Country singer Kathy Mattea called for an end to mountaintop removal at a rally last week in Frankfort. Speaking at the “I Love Mountains” day rally organized by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Mattea also called for both sides in the MTR debate to be less confrontational. Speaking of mountain people on opposing sides of the question she said, “We are not enemies, we are brothers and sisters in conflict,” adding that it is time, “to sit still and open our hearts and feel the shared anguish.” She acknowledged those who want to find a way to provide for their families, and those whose lives have been ruined by living near surface mines.
China is reporting fewer mining deaths in 2009, reports the Reuters news service. The official Chinese news service reports 2,631 deaths, a huge number but less than the 3,215 miners who died in 2008. The Chinese government has been making major efforts to make its mines safer, with some success—deaths had reached nearly 7,000 in 2002. The country’s chief safety official, Zhao Tiechui, said “Coal mine safety is still a big problem. Awareness of safety and rule of law is still low in some coal-rich areas and some coal enterprises.” Last year Chinese mines produced 2.96 billion tons, and expect to mine 3.1 billion tons this year.
Alpha Natural resources is the latest coal producer to get into natural gas, reports the Mountain Eagle. The Abingdon-based company, America’s third-largest coal producer, is starting its first well in the Marcellus shale formation. The Marcellus is a vast deposit of rock deep beneath the surface, stretching from New York to West Virginia. New drilling techniques have opened the prospect of recovering staggering amounts of gas, with the result that many energy companies are getting into it. Consol, for example, just spent $30 million to acquire a gas company. Alpha isn’t turning itself into a gas company, but CEO Kevin Crutchfield said, “It’s kind of a wait and see attitude, but it’s a valuable resource and we want to begin to realize some value out of it. And with the passage of time, I think we’ll make the strategic decision whether that’s something we really want to grow in earnest or we’re happy with sort of the foothold that we have.”
The Mine Safety and Health Administration has kicked off a new campaign aimed at those mine safety violations linked most strongly to fatal accidents. After looking at accident records for the past eight years, MSHA officials concluded that the most dangerous violations included roof control, electrical violations, poorly maintained haul roads, and unsafe machinery. Such violations were linked to almost half the coal mine deaths, according to the Charleston Gazette. MSHA will be enforcing these rules with an education and training program over the next couple of months, then go on to targeted enforcement and increased penalties for violations.
A bill introduced in the Kentucky legislature would allow coal trucks and other heavy vehicles to block highways for up to an hour if needed for unloading. Under the bill sponsored by Knott County representative Ancel Smith, truck operators who need more than an hour could buy a permit and block the highway for up to four hours. According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Smith said the bill is needed, “to mine coal and build roads.” State transportation officials voiced concerns about safety. They noted that under current law blocking a highway is considered dangerous and must be done with careful advance planning and law enforcement participation. An active proponent of greater coal truck safety, Whitesburg mining engineer, Roy Crawford, told the paper that allowing coal trucks to block highways would be, “extremely dangerous.”
The FutureGen coalition is alive and kicking, according to the Reuters news service. FutureGen is the name of a proposed zero-emissions coal plant to be built at Mattoon, Illinois. The project was born under the Bush administration and apparently died there as well, as projected costs went far out of control. But the project is back with backing from the Obama administration and new partners including the big utility Exelon and coal companies including Alpha, Consol, Peabody, and other heavy hitters. The government will put up a billion dollars of the one-and-a-half billion dollar project. The result, if it happens, will be a 275-megawatt coal plant that captures and stores all its carbon emissions. It will be expensive—around three times what conventional technology would cost. But if it happens it will at least prove that carbon capture is possible in a large power plant. The next challenge will be to make it affordable.