Category: Coal
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Kempthorne’s New Interior? Mountaintop removal mining and expanded stream dumping
Western Watersheds Blog has located the news the Secretary Dirk Kempthone and his “new honest” Department of Interior has just approved regulations that make the stip mining in Appalachia even worse.
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50 Dirtiest U.S. Power Plants Named
While coal-fired power plants are notoriusly dirity, some are a lot worse than others. They are usually the older plants. One that has long galled me is the old, but big, 4-corners power plant near the Four Corners area of Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. It spews its pall over the scenic canyonlands country…
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Majority leader Senator Harry Reid, now opposes Nevada coal plants!
“U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday that he’ll do everything I can to stop construction of three major coal-fired power plants in his home state of Nevada and will push for more alternative energy development.” Reid had seemed to be neutral to leaning toward the coal plants. They are being proposed not because…
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Panel backs limits on coalbed methane water use
I thought this story interesting: The Powder River Basin has a whole lot of water pumping as a result of coalbed methane production – enough to “perennialize these (ephemeral) streams.” Panel backs limits on coalbed methane water use. AP post 1349
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Senate rejects coal-to-liquid fuel amendment
Most conservationists are celebrating the defeat of two amendments to the new energy bill that would have authorized $200 million in grants or $10 billion in direct loans for coal gasification/liquefaction projects. Coal state senators are pushing this as a “clean” method of using the vast coal deposits, many believe use of coal, is not…
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US Senator Thomas’ death hurts Wyo. Range efforts
Thomas had been expected to soon introduce legislation protecting the Wyoming Range from oil and gas leasing. Now he is dead. Story in the Jackson Hole News and Guide by Cory Hatch. As if to underscore the importance of not granting these leases unless you are willing to see complete field development, the Fish and…
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Huge B.C. coal mine that would drain into Montana gets attention from Condoleeza Rice
Here is the latest on the proposed Cline Mine, just north of the B.C. border. Montana’s senator Baucus got Secretary of State Rice to urge Canada’s federal government to ask for a more detailed environmental assessment than B.C. requires. However, the government in Ottawa has not taken any action yet. The article below in the…
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Rural Electrification Administration is an old, New Deal program that has become little more than program for polluters
The REA was created during the New Deal to bring electricity, light and hope to poor rural areas that private utilities did not find it worthwhile to electrify. Many years later the agency is still around and uses your taxpayer money to subsidize the construction of polluting coal-fired power plants to areas that are now…