Coal Report 04-16-12
A Letcher County man has received recognition for outstanding work in the field of mine rescue, reports the Mountain Eagle. Ronnie Biggerstaff is a mine rescue trainer for Alpha Natural Resources; one of his teams, the Black Mountain White Team, won a national mine rescue contest last year. Biggerstaff received an award in a ceremony at the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg. The award we presented by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who compared mine rescue work with the work of the first responders who answered the call on 9-11. Continue reading Coal Report April 16, 2012
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Coal Report 04-02-12 An independent review of mine safety enforcement concluded that proper law enforcement would likely have prevented the Upper Big Branch disaster and saved the lives of 29 miners. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health—NIOSH–appointed a panel to review the work of the Mine Safety and Health Administration—MSHA—in the months leading up to the tragedy. NIOSH acknowledged that the company, Massey Energy, committed massive violations. But it said that mine inspectors and their superiors should have caught these violations. Their bottom line, as reported in the Charleston Gazette: “If MSHA had engaged in timely enforcement of the Mine Act and applicable standards and regulations, it would have lessened the chances of — and possibly could have prevented — the UBB explosion.” Inspectors, they say, should have spotted the buildup of coal dust and either made the company clean it up or shut the mine down. Continue reading Coal Report April 2, 2012 A federal judge overruled the Environmental Protection Agency and reinstated the mining permit for a huge mountaintop removal operation in West Virginia. In 2007 Arch Coal got a permit for a 2200-acre operation, Spruce No. 1 in Logan County. The mine would be the largest ever in West Virginia. However, in 2011 the EPA revoked the permit, citing the damage to streams-six miles of which would be buried. EPA said that under the Clean Water Act it had the authority to r4evoke the permit. Last week a federal judge emphatically disagreed. The New York Times quoted judge Amy Berman Jackson as saying the EPA resorted to “magical thinking” in thinking the law gave it the power to revoke a permit once issued. The ruling clears the way for work to begin on the huge site. Continue reading Coal Report March 26, 2012 In December, coal’s share of America’s electricity production dipped below 40% for the first time since 1978. That was down 7% from a year earlier. Gas was the winner, going up 4% over that year; nuclear and hydro also rose. Three years ago, coal’s share was just under 50%. Continue reading Coal Report March 20, 2012 Midwest Generation, an electricity provider in Chicago, announced it will shut the two coal plants it operates in the city. The plants in the Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods are among the oldest in the nation, and it would be very expensive to bring them up to modern air-quality standards. So they will be retired. The news brought street celebrations in the two neighborhoods, where bad air has been a problem for generations, according to the Chicago Tribune. Company officials said that low natural gas prices made the coal plants uncompetitive. At the same time, the utility consortium GenOn Energy announced it will retire eight plants, seven coal and one gas, according to a report in the Washington Post. The plants are located in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. On the other side of the ledger is the giant new Prairie State Power Plant, a new coal plant that will soon start a thirty-year run of burning coal in southern Illinois. According to the McClatchy newspaper chain, the 1600-megawatt plant is the largest coal plant built in the US during the last 30 years. The plant has $1 billion worth of pollution controls. Continue reading Coal Report March 12, 2012 A Kentucky mine foreman has died, the state’s first mining fatality of 2012. The Mountain Eagle reports that James Bailey died in the Timber Tree mine of Parton Brothers Mining in Harlan County. State officials are investigating the fatality. Continue reading Coal Report March 5, 2012 |
 
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