Free Republic

US scientists have found what it could be key for the future of the country’s ailing coal industry as they detected that ashes from local operations, particularly those around the Appalachian region, are very rich in rare earth elements. Researchers from North Carolina-based Duke University analyzed coal ashes from coal-fired power plants throughout the US, including those in the largest coal-producing regions: the Appalachian Mountains; southern and western Illinois; and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. One of the team main conclusions was that coal waste generated by the Appalachian coal operations was the richest in rare earth...

In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant - a by-product from burning coal for electricity - carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.

Coating concrete destined to rebuild America's crumbling bridges and roadways with some of the millions of tons of ash left over from burning coal could extend the life of those structures by decades, saving billions of dollars of taxpayer money, scientists reported in Anaheim, California at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society on March 29. They reported on a new coating material for concrete made from flyash that is hundreds of times more durable than existing coatings and costs only half as much.

Aug. 27--The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has scheduled seven public hearings on the agency's proposal to regulate the disposal and management of coal ash from coal-fired power plants. States have jurisdiction over coal ash disposal regulation, and the oversight is hit and miss, according to a media release from the Environmental Integrity Project, which recently released a list of 37 toxic contamination sites across the country, contaminated by coal ash dumps.