The dark side of...wait, Coal only HAS a dark side!

[lunadelcorvo]

And I don't mean that as a pun. Coal has no upside, no good side. This may not be a topic many of you hear about in some parts of the country, or abroad. But here in KY, we hear about coal ALL the time. So let me give you a little overview of the realities of the coal industry.

::EDIT:: I just found out one of the sites I quote here is spoof site. SO, yes, I was a bit punked, but the actual response to that site from its target, Peabody Energy is almost as outrageous, Check back for updated info soon!::

Coal is filthy. Filthy to get, and filthy to use. Forget any romanticized notions of quint little coal towns tucked away in scenic mountain valleys, or noble, hardworking coal miners, doggedly wresting 'black diamonds' out of the earth and making our great nation work. All that is bullshit. Coal mining destroys. From the Union of Concerned Scientists:

"About 60% of U.S. coal is stripped from the earth in surface mines; the rest comes from underground mines. Surface coal mining may dramatically alter the landscape. Coal companies throughout Appalachia often remove entire mountain tops to expose the coal below. The wastes are generally dumped in valleys and streams.

In West Virginia, more than 300,000 acres of hardwood forests (half the size of Rhode Island) and 1,000 miles of streams have been destroyed by this practice."

Not to mention that the ravaged mountain becomes a swamp, with no proper soil or vegetation to prevent runoff, which further erodes the mountain, and allows even more much and pollution to run into adjacent waterways. What is left is a barren, ravaged, unstable plateau with little use. (Oh, wait, you could put a Federal Penitentiary there! Or, maybe not.)

This is just surface mining. Then there is underground mining, one of the most dangerous jobs out there. There is also the transport of coal, which uses astronomical amounts of fuel, generating it's own pollution. Once it gets to a plant, coal is stored in huge piles before use, which shed pollutants through both water- and wind-borne dust and contamination. All that is before we even burn it.

Burning coal to generate electricity is the single biggest cause of air pollution. THE biggest. Again from UCS:

In an average year, a typical coal plant generates:

• 3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary human cause of global warming--as much carbon dioxide as cutting down 161 million trees.
• 10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2), which causes acid rain that damages forests, lakes, and buildings, and forms small airborne particles that can penetrate deep into lungs.
• 500 tons of small airborne particles, which can cause chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma, and premature death, as well as haze obstructing visibility.
• 10,200 tons of nitrogen oxide (NOx), as much as would be emitted by half a million late-model cars. NOx leads to formation of ozone (smog) which inflames the lungs, burning through lung tissue making people more susceptible to respiratory illness.
• 720 tons of carbon monoxide (CO), which causes headaches and place additional stress on people with heart disease.
• 220 tons of hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds (VOC), which form ozone.
• 170 pounds of mercury, where just 1/70th of a teaspoon deposited on a 25-acre lake can make the fish unsafe to eat.
• 225 pounds of arsenic, which will cause cancer in one out of 100 people who drink water containing 50 parts per billion.
• 114 pounds of lead, 4 pounds of cadmium, other toxic heavy metals, and trace amounts of uranium.

And that's one coal plant, in one year. Think about that. Multiply that by about 600, the number of such plants in the US. Then multiply that by how many years we have been burning coal. (And people think our Earth is too big for us to have created climate change?)

And of course, thee is the more subtle damage the coal industry does by consistently blocking efforts to develop clean forms of energy, badmouthing the EPA, and discrediting environmental science in general. I see billboards trying to frame the question as one of jobs: "Don't let EPA Bureaucrats lock out our coal jobs." As though this were about jobs? As though it were about the budget? Reality check: Pollution and other damages cost the US $62 billion a year. (I wonder if that includes the cost of health care for the entire communities destroyed and sickened by runoff from mountain-topping?)

And, as we see every day, when some big-money interest is shown for the exploitative, destructive pariah it is, the PR crews go into overtime trying to cast it as a noble American institution, beleaguered by the evil socialists. Just yesterday, in the middle of the Highlands (a relatively progressive area of town) I saw the plate you see here. 'Friends of Coal' indeed! (On a Lexus; naturally. In case that isn't too clear despite my sharpening it up a bit, see here.) We can be proud that we share this plate with another really innovative, educated, progressive state; West Virginia. Oh, yay.

Speaking of the coal industry's PR, get a load of this website, CoalCares.org. Not only do they try to claim that coal is clean and safe, but they oh-so-kindly have launched a program to to provide free rescue inhalers to kids. Wrap your mind around that for a second. Oh, and even better, they are innovators in making those inhalers 'cool.' I have to post this section here - it is so outrageous it makes my head spin. In fact, this passage it TOTAL spin! Read on:

We all know that risk is a part of life. What isn’t risky? Crossing the street is risky—you could get hit by a car. Eating a chicken is risky—you could choke on one of its bones. Even your trusty old gas stove is risky—you could leave it on and blow up your house and, possibly, your whole family. [this makes Coal safe? WTF?]

A great deal of noise has been made of the risks associated with the production and consumption of coal. Yet even though those risks do exist, they have been very well studied, and we have developed ways of addressing them in a manner acceptable to doctors, patients, insurers, and society. [Define 'acceptable' please...]

Indeed, there are now a wide array of techniques and technologies for mitigating the risks associated with coal. Those techniques range from the financial—fiduciary devices to reduce the risk to investors [Oh, yeah, that's crucial...] and societies of the gambles involved in coal investment—to medical devices such as the inhaler, [So the coal industry invented that? Who knew!] a lightweight, sophisticated solution to the inconveniences ['inconveniences!?!' Seriously???] posed by childhood asthma. [...caused by coal!] Together, all of these technologies make coal production and consumption one of the safest endeavors on earth.

Conversely, there does not exist much information at all on the varieties of ways people can be harmed, maimed, disabled, and even killed by so-called “alternative” energies. ['so-called' because they aren't REALLY alternative, silly!] The simple fact is that while the risks associated with coal are well understood, those associated with wind and solar are as yet unresearched. At least one thing is clear: although sheer numbers of deaths associated with coal may be larger, the varieties of death due to solar and wind could well go through the roof.

"Well, sure it kills, but we can give kids inhalers, so it's all good! And we sure as heck make sure our investors are safe, and they are the ones whose well-being we really care about. You poor folks, well too darned bad. Heck, even crossing the street is risky! Besides, better the devil you know than the devil you don't; who KNOWS what awful fate awaits us with that crazy, dangerous wind power!"

Really, this makes me at least as sick as the massive subsidies for the oil industry. The coal supporters argue that (this is a quote) "Southeastern Kentucky's economy is coal driven and without coal you have nothing more than ghost towns. You people wanting to go green and all of these other alternative energy types do not know what difficulties you will cause for this area."

Really? Well, what kind of problems will these people have when their water is no longer usable, their land is no longer usable, and their health is so severely impacted they have to quit working at all, go on government support (socialism!!!!!!)? Is that better? And it's not like coal money stays in these communities! It goes straight to the power companies! S.E. KY is the poorest area in the state, with some of the the worst health, life expectancy, literacy, and poverty rates in a state that doesn't do so well to begin with. It is also home to several of the poorest towns in the entire US. So how's that coal industry working out for ya?