Free Republic

National Mining Association, which produced this map showing, state by state, how many millions of dollars in costs will be imposed on each state annually under the bill's allowance allocation formula. here's a coal powerplant location map for comparison

Thanks to new drilling technologies that are unlocking substantial amounts of natural gas from shale rocks, the nation's estimated gas reserves have surged by 35 percent, according to the results of a study released last week. The new report by the Potential Gas Committee, the authority on gas supplies, shows that the United States holds far larger reserves than previously thought. The jump is the largest increase in the 44-year history of reports from the committee. The finding raises the possibility that natural gas could emerge as a critical transition fuel that could help to battle global warming. For a...

The coal industry is pushing back against a climate change bill that would likely curb coal use by circulating a map that shows which states would see their electric bills increase the most under the legislation. But supporters of the bill say the industry’s figures are off the mark and don’t factor in ways the bill will offset rising energy costs or the jobs that it will create. Lobbying has intensified, with Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) pressing for a floor vote next week. Waxman reported progress on Thursday in talks with Democrats from rural states who...

The Obama administration has decided to keep secret the locations of nearly four dozen coal ash storage sites that pose a threat to people living nearby. The Environmental Protection Agency classified the 44 sites as potential hazards to communities while investigating coal ash waste storage sites after a spill at a Tennessee power plant in December. The classification means the waste sites could cause death and significant property damage if an event such as a storm, a terrorist attack or a structural failure caused them to leak into surrounding communities. The sites have existed for years with little or no...

FutureGen, the proposed first-of-a-kind “clean coal” plant in Illinois, finally got the green light today from the Obama administration, 18 months after the Bush administration basically killed the project. [...]

Another bold Locke/Gregoire move. Set a high goal, then miss it by a mile. Then say... What do they say? Governor Locke set the goal of the state's fleet of vehicles using 20% biodiesel by June 1, 2009. No single agency will meet that goal, let alone the total fleet. They got to 2.1%. Hey, that's over 10% of their goal! A subsequent law, HB2424, signed by Chris Gregoire in 2006 has no penalties for noncompliance. This is the government! Penalties are for citizens and private industry. What does Chris Gregoire say now? "I don't want to lose the momentum...

If Boulder is serious about meeting the goal it set in 2002 when city leaders agreed to meet the Kyoto Protocol -- reducing greenhouse gas emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels -- it's time for city officials to play hardball in their negotiations with Xcel Energy. That's the message a group of business, community and environmental leaders hope to convey to the Boulder City Council on Monday when they meet at the Stazio Ballfields to listen to speakers rally the crowd from a pile of faux coal. With the slender towers of the Valmont Coal Plant as a backdrop, the...

BEAVER, W.Va. Environmental group Mountain Justice says six people arrested on trespassing charges during a coal mining protest are still jailed. The group said Sunday the six have been unable to raise $2,000 cash apiece to make bail. All six were arrested a day earlier at Richmond, Va.-based Massey Energy Co.'s Marfork Coal mining complex in Pettus. Mountain Justice says they were protesting Richmond, Va.-based Massey's plan to blast at the mine. Mountain Justice and a group called Climate Ground Zero say blasting could cause a coal slurry dam at the site to collapse. The arrests are the latest in...

A day ahead of the opening of the G-8 summit of energy ministers in Rome, the United States and Italy signed a cooperation agreement on clean coal and carbon capture technology. The accord on clean coal and carbon capture technology was the first signed by the United States with a foreign nation. U-S Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the problem of carbon capture has still not been resolved. His Italian counterpart, Italy's Minister for Economic Development Claudio Scajola said the aim of the accord is to exchange know-how, coordinate joint projects, develop new technologies and identify sites to store carbon...

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire sidestepped her Legislature's refusal to adopt a cap-and-trade program to limit greenhouse gases, signing an executive order Thursday to achieve similar reductions by ratcheting back coal-fired electricity and automobile emissions. "I wanted cap-and-trade. I didn't get it," said Gregoire, a Democrat, whose order directs government agencies to expand public transit and other programs to meet auto emissions goals, and to reach agreement with the state's only coal-fired power plant to reduce its carbon output at least 50% by 2025. The order also calls for development of an even wider-ranging set of emission reduction strategies to achieve...

Did anybody else notice that the phrase “global warming” has largely disappeared from public discourse? All but the slowest enviromentalists have dropped that phrase because for the last three years the globe as been cooling off. So, the new phrase is “climate change.” As a public service, I’d like to explain this phrase by reference to a pair of coal-fired furnaces, one in Birmingham, Alabama, the other one in Baltimore, Maryland. My mother grew up in Birmingham almost a century ago, in a rambling, wood-framed house on Warsaw Street. It had sleeping porches for summer heat, and a coal furnace...

During a recent flight from Denver to Grand Junction, Colo., I found myself sitting next to Harold L. Bennett, a 78-year-old civil engineer from Albuquerque. In addition to being on his way to a business meeting in Vernal, Utah, Bennett was on his way to securing the nation’s energy future. Before the 55-minute journey on the twin-prop aircraft ended, I learned three important things from Bennett: * First, I learned he has held the patent on the world’s only Clear Coal™ — not “clean coal” — technology since the early 1970s and has improved it twice; * Second, I learned...

A lot has changed since the General Mining Law was passed in 1872, but very little has changed about the law itself. Those who want it to be modernized say this finally may be the year they get reform. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., has introduced a reform bill, and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., already has held a hearing on his own legislation. Attempts over the years to change the law have foundered against the political influence of the mining industry, but members of Congress say prospects for an overhaul are...

China’s frenetic construction of coal-fired power plants has raised worries around the world about the effect on climate change. China now uses more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined, making it the world’s largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet. But largely missing in the hand-wringing is this: China has emerged in the past two years as the world’s leading builder of more efficient, less polluting coal power plants, mastering the technology and driving down the cost. While the United States is still debating whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant...

1. Drill, baby, drill: Open ANWR, the Gulf of Mexico and the outer continental shelf to oil and natural gas production. 2. Nuclear power: Environmentalists who are alarmists about alleged man-made global warming and yet oppose building new nuclear power plants are hypocrites. If France can build nuke plants, why not the U.S? 3. Oil shale: We have more shale oil in U.S. mountains than the Saudis have oil in their reserves. 4. Kill Cap-and-trade: This bill is nothing more than a huge, job-destroying energy tax. 5. Yucca Mountain: A perfect place for a repository for our nuclear waste materials...

"TOPEKA - Peace broke out in the long-running battle over coal plants in western Kansas today: Gov. Mark Parkinson and Earl Watkins, chief executive of Sunflower Electric Power Corp., announced they had reached agreement on a plan to allow a downsized coal power station near Holcomb. Under the settlement, Sunflower agreed to reduce its planned coal plants from two units with a capacity of 700 megawatts each to a single 895-megawatt unit. The company agreed to a package of environmental improvements, reducing the carbon dioxide from the proposed power plant from nearly 11 million tons a year to 6.6 million...

We can’t say we weren’t warned. In January 2008, Barack Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle that people would have to be crazy to open a coal-fueled electricity plant, because Obama’s policies would make energy costs “skyrocket” and send them into bankruptcy. Now the EPA has issued an unprecedented order to renege on a permit already granted to open a coal-generator plant in a Navajo reservation in New Mexico that has the tribe and its supporters steaming: In a dramatic move yesterday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) withdrew the air quality permit it issued last summer for the Desert...

Browse More Listings West Virginia Upshur County Hodgesville, WV Land for Sale West Virginia Land for Sale Hodgesville Land for Sale Hodgesville Land for Lease West Virginia Coal Mine Randolph and Upshur County Hodgesville, West Virginia 26201 County: Upshur

CHARLESTON W.Va.-- CBS' 60 Minutes' look into the future of coal Sunday has raised awareness of just how difficult it is to balance the electricity needs of the world versus saving the world's environment. The head of the nation's third largest electric utility says he can't stop building coal-burning plants right now -- even though he believes it contributes to global warming. "It took100 years to get where we are and we can't do this overnight." explains Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy. Job one for him is to keep power flowing to his customers and removing the carbon dioxide...

The left's argument that the right is spinning geoengineering to undermine climate action. It's like they are in their own little fantasy world: Their new justifications for delay are simple. Taking advantage of the economic crisis, they call climate action a job killer. If the Right's anger and vehemence against the very idea of green jobs has shocked and confused you, well, understand that it's important that climate change be framed as a threat to the economy, and never an opportunity: the growing importance of clean tech industries and jobs to the American economy must be downplayed in order...

An article with a sensational headline "Hardin jail tries for detainees from Gitmo," recently appeared in the Billings Montana Gazette. It provides a glimpse into some fundamental problems with big government solutions and the Obama agenda. Hardin, Montana is a city of 3,384 people and not enough jobs. The city council of Hardin voted unanimously to create 100 new high paying jobs for some of its citizens by getting into the prison business. The city fathers committed to a $27 million bond program to fund the construction of a medium security, 460-bed prison through its economic development agency, the Two...

There is a war brewing between liberals on Capitol Hill and the hardworking citizens of the Midwest, notably those of my home state of Indiana. It comes in the form of an energy proposal known as “cap and trade” which would cap greenhouse gas emissions from regulated entities and require businesses to acquire permits or “allowances” for their emissions. The bill should actually be called “cap and tax” because it basically establishes a national energy tax. Under the guise of protecting the environment, the bill will increase taxes on every American who uses any form of energy and would have...

No new nuclear or coal plants may ever be needed in the United States, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said today. "We may not need any, ever," Jon Wellinghoff told reporters at a U.S. Energy Association forum. The FERC chairman's comments go beyond those of other Obama administration officials, who have strongly endorsed greater efficiency and renewables deployment but also say nuclear and fossil energies will continue playing a major role....

The UK government said Thursday that the building of new coal-fired power stations will only be approved if they are part-fitted with carbon capture and storage technology. The government also announced it will consult on whether there should be a strict emissions limit for any plant that is not retrofitted with the technology. The plans, announced by energy and climate change minister Ed Miliband, follows a statement in Wednesday's budget from UK finance minister Alistair Darling of funding for up to four CCS demonstration projects. The projects will be funded by an incentive mechanism, the details of which are still...

The Shaw Group Inc. (NYSE: SGR) today announced its Energy & Chemicals Group has been selected by Sasol to provide basic engineering support for two Fischer-Tropsch units. Shaw is providing the basic engineering package for the Fischer-Tropsch unit of Sasol’s Wax Expansion Project in Sasolburg, South Africa. Shaw's scope of work includes proprietary equipment design and technology optimization. The project is expected to increase Sasol’s production of medium waxes and liquid paraffins by approximately 50 percent. In addition, Shaw is providing engineering services to Sasol Technology’s Fischer Tropsch Licensing group (FTL). The FTL is performing a feasibility study for the...

Like medieval priests, today’s carbon brokers will sell you an indulgence that forgives your carbon sins. It will run you about $500 for 5 tons of forgiveness—about how much the typical American needs every year. Or about $2,000 a year for a typical four-person household. Your broker will spend the money on such things as reducing methane emissions from hog farms in Brazil. But if you really want to make a difference, you must send a check large enough to forgive the carbon emitted by four poor Brazilian households, too—because they’re not going to do it themselves. To cover all...

Police arrested more than 40 protesters today at Duke Energy's Charlotte headquarters following a rally and march against Duke's coal policies.

NEW YORK, April 17 (Reuters) - Utilities that face dwindling demand for their electricity are balking at high contract prices for coal, and some are looking at ways to renegotiate with the mining companies, industry experts said on Friday. In another blow to coal miners, who have seen spot prices plummet 25 percent this year, many power plants are instead burning natural gas, which is at its lowest price in more than six years. As a result, miners are being forced to cut production of coal they would have sold to the utilities at higher prices locked-in to contracts negotiated...

Climate change: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin acknowledges global warming is affecting her state But the former GOP vice presidential candidate contends gas drilling will help curb rising temperatures By Kim Murphy | Tribune Newspapers April 15, 2009 ANCHORAGE — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin acknowledged Tuesday that global warming is harming her state but said stepped-up natural-gas production could mitigate its effects. Palin spoke at a hearing before Interior Secretary Ken Salazar — the third of a series he is holding across the country to consider renewed oil and gas leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf. The 2008 Republican nominee for...

It’s a showdown over coal-burning power plants again. On Monday, as expected, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed legislation that would allow construction of the two 700-megawatt plants in southwest Kansas. She vetoed three similar bills last year. In her newest veto message Monday, Sebelius said of the legislation, “What was a bad idea last year, is an even worse idea today.” President Barack Obama is moving toward regulating carbon dioxide emissions, and Kansas doesn’t need the plants for its own energy needs, she said.

ST. LOUIS — Chatting with a visitor about energy issues in the back of the Greater Mount Carmel Baptist Church here, a group of women exploded in laughter at the idea that their electric rates were among the lowest in the nation. “We can barely afford what we have now,” said Renee Daniels-Hanner, 48, an office manager who lives with her husband, a postal employee, and their teenage daughter in a three-bedroom brick home in the city’s Baden neighborhood. The house, built in 1953, has central air-conditioning to ward off the heat and humidity of Mississippi River summers, a double-door...

The US Environmental Protection Agency has challenged a valley fill permit issued by the US Army Corps of Engineers for a surface coal mine in Wise County, Virginia. This action follows EPA saying it would scrutinize 150-200 permit applications with the Corps for similar projects tied to Central Appalachian coal mining operations. EPA said in March that it would examine the pending fill permits over concerns about whether Clean Water Act regulations are being properly followed, and other environmental concerns. The agency later said it was concentrating scrutiny on just two such applications, one for a West Virginia mine and...

Consumption - ExxonMobil Corp. said that by 2030, global energy demand will have grown 35 per cent from 2005 levels. Oil, natural gas and coal will continue to provide most of the world's energy, accounting for close to 80 per cent of global needs through 2030, the company said in its 2008 financial and operating review. By 2030, oil will still be the largest source of energy supply, Exxon predicted. Natural gas will overtake coal as the second-largest energy source, the company said.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Institute for Energy Research President (IER) Thomas J. Pyle issued the following statement today in response to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to place a strict and indefinite moratorium on new mountaintop mining projects—a decision about which Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and others in the Appalachian region are “very concerned.” “President Obama has made his intentions to bankrupt the coal industry clear. EPA’s actions this week demonstrate that he will wage a war against the energy source that generates half of America’s electricity and is our nation’s most abundant, reliable, and affordable energy resource. “Even...

High gasoline prices and concern about energy security are driving entrepreneurs to explore various ways to produce transportation fuels, says H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. For example, though rarely discussed, there is a well-developed process to turn coal into oil: ï‚· China is already bringing coal-to-oil plants online, with plans to produce as much as a million barrels of oil a day from coal by 2020. ï‚· Commercial coal-to-oil plants have not been built in the United States because they require more long-term capital investment than conventional oil. ï‚· But the Energy Department...

Alberta will be the site of a unique $30-million demonstration project aimed at unlocking the clean energy potential of the province’s vast coal reserves. The province is contributing $8.83 million toward a $30-million underground coal gasification demonstration project that taps into coal seams that are too deep to be mined economically — and would otherwise sit idle — to produce clean, synthesis gas for power generation. The demonstration project, with Calgary’s Swan Hills Synfuels LP, is the first of its kind in North America and, at roughly 1,400 metres below the surface, the deepest underground coal gasification ever conducted in...

One of the abiding illusions of the energy debate is that there is an all powerful "nuclear lobby" that is engineering the revival of nuclear power. What organizations could it possibly involve? The Nuclear Energy Institute has a modest budget and an interactive website, but then so does the American Association of Preferred Provider Organizations and the American Land Title Association. In fact, who doesn't these days? If you want to see a powerful lobbying group, look at coal. Next to farming, coal is probably the most powerfully imbedded industry in the United States. There are 75,000 coal miners still...

"The warmists set off on their march just as it began snowing again. Unfortunately, from that point on I could not record any interviews about the imminent inferno of global warming because my pen froze."

Go "green" or go out of business. That is the message Congress wants to send to America's power plants run by coal -- and any and every other power facility for that matter. Congressmen after Congressmen have waddled forth onto TV and into print to wag a green finger at our power grid scolding it for being "too dirty" and not environmentally friendly. These politicians, you see, know better and they must be listened to. After all, they are trying to save the planet! And to show how the folks walking the marbled halls of the nation's capitol care about...

Pelosi Snowed-Out of Global Warming Rally Monday, March 02, 2009 By Josiah Ryan and Ryan Byrnes (CNSNews.com) – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had to cancel an appearance Monday at a global warming rally in Washington, D.C., that was hit by a snowstorm because her flight was delayed, her office told CNSNews.com. Brianna Cayo-Cotter, the spokesman for the Energy Action Coalition that held the rally, told a group of reporters that she had been in contact with Pelosi and that her flight had been delayed because of inclement weather. A blizzard Sunday night and early Monday morning blanketed...

FHnetwork: talking to outreach coordinator, very concerned with keeping momentum from this event. jwisom: beginning to bundle up for #climateaction demo at capitol power plant. why is the weather always awful for protests? climateaction: i admit, it's hard to tweet with cold hands! staying warm with a chant: "Clean coal is a dirty lie." #climateaction

Anyone know the status of the communist-inspired "...largest mass civil disobedience for the climate in U.S. history" (sic) by the socialist at "Capitol Climate Action"? I saw comments on Twitter that it's been cancelled due to the big March snowstorm here in tropical and globally warming DC, but the rather secretive Communist Climate Action web site says: http://www.capitolclimateaction.org/?tag=snow Snow is no wet blanket Monday, March 2nd, 2009 We’re up and at ‘em here at headquarters. We pushed through the snow, got into the office early, and immediately started taking phone calls from media wanting to know if the event is...

Many WUWT readers have heard about this:[2] Here is my IntelliWeather [3] Monday and [4] hour by hour forecast for Washington, DC.[5] WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 2 PM EST MONDAY Includes the Counties: District Of Columbia, Arlington/Falls Church/Alexandria Includes the cities: Washington, Alexandria, Falls Church TonightÂ…Snow. Snow accumulation of 4 to 8 inches. Brisk with lows in the lower 20s. North winds 20 to 25 mph with gusts up to 35 mph. Chance of snow near 100 percent.[6] MondayÂ…Cloudy. Snow likely in the morningÂ…Then a chance of snow in the afternoon. Additional snow accumulation around an inch. Total...

As Congress tries to clean up the nation's energy sources and cut gases blamed for global warming, it is struggling to do so in its own backyard. The Capitol Power Plant, a 99-year-old facility that heats and cools the hallowed halls of Congress, still burns coal and accounts for one-third of the legislative branch's greenhouse gas emissions. For a decade, lawmakers have attempted to clean it up. In recent years, Congress has reduced its energy consumption. The steam and chilled-water power plant has become more efficient. It now burns more natural gas and only 35 percent coal, compared with 49...

President Obama on Saturday struck back aggressively at critics of his $3.6 trillion budget proposal, casting himself as a populist crusader whose "sweeping change" has angered Washington's entrenched special interests, and promised to fight them. "I realize that passing this budget won't be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington," Mr. Obama said in his weekly video and radio address. Mr. Obama's language was combative and confrontational, as he promised to fight for "American families." "I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists...

The Reality Coalition, set up by five environmental orgs to debunk the notion that there is such a thing as "clean coal," is introducing a new ad spot directed by the Coen Brothers, to be introduced in broadcast and online media today... But even President Obama mentioned clean coal in his speech before Congress on Tuesday...

President Barack Obama's first budget includes $15 billion a year for renewable energy programs and an ambitious plan to raise $646 billion from a carbon reduction proposal. "Because our future depends on our ability to break free from oil that's controlled by foreign dictators, we need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," Mr. Obama said Thursday morning. "That's why we'll be working with Congress on legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy." The plan uses money from a cap-and-trade program — which would allow companies to...

Multi-million dollar deal confirmed. BECKLEY-- -- A Russian company has agreed to purchase a family-owned coal company in Raleigh County. According to international reports, Mechel Mining is buying Bluestone Coal Corporation for $425 million, plus stock. Bluestone is owned and operated by James Justice and based in Beckley. In a statement issued to 59News, Justice said, "While a sale of Bluestone Coal Corporation has been the subject of much speculation over the last several months, it is not constructive for us to comment at this time. The transaction is with the global steel, coal and iron ore producer, MECHEL, OAO....

It opens to a three-page aerial spread of pristine boreal forest dotted with lakes beaming through the trees as a luminescent robin-egg blue. This is the "before" picture. Flip over the fold-out at the front of this month's National Geographic magazine and you're confronted by the "after" photo, a ground zero of environmental devastation, with sickly grey ponds bisected by slick roadways prowled by mammoth trucks carrying now-discounted black gold. This photo shoot for the magazine's influential global audience is described as the "baby-seal moment" for Alberta's oilsands, a public relations hell equal to a seal pup's skull-clubbing death that...

Totalitarian regimes often require ostensibly independent action. An example would be the maniacal students who went wild during China's Cultural Revolution, inflicting violence on those deemed insufficiently fanatical in their devotion to communism. Similar tactics will be required to push through the global warming agenda, which will entail radically restricting our liberty and lowering our standard of living in the name of a "crisis" that does not exist. Environmentalist demagogue Al Gore has been trying to egg on the sort of moonbat hooligans who riot at WTO conferences to attack power plants that use one of our most precious yet...