward for reducing its energy consumption by nearly 26 million kilowatt-hours — approximately half of the plant’s total energy consumption — through investments in equipment upgrades.

“When we can offset building new buildings with energy efficiency, everyone wins because our fuel and purchase power goes down for all consumers in the valley,” TVA’s Energy Efficiency Director Cindy Herron said, describing the benefits of such investments. “This upgrade will help lower production costs and help Severstal stay competitive, in turn, helping the entire community.”
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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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Tenn Tuesday: SEJ, CAPP Coal Decline, Record Hydro!

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013 | Posted by JW Randolph | No Comments

Now, with even *more* Chattanooga!

Happy Tuesday! A whole mess of Appalachian Voices’ staff spent most of last week and the weekend at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in one of the greatest cities in America — Chattanooga, Tenn.

The Scenic City, has the world’s fastest internet, the first LEED-Platinum certified factory at the award-winning Volkswagen plant, an aggressive energy efficiency plan for metro facilities and ranks as one of Outside Magazine’s “ best places to live.”

We’re the only city with our own crowd-sourced typeface, home of the world’s second longest pedestrian bridge, two great aquariums, a zoo, some fantastic art museums, great restaurants, and pretty soon, a downtown trampoline park.

This weekend, Chattanooga concurrently hosted the SEJ conference, the excellent Three Sisters Bluegrass festival, and the “River Rocks” festival. You can catch the block party finale on October 12. Did I mention I watched Michael Jordan play baseball against the Chattanooga Lookouts at historic Engel Stadium? Anyway, the point is that Chattanooga is incredible, and we were honored to play such an integral role in the conference.
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Court to EPA: Get Moving on Coal Ash!

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013 | Posted by Molly Moore | 1 Comment

Too close for comfort? The Asheville Steam Station’s coal ash ponds loom over nearby neighborhoods.

Last week, a federal judge agreed with environmental and public health groups that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency needs to set federal regulations for the safe and proper disposal of toxic coal ash.

The court order is a step forward for Appalachian Voices and other environmental groups who went to court in 2012 regarding the EPA’s failure to finalize regulations for coal ash disposal that were proposed in 2010.

Yet, at the same time that a lawsuit about the EPA’s rulemaking timeline is moving forward, 93 percent of the agency’s staff is furloughed because of the government shutdown.
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Highlights from the Southeast Coal Ash Summit

Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013 | Posted by Kara Dodson | No Comments

The power of the environmental justice movement is rooted in our ability to band together and engage a broad base of support. This past weekend, more than 80 citizens convened for the first ever Southeast Coal Ash Summit in Atlanta, Ga. Appalachian Voices, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and NC Conservation Network were sponsoring organizations for the weekend event.

The summit was our chance to unite the diverse and dedicated groups fighting coal ash pollution and defending our right to clean water in the Southeast. The outcome: a greater sense of our power as advocates, organizers, community leaders, and change agents. Here are a few highlights that best encapsulate the summit’s energy and accomplishments:

www.southeastcoalash.org

The network of organizations working to stop coal ash contamination has grown over the last few years and we’ve got a spectacular website showcasing our work.

Southeastcoalash.org is a public clearinghouse on coal plants with ash ponds, health and environmental impacts from ash pollution, news related to coal ash, and action opportunities to strengthen the movement for clean water. Check it out and see if there are any ash ponds near you!
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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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Local Citizens Speak Up about Nation’s Top Source of Toxic Water Pollution: Coal-Burning Waste

Thursday, September 26th, 2013 | Posted by Sarah Kellogg | 2 Comments

G.G. Allen Steam Plant’s Waste Storage Facilities and Nearby Neighborhood

Last month, more than 150,000 people across the country submitted comments to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, encouraging the agency to adopt strong regulations for the toxic waste water produced by coal-burning power plants.

The comments were submitted to the EPA after the agency proposed an update of the rules under the Clean Water Act last April. The proposed steam electric effluent limitation guidelines, or ELG rules, have the potential to protect more than 23,000 miles of waterways from up to 5.3 billion tons of toxic waste water a year.

The EPA’s rules for coal waste water have not been updated since 1982, and since four out of five power plants have no limits on the levels of heavy metals they can dump into rivers and lakes, the new rules could provide hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens with peace of mind.
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The 5 Worst Political Lies in Support of Mountaintop Removal

Wednesday, September 25th, 2013 | Posted by Thom Kay | No Comments

Part 5 in a 5 part series

Lie 5: Energy Security. The United States does not need mountaintop removal for our energy security. In fact, mountaintop removal likely provides no more than 3.5 percent of the nation’s electricity.

Lie 5: Mountaintop removal mining is necessary for our nation’s energy security.

While coal is in perpetual decline, more than one-third of America’s electricity still comes from the fossil fuel. It is on this premise that supporters of mountaintop removal stand when arguing that the practice is necessary for our nation’s energy security. But in order to go from that first point to their conclusion anyone arguing for mountaintop removal has to ignore quite a few facts along the way.

“Energy security,” in this case, is a somewhat vague term. An unrealistic argument indicates that, without mining coal in the U.S., we’ll be without electricity. A more realistic argument states that if we don’t mine coal in the U.S., we’ll have to buy coal from other countries like Russia or China. In either case, the argument is based on a potent concoction of misinformation and fear tactics.
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Tenn Tuesday! Spotlight on Shaheen-Portman Energy Savings Act

Tuesday, September 24th, 2013 | Posted by JW Randolph | No Comments

Making 120 Energy Efficiency Amendments SEXY…

We’re going to do something a little different today by focusing on a specific piece of federal legislation currently before the U.S. Senate called the “Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act” (S 1392).

This bipartisan bill, sponsored by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Rob Portman (R-OH) is the first significant energy bill to see the floor of the Senate since 2007, which President George W. Bush eventually signed into law as the Energy Independence and Security Act.

The Shaheen-Portman legislation (S. 1392) is not only an extremely exciting bill for Appalachian Voices and for our fellow advocates of energy efficiency, but it already has strong bipartisan support. The bill focuses on improvements in three main areas; 1) building codes, 2) industrial energy efficiency, and 3) energy improvements to federal facilities. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has MUCH more in “White Paper” form.

Energy Efficiency is pretty non-controversial, obviously, and we celebrated as the bill sailed through the Senate Energy Committee by a vote of 19-3. Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander was one of the many Republicans to join his Democratic colleagues in taking a positive step for our energy future, our economy and the environment.
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