November 2010 - EC - lists.bikelover.org

Wyoming's fed-bucking approach to environmental policy
by Paul Wilson 07 Dec '10

07 Dec '10

Info Frack forward Wyoming's fed-bucking approach to environmental policy News - From the October 01, 2010 issue of High Country News<http://www.hcn.org/issues/42.17> by Cally Carswell Document Actions <http://www.hcn.org/issues/42.17/frack-forward/image_viewer> On Sept. 15, Wyoming activated new rules requiring energy companies to identify the chemicals they inject underground to break up rocks in order to free trapped oil and gas. Critics suspect that the process -- known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking -- can contaminate groundwater. Evidence has been elusive, though, in part because drilling companies have been allowed to keep their chemical recipes largely secret. The new rules -- the nation's strictest -- were a surprisingly easy sell in Wyoming, where extractive industries almost single-handedly keep state coffers plump and exercise proportional political clout. At Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal's behest, the state's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission unanimously signed off on them in June. Though Halliburton protested some, most in the industry seemed unfazed. At the end of this month, the Associated Press reported that drillers even seemed "eager to comply." Anticipating similar moves by President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency, which recently increased its scrutiny of fracking, Wyoming wrote the rules as a message to the feds: Your help is not needed here. Federal "meddling" has always irked Wyoming's leaders. But under Freudenthal, the state has favored a curious strategy for fending off federal regulators: Beat them to the punch with its own cutting-edge environmental policies. In 2007, with a lawsuit pending over the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's decision not to list the greater sage grouse as endangered, Freudenthal ordered state officials, conservationists and industry reps to map the bird's vital habitat. Within those "core areas," the state has tightly restricted oil, gas and wind development, all thought to disrupt grouse breeding -- a significant improvement over the Bureau of Land Management's style of developing first and dealing with impacts later. It's not a perfect plan -- core areas are strategically penciled to exclude the best gas patches, say critics, making places like the Powder River Basin sacrifice zones. And Freudenthal has called the grouse "one of the ugliest, stupidest birds I ever knew." Still, he's willing to defend it to protect Wyoming's natural gas industry. His office estimates that a listing would subject 83 percent of gas producers to new regulations. "What we live on in this state is mineral revenues," said Freudenthal energy advisor Aaron Clark in 2009, "and we would be subjecting a lot of that to the vagaries of the Endangered Species Act." For now, the plan has kept federal regulation at bay. When the Interior Department this year again declined to protect the grouse, officials commended Wyoming's efforts. And Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has encouraged other states with sagebrush habitat to adopt the core-area model. Wyoming hopes the feds will be similarly seduced by its new fracking law, as well as pioneering rules developed over the last two years for future carbon capture and sequestration projects. Shannon Anderson, a lawyer for the Powder River Basin Resource Council, a local environmental group, calls the latter "generally good rules." But they're less cautious than similar rules drafted by the EPA, which aim to protect drinking water by considering only deep, briny aquifers as potential carbon storage sites. Wyoming's rules could allow injections in shallow geologic formations, potentially even those that overlie drinking water sources. "They were designed to beat EPA and hopefully get them to follow, rather than dictate, Wyoming's approach," Anderson says. It's encouraging to see Wyoming advance environmental regulation instead of relax it, as the previous governor did to ease coalbed methane development, and as the Bush-Cheney administration did with fracking. But local environmentalists caution that the new policies aren't necessarily evidence that Wyoming's gone green. "All these rules are baby steps in terms of what we really need to accomplish to address the impacts we have in the state," Anderson says, adding that Wyoming is in "an already compromised position." Between 2001 and 2005, sage grouse populations near coalbed methane development in the Powder River Basin declined by 82 percent. Freudenthal refuses to moderate Wyoming's anti-wolf stance, jeopardizing the state's chances to manage the animals. And requiring frackers to disclose their chemicals won't protect groundwater if drillers remain exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act. "The idea is to get these rules in place and stop Congress from passing (comprehensive legislation), which would actually protect public health and safety," Anderson says. Imperfect as it may be, Wyoming's breakaway approach to environmental regulation is gaining favor among some surprising constituencies. Last month, Cathy Woollums, an executive of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., a coal-reliant utility behemoth, came to the Wyoming Legislature with an unexpected request: Regulate greenhouse gases. Congressional inaction is creating too much uncertainty in the utility business, she said. And, in any case, MidAmerican would rather answer to Wyoming than the EPA. -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Fwd: CA GOP Recovery Plan
by James Kotcon 26 Nov '10

26 Nov '10

This is from my father-in-law in California. I wonder if we could find some WV Republicans who might get on board? JBK >>> "Bob Elliott" <rdelliott(a)socal.rr.com> 11/26/2010 2:16 PM >>> latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-trounstine-california-republica201 01126,0,2900700.story latimes.com Op-Ed A California GOP recovery program Its trouncing in the Nov. 2 election shows that the state's voters aren't interested in 'tea party' stances; Republicans should pursue a more centrist approach. By Phil Trounstine and Jerry Roberts November 26, 2010 In the wake of the disastrous showing by Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina and the rest of the California Republican Party ticket, the leaders of the Golden State GOP should recalibrate their politics and policies to become relevant once again. The state's Republicans are now so trapped in their ideological hall of mirrors that they have become a distorted caricature of themselves. The midterm election demonstrated that they utterly fail to reflect the impulses of the vast majority of California voters, who tend toward fiscal conservatism and social moderation. Many Republican values have a wide following: smaller government, lower taxes, reduced regulation, economic growth, individual freedom and law and order, to name a few. The California GOP should fight for these ideals. But it needs to incorporate them into a platform that begins with a realistic growth agenda. Investment in roads, bridges, dams and/or levees, ports, water projects, redevelopment projects and schools and universities - all of these things and more are wholly consistent with their philosophical worldview. The party's fixation on opposing everything the Democrats propose is hurting Republicans more than it is their opponents. The GOP should take the lead in advocating an economic rebound strategy that relies on Silicon Valley innovation, green jobs and high-tech research and development. The party could integrate this with increased exports for a growing agricultural sector and a healthy and expanding service economy. Republicans don't have to continually serve the interests of the wealthiest 2% of California families; they can focus also on the struggling middle class. And they need to remember that California is not Kentucky or Alaska or any other state where the so-called tea party is a big deal. In California, tea party ideology has little appeal to the vast majority of voters. It's time for leaders of the California Republican Party to rethink their general strategy and agenda. Here are some ideas it should consider: .A change of position on providing a path to citizenship. The party should strongly favor securing the borders against illegal immigration; that's a matter of defending our national sovereignty and integrity. But that position doesn't need to be in conflict with extending eventual citizenship to some of those who are currently living here illegally. Just as the Republican Party was the Northern standard-bearer for the abolition of slavery in the 1850s and 1860s, so the California Republican Party could advocate for citizenship for honest working men and women who have come to the U.S. to make better lives for themselves and their families. According to the Los Angeles Times/USC postelection survey, about 8 in 10 Latinos, half the independents and even 4 in 10 Republicans support a path to citizenship. Even greater percentages support other ideas for integrating illegal immigrants. Republicans are driving away Latinos - nearly a quarter of the voters - with their anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric. .Getting on board with green jobs and environmental conservation. By arguing that people must pick between the environment and economic development, Republicans are creating a false choice. And voters know it. California Republicans have made fighting environmental regulation a cause. But plenty of people, including George Shultz and the late David Packard, have demonstrated that you can be a rock-ribbed Republican and also favor preserving and enhancing the environment. Of course, environmentalism has to be balanced against other competing interests, such as healthy agriculture, water supplies for cities and reasonable growth in and around urban areas. But pragmatic environmentalism could win the party votes. .Developing a bench. The party should start grooming young, bright, articulate Republicans throughout the state. It should teach them about practical politics, polling and other insider skills. It should train them in how to talk to reporters and how to think on their feet and answer questions without betraying their ignorance. It should teach them how to talk to ordinary people without sounding as if they're preaching or reciting talking points. In other words, the GOP should do what big-time college athletic programs do: recruit. .Changing the party's stance on abortion. There's a way to move to the center on this issue. The party could support a woman's right to choose in line with Roe vs. Wade without endorsing or even supporting abortion. The idea that abortion is a moral choice is not incompatible with the idea that this moral choice must be made by individuals, not the state. The party could also focus on reducing the number of abortions by supporting rather than opposing family planning. Barry Goldwater did. The party's goal should be to build a coalition based on an overarching goal of reducing the number of abortions rather than wasting breath yammering about abstinence and opposing sex education for teens. .Sounding sensible, not strident. The problem with the tea party rhetoric is that it sounds like the ravings of a crazy old uncle who really ought to be locked in the attic. The vast majority of California voters are moderate, independent-minded, practical people. They don't much care if an idea comes from a Democrat or a Republican. They care if it works. They're not against government; they want just enough of it to handle the important things. They're not opposed to all taxes; they're opposed to taxes that seem unfair, onerous or overly broad. They want to control the borders, but they also want to be fair to people who have worked hard to make a living, no matter where they come from. They're not pro-abortion, but they want women and their doctors - not Assembly members and state senators - to make choices about the life and death of fetuses. California voters are tired of people running for office who sound as if they think they know everything and whose answers are purely ideological. The Republicans need to have a hard head. But they also need to demonstrate a soft heart. And maybe a touch of humility. Phil Trounstine and Jerry Roberts write regularly about politics at their website, calbuzz.com. This article was adapted from one of their posts. Copyright C 2010, Los Angeles Times <http://www.latimes.com/> http://secure-us.imrworldwide.com/cgi-bin/m?ci=us-400338h&cg=0&cc=1&ts=noscr ipt

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Nissan Leaf Commercial
by James Kotcon 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

This is also pretty cool. Maybe I missed it as it apparently has been out for a while, but it is worth watching. This is how we should be doing our messaging. JBK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNeEVkhTutY

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Fwd: electric vehicle charging stations w "solar trees"
by James Kotcon 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

>>> Paula Carrell <Paula.Carrell(a)sierraclub.org> 11/23/2010 7:32 PM >>> OK, this is seriously cool . . . http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2010/11/envision-solar.html and an interesting way to counter the fear that EVs will end up increasing (coal-fired) power plant demand not necessarily . . . I want a "solar tree" at home pc

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Fwd: WVNS story: Massey's Violations Hurting its Bottom Line?
by Paul Wilson 22 Nov '10

22 Nov '10

Massey CEO was also subject of a Morning Edition piece on Saturday morning NPR. fyi, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Public News Service <wvns(a)newsservice.org> Date: Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 4:44 AM Subject: WVNS story: Massey's Violations Hurting its Bottom Line? To: PaulWilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> Public News Service-WV November 22, 2010 Massey's Violations Hurting its Bottom Line? CHARLESTON, W.Va. - The coal-mining company Massey Energy is apparently up for sale, and shareholders may not be thankful for the company's record of violations of law and regulations. The company confirms it is now seriously considering takeover offers, and a number of stock watchers say privately that Massey's environmental and mine safety problems have cost it. Rob McGarrah, who follows stocks for the huge *AFL-CIO* pension funds, says accidents and environmental violations cause down-time and run up huge legal fees. "Contesting every single violation, questioning the legality of the enforcement efforts on the part of federal and state officials: None of this is good for productivity. It's not good for the overall health of the company." No one at Massey returned a call requesting comment. The company has fought with the unions before, but McGarrah says Massey could be a better neighbor and more profitable if it were less combative. Speaking to investors last week, company CEO Don Blankenship claimed that their finances have been hurt by regulations that he says target Massey. "Practices that we've employed at Massey successfully for years, that improve health and safety, are now being discarded; that's as well as the fact that environmental regulations have reached the point that they're fully unreasonable." According to McGarrah, other large coal operators seem to have fewer of these problems. "Other companies, and we are invested in them, do not have anywhere near the same troubles with federal investigations or federal mine safety enforcement." Over the last ten years shares in such mining companies as Consol, Peabody and Arch Coal have shown a tremendous rise. But even before the accident at its Upper Big Branch mine last April which focused national attention on the firm and its record, Massey Energy's share price was about where it had been a decade before. Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/17060-1<http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/17060-1> --- To be removed from this list please send an e-mail to remove(a)publicnewsservice.org <remove(a)publicnewsservice.org?subject=remove>and put the word "remove" in the subject line. -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Fw: [fom] Fwd: [NoCoal] Wind in the heart of King Coal
by Frank Young 21 Nov '10

21 Nov '10

----- Original Message ----- From: Frank Young To: Daniel Chiotos ; FOM Cc: ec(a)osenergy.org Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2010 5:51 PM Subject: Re: [fom] Fwd: [NoCoal] Wind in the heart of King Coal Danny, When a potential electrical power developer- whether wind, solar or coal powered- gets to looking into a specific generating facility location, one of the first things the developer does is to apply to regional grid operator (known as PJM in this 13 state region) for a technical analysis of how much power could be put on the power grid from that location utilizing the existing transmission line infrastructure. This is done far in advance of applying for any permits. I know of some potential wind power locations that had this PJM grid connection analysis done nearly ten years ago- Rich Mountain in Randolph County, for example- yet no permits applications have even been filed for this location. Sometimes these power grid analyses show that significant megawatts of electricity can be put on the grid with little or no additional transmission line construction. This was the case at the Mt. Storm Shell-Nedpower wind farm in Tucker County. That facility was built such that it crossed directly under an existing 500 KV transmission line. All that was needed was construction of a power substation that was tied directly into the existing transmission line there. On the other hand, at the Beech Ridge wind farm facility in Greenbrier County, Invenergy had to construct almost 20 miles of its own transmission line to connect with an existing APCo transmission line near Nettie in Nicholas County. And some perhaps otherwise good wind locations are so far from transmission lines that it would be costs prohibitive to develop that site and costructuct and maintain the additional transmission lines necessary to connect to the existing power grid. My main point is that just because a potential power developer asks PJM for a technical analysis of grid capacity in the area, it does not mean that construction nor even a permit application is imminent. Although PJM keeps these transmission access technically analyzed locations on its website indefinitely, it does not mean that the sites will ever be developed. Some will sooner, some will later, and some will probably never be developed for technical, financial or other reasons. Frank Young, member Beech Ridge Wind Technical Advisory Committee for WV Sierra Club ----- Original Message ----- From: Daniel Chiotos To: FOM Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2010 3:01 PM Subject: [fom] Fwd: [NoCoal] Wind in the heart of King Coal can anyone ID the renewable energy projects that this map shows & the current state of them? This map looks like way more wind than I've heard of - so I'm wondering whether it is tracking wind that is in every state of the permit? Check out the map, pretty interesting...I wonder how many jobs would be developed if all of these renewable energy projects came to be... link is below Cheers, Daniel Chiotos Keeper of the Mountains Foundation Operations Director http://www.mountainkeeper.org 179 Summers St, Suite 234 Charleston, WV, 25301 (304)886-3389 - cell (304)205-0920 - office "WE ARE THE KEEPERS OF THE MOUNTAINS, LOVE THEM OR LEAVE THEM, JUST DON'T DESTROY THEM. IF YOU DARE TO BE ONE TOO, CALL 304-542-1134 OR 304-205-0920." - Larry Gibson ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ted Nace <ted(a)tednace.com> Date: Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 2:55 PM Subject: [NoCoal] Wind in the heart of King Coal To: nonewcoalplants(a)energyjustice.net The PJM regional transmission organization is tracking 39,000 MW of proposed wind (more than all other proposed renewable and nonrenewable generation sources combined) in Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. See this interactive map for details. _______________________________________________ No New Coal Plants! (nonewcoalplants(a)energyjustice.net) Energy Justice Network http://www.energyjustice.net Un/Subscribe, change your settings or access the archives at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nonewcoalplants_energyjustice.net

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Fwd: [WVaPATH] Zoning exception denied in MD for PATH substation
by James Kotcon 20 Nov '10

20 Nov '10

In case you have not heard. JBK >>> Bill Howley <billhowley(a)hughes.net> 11/19/2010 7:13 AM >>> Last night, the Frederick County, MD Board of Zoning Appeals _denied_ a special zoning exception that would have allowed the construction of the huge Kemptown Substation at the eastern end of PATH. This is a serious setback for PATH. Allegheny will no doubt go to state court to fight this. The MD PSC has already claimed sole authority to site the substation in Frederick County, although state law may not let them do that. There will clearly be a major court fight pitting the Frederick County Commission against AEP/Allegheny and the MD PSC. This will cause serious problems for PATH in MD.

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W.Va. board temporarily blocks ICG mine water permit
by Frank Young 18 Nov '10

18 Nov '10

This will be of interest to Jim Kotcon and perhaps others of you. This action springs directly from a Sierra Club legal appeal. Frank ----- Original Message ----- From: Cindy Rank To: WVHCBOARD(a)yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2010 5:37 PM Subject: [WVHCBOARD] ICG Patriot Mining Mine in northern WV --- using coal ash in backfill;;; http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/ W.Va. board temporarily blocks ICG mine November 18, 2010 by Ken Ward Jr. Word is just coming in that West Virginia’s Environmental Quality Board has temporarily blocked a water pollution permit for International Coal Group subsidiary Patriot Mining Company’s New Hill West Mine up in Monongalia County. I’ve posted a copy of the board’s order here, a copy of a motion for stay here and International Coal Group’s response to that motion here. Sierra Club lawyers sought the temporary stay because the company had planned to begin blasting tomorrow, and a hearing on the group’s appear of the water pollution permit was not scheduled to begin until mid-December. The water permit in question already covers discharges from five previously approved surface mining permits, and now Patriot Mining wants to add another 225-acre operation that would discharge into Scotts Run of the Monongahela River drainage. If you take a minute and read the original notice of appeal filed by the Sierra Club, you’ll see that this case has the potential to be pretty darned interesting. The appeal cites, among other things, what the Sierra Club says it the mine’s inability to meet the new water quality standards outlined in EPA’s major guidance document on conductivity. __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic Messages in this topic (1) Recent Activity: Visit Your Group Working since 1967 for the conservation and wise management of West Virginia's natural resources Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use. __,_._,___

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Fwd: [wvec-board] Officials Seek Stronger Drilling Rules
by James Kotcon 14 Nov '10

14 Nov '10

See attached news item from Don Garvin regarding legislation. Now is a good time for some letters to the editor saying that these rules are very reasonable and are easily achievable by the industry, but that they will of course claim that the sky is falling and that this is the end of their industry. JBK

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coal to gas news
by Jim Sconyers 14 Nov '10

14 Nov '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Vivian Stockman <vivian(a)ohvec.org> To: fom(a)lists.riseup.net Sent: Sun, November 14, 2010 5:38:11 AM Subject: Developments casts doubt on Baard project Developments casts doubt on Baard project

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Fw: 2011 Green Jobs Conference Workshops Now Available
by Jim Sconyers 12 Nov '10

12 Nov '10

SC has "scholarships" for members who want to go. Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: David Foster <event-information(a)certain.com> To: Jim Sconyers <jim_scon(a)yahoo.com> Sent: Fri, November 12, 2010 12:01:11 PM Subject: 2011 Green Jobs Conference Workshops Now Available Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference and Expo 2010 Dear Jim, A while back we emailed to let you know that registration was open for the 2011 Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference, which is being held February 8-10 in Washington, D.C. Now, we are excited to announce that the workshop program is now available to view online. We encourage you to register for the 2011 Conference now to be sure to take advantage of this once-a-year opportunity. Every year, the Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference brings together stakeholders from across the spectrum of those working to create good, green jobs across the country. This year, we again received hundreds of proposals, and after careful review, have selected the most interesting and informative sessions that will truly define what is happening now in this critical green jobs effort. The 2011 Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference is the leading forum for sharing ideas and strategies for building the green economy. This year’s Conference — focused on putting these ideas into practice and creating good green jobs across the country — will bring together leaders from the labor, environmental, government and business communities for a discussion on how to move our economy forward with good, safe jobs that help to protect the environment for the next generation. This year’s workshops represent important concentrations in building the green economy, including: Green Infrastructure and Transportation; State and Local Initiatives and Partnerships; Workforce, Economic Development and Youth Education; Emerging Green Sectors: Recycling, Chemicals, Water, Agriculture and Other Growing Industries; Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency; Business, Investments and New Markets; and Clean Energy Manufacturing. Register today, check back to www.greenjobsconference.org for updates, and follow us on Twitter or Facebook for the the latest news about the 2011 Conference. See you in February. Sincerely, David Foster BlueGreen Alliance Registration Powered by Certain Meetings Event Management Software :: Online Event Management :: Online Registration Meeting Management Software :: Conference Registration :: Event Planner Software © 2009 Certain Software ®, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy.

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powerful letter from EPA's Lisa jackson
by Jim Sconyers 12 Nov '10

12 Nov '10

I found this response to Republican attack amazing. Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last.

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Fwd: from the Center for Media and Democracy: Natural Gas and Money, a "Bacteria that Ills the American System"
by Paul Wilson 11 Nov '10

11 Nov '10

CMD Reports Natural Gas and Money, a "Bacteria that Ills the American System"<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FS5r3ewNYRykmDL8uO0v…> by Steve Horn Money, plain and simple, is what Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=3Z8HzJnFvS3EOwXoeYco…>called "the bacteria that ills the American political system" in a talk<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=YXh171UwM4MZ%2F%2F9n…>given at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on November 3, 2010. Indeed, when looking at issues individually, one can see that this is obviously the case, whether it be health care<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=3JLOTJrOAiR0lAGipSiD…>, Wall Street<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=emmsvp%2FnKdSLa2eKlG…>, war<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=kMN%2FKZifrrym1evjIy…>, or on national security issues<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Kfb80oclXd9JroAzwPia…>. It's all the same and he who pays the piper calls the tune<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=YLzxI1kuu8BcXhTplaxY…>. Should anyone be surprised, then, that every statewide race in Pennsylvania<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FNC8wo2PDfO3LUOLpfJh…>, a state in which there are no limits on campaign contributions<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=zwkMezzIYrhJwizYOlJp…>, was ruthlessly barraged<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Py5OEhmWILlpQo2GmRkc…>by campaign money from oil companies? If you're surprised, you clearly haven't had your eyes open during other election cycles<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=VUrJ0R%2F4DwtlIdo1jd…> . Read the rest of this item<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=LOQ3Dk2Aw9lrryDdRjl%…> -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Fwd: The Atlantic: Dirty Coal, Clean Future
by James Kotcon 10 Nov '10

10 Nov '10

Long, but worth reading. This pretty directly conflicts with the Sierra Club position that we need to end the burning of coal by 2050, but it is pretty in line with industry and US-DOE positions. JBK >>> Oliver Bernstein <oliver.bernstein(a)SIERRACLUB.ORG> 11/10/2010 11:15 AM >>> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/dirty-coal-clean-future… Dirty Coal, Clean Future To environmentalists, “clean coal” is an insulting oxymoron. But for now, the only way to meet the world’s energy needs, and to arrest climate change before it produces irreversible cataclysm, is to use coal—dirty, sooty, toxic coal—in more-sustainable ways. The good news is that new technologies are making this possible. China is now the leader in this area, the Google and Intel of the energy world. If we are serious about global warming, America needs to work with China to build a greener future on a foundation of coal. Otherwise, the clean-energy revolution will leave us behind, with grave costs for the world’s climate and our economy. By James Fallows Through the past four years I’ve often suggested that China’s vaunted achievements are less impressive, or at least more complicated, seen up close. Yes, Chinese factories make nearly all of the world’s consumer electronic equipment. But the brand names, designs, and most of the profits usually belong to companies and people outside China. Yes, China’s accumulated trade surpluses have made it the creditor for America and much of the world. But the huge share of its own wealth that China has sunk into foreign economies ties its fate to theirs. Yes, more and more Chinese people are very rich. But hundreds of millions of Chinese people are still very poor. Yes, Chinese factories lead the world in output of windmills and solar-power panels. But China’s environmental situation is still so dire as to pose the main threat not just to the country’s public health and political stability but also to its own economic expansion. This report will have a different tone. I have been learning about an area of Chinese achievement that is objectively good for the world as a whole, including the United States. Surprising enough! And China’s achievement dramatically highlights a structural advantage of its approach and a weakness of America’s. It involves the shared global effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, of which China and the United States are respectively the No. 1 and No. 2 producers, together creating more than 40 percent of the world’s total output. That shared effort is real, and important. The significant Chinese developments involve more than the “clean tech” boom that Americans have already heard so much about. Instead a different, less publicized, and much less appealing-sounding effort may matter even more in determining whether the United States and China can cooperate to reduce emissions. This involves not clean tech but the dirtiest of today’s main energy sources—coal. Mining coal is notoriously dangerous, the remnants of those mines disfigure the Earth, and the by-products of coal’s combustion fill the air not simply with soot, smoke, and carbon dioxide but also with toxic heavy metals like mercury and lead, plus corrosive oxides of nitrogen and sulfur, among other pollutants. When I visited coal towns in China’s Shandong and Shanxi provinces, my face, arms, and hands would be rimed in black by the end of each day—even when I hadn’t gone near a mine. People in those towns, like their predecessors in industrial-age Europe and America, have the same black coating on their throats and lungs, of course. When I have traveled at low altitude in small airplanes above America’s active coal-mining regions—West Virginia and Kentucky in the East, Wyoming and its neighbors in the Great Basin region of the West—I’ve seen the huge scars left by “mountain-top removal” and open-pit mining for coal, which are usually invisible from the road and harder to identify from six miles up in an airliner. Compared with most other fossil-fuel sources of energy, coal is inherently worse from a carbon-footprint perspective, since its hydrogen atoms come bound with more carbon atoms, meaning that coal starts with a higher carbon-to-hydrogen ratio than oil, natural gas, or other hydrocarbons. The proposition that coal could constitute any kind of “hope” or solution, or that a major environmentalist action plan could be called “Coal Without Carbon,” as one I will describe is indeed named—this goes beyond seeming interestingly contrarian to seeming simply wrong. For the coal industry, the term “clean coal” is an advertising slogan; for many in the environmental movement, it is an insulting oxymoron. But two ideas that underlie the term are taken with complete seriousness by businesses, scientists, and government officials in China and America, and are the basis of the most extensive cooperation now under way between the countries on climate issues. One is that coal can be used in less damaging, more sustainable ways than it is now. The other is that it must be used in those ways, because there is no plausible other way to meet what will be, absent an economic or social cataclysm, the world’s unavoidable energy demands. This is not an argument against all-out effort on all other fronts, from conservation and efficiency to improved battery technology to wind- and solar-power systems to improved nuclear facilities. Amory Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute, has argued for years that designing buildings and transportation systems to waste less energy from the start is by far the cheapest way to reduce damaging emissions (a position reinforced by influential studies from McKinsey & Company). “Good ideas about climate change are not in competition with one another,” Roger Aines, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, told me when I visited this summer. “We need every possible solution, and then we need more.” This is an argument for recognizing that China has faced reality, in launching an all-out effort to “decarbonize” coal—and for recognizing America’s difficulty in doing the same. 37 Billion Tons Let’s review the basics. This material will be elementary for some readers and controversial for a few others, but laying it out helps clarify the problem to be solved and the real options from which to choose. Also, the quantities and numbers involved here are so vast—the standard unit in discussing carbon-dioxide emissions is the gigaton, or 1 billion metric tons—that it helps to have some indicators of scale. All human activity together puts roughly 37 billion tons (37 gigatons) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. That number has been rising, as the world’s population grows and the number of cars, factories, and power plants increases. Twenty years ago, it was less than 25 billion tons. Twenty years from now, it could well be 50 billion tons. Carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas—that is, a substance that affects the atmosphere’s ability to absorb and emit heat, so that a growing portion of the sun’s energy is trapped to warm the planet rather than radiating back into space. Methane, nitrous oxide, aerosols, and other emissions play a major role, and ton per ton can be more powerful in greenhouse effect. But the focus is on carbon dioxide because we produce so much of it, and because its effects are so long-lasting. Carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere persists for many decades, even centuries—unlike methane, which can disperse within a single decade. This means that when more carbon dioxide is emitted than natural systems absorb, the concentration in the atmosphere continually goes up. Before James Watt invented the steam engine in the late 1700s—that is, before human societies had much incentive to burn coal and later oil in large quantities—the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was around 280 parts per million, or ppm (meaning 280 carbon-dioxide molecules per million molecules of “dried air,” or air with the water removed). It is thought to have fluctuated between about 180 and 280 ppm through the previous 800,000 years. By 1900, as Europe and North America were industrializing, it had reached about 300 ppm. Now the carbon-dioxide concentration is at or above 390 ppm, which is probably the highest level in many millions of years. “We know that the last time CO2 was sustained at this level, much of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets were not there,” Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State, told me. Because of the 37 billion annual tons of carbon-dioxide emissions, the atmospheric carbon-dioxide level continues to go up by about two ppm a year. For perspective: by the time today’s sixth-graders finish high school, the world carbon-dioxide level will probably have passed 400 ppm, and by the time most of them are starting families, it will have entered the 420s. Have we so far come across anything that is “controversial”? No: such political controversy as exists mainly concerns the exact connection between rising carbon-dioxide levels and future climate change, and how harmful (and to whom) that change would be. That the atmospheric carbon-dioxide level is rapidly going up, and that recent years have been on average the warmest in recorded history, no one bothers to dispute. And in any case, all parties to the negotiations I’m describing, including the heads of the major coal-mining and electric-power utilities in the United States and China, accept as settled fact that greenhouse-gas emissions are an emergency they must confront, because of the likely disruptive effects on the world’s climate. At a U.S.-China environmental conference this summer in San Francisco, I heard one utility-company official after another testify, confession-meeting style, about the vast extent of their current emissions and their need to reform. The main uncertainties involve what might happen as carbon-dioxide levels reach 450 ppm and above. In particular, the question is how and when “positive feedback” loops would kick in, so that the hotter things get, the faster they will get even hotter. The main way this would happen would be through melting of the polar ice sheets, which would mean less white ice surface to reflect the sun’s heat, and more blue water surface to absorb it. Similarly, the vast Arctic permafrost areas could have a positive-feedback effect as they thaw. They are essentially frozen peat bogs, which contain huge amounts of methane. As they began to melt, they would release their methane, which in turn could trigger even faster melting and more methane release. “The reality of it is that in many cases, there may not be any fixed threshold for ‘irreversible’ change,” Michael Mann told me. “What we have with rising CO2 levels in general is a dramatically increasing probability of serious and deleterious change in our climate.” He went down the list: more frequent, severe, and sustained heat waves, like those that affected Russia and the United States this summer; more frequent and destructive hurricanes and floods; more frequent droughts, like the “thousand-year drought” that has devastated Australian agriculture; and altered patterns of the El Niño phenomenon, which will change rainfall patterns in the Americas. In other cases, he said, there could be important thresholds. For example, the possibility of dramatic rises in ocean levels, which could affect the habitability of New York, London, Shanghai, Miami, the entire Netherlands, and many other modern conurbations, along with coastal areas in India, Bangladesh, and elsewhere. “It would be nice to know where such thresholds are so we can avoid crossing them,” Mann said. “We can’t know that. What we do know for certain is that with each fraction of a degree of warming, the probability of such potentially catastrophic outcomes goes up.” The Inevitability of Coal That’s the big picture. Now come the parts of the background that are somewhat less familiar but bear on the argument that the only real salvation must involve coal. Recall the 37 billion tons of worldwide annual carbon-dioxide emissions. On a per capita basis, that would mean about six tons for each of the planet’s 6-billion-plus people. But of course it doesn’t work that way. For the United States, emissions are about 25 tons per person. For Europe as a whole, they’re about 11 tons. (The difference is smaller houses, smaller cars, fewer sprawling suburbs, and in the case of France, much heavier reliance on nuclear power to generate electricity. Nuclear plants are expensive and obviously create waste-disposal problems, but they emit practically no greenhouse gases.) Japan’s level is slightly below Europe’s. For China, the emission level is about eight tons per person. Overall, China’s economy is more energy-intensive than America’s or Europe’s—its bias toward construction and heavy manufacturing, plus its on-average shoddy standard of building insulation, mean that it takes more fuel, electricity, and raw energy to produce a dollar’s worth of output in China than in the U.S. But overall living standards are still so much lower in China that per capita emissions there are barely one-third the U.S. level. India’s per capita emission level is about three tons per year, less than half of China’s (because India has so many fewer factories). For Kenya and other barely industrialized countries, it’s about one ton per person per year. The range of these figures suggests the technical challenges ahead. As one climate scientist put it to me, “To stabilize the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, the whole world on average would need to get down to the Kenya level”—a 96 percent reduction for the United States. The figures also suggest the diplomatic challenges for American negotiators in recommending that other countries, including those with hundreds of millions in poverty, forgo the energy-intensive path toward wealth that the United States has traveled for so many years. Indeed, in comparisons between the United States and China, the emissions figures probably understate the real gap in per capita energy use. David Mohler is the chief technology officer for Duke Energy Company, which is based in Charlotte and is a leading electricity and natural-gas provider in the Carolinas and parts of the Midwest. He travels frequently to China, and he took me through a comparison of electricity use in the two countries, as a proxy for overall energy use and emissions. At face value, he said, there was about a 5-to-1 difference between U.S. and Chinese per capita electricity-use levels. Each American is on average responsible for about 13.6 megawatt-hours of electricity use per year, counting residential heating and lighting, a pro-rated share of industrial and commercial demand, and so on. For each Chinese, the average is about 2.6. “But around half of that Chinese electricity consumption was for manufactured products for export,” Mohler said. That is, China’s surge in electric capacity has disproportionately gone toward its factory- export boom, rather than toward home air-conditioning and lighting, elevators, TVs and computers, electric cars, or any other in-China use by Chinese people (though to see a blazingly lit Chinese city at night is to recognize that plenty of power is already being used). “So in a sense, their ‘real’ per capita use is only about 1.5 megawatt-hours,” Mohler said, “and ours, counting what went into the products we import, could be 10 times that much.” Mohler’s point was less about abstract equity than practical reality. People in rural China, in my experience, don’t really care that people somewhere else—Los Angeles or Houston, even Shanghai or Tianjin—are using more electricity and gasoline than they are. They just want to use more themselves! I assume the same to be true of their counterparts from Nigeria to India to North Korea. “You go in the countryside in China, and people don’t have any power to pump their water,” Mohler said. “Of course they’re going to want those powered pumps. Anyone would.” And hot water for their baths, and refrigerators for their kitchens, and air-conditioners for their bedrooms—and cars. Thus the bind. The atmosphere needs to absorb dramatically less carbon dioxide, while people around the world are certain to want dramatically more of the products and comforts whose creation and operation send carbon dioxide and other gases into the sky. Isn’t “clean energy” the answer? Of course—because everything is the answer. The people I spoke with and reports I read differed in emphasis, sometimes significantly. Some urged greater stress on efficiency and conservation; some, a faster move toward nuclear power or natural gas; some, an all-out push for solar power and other renewable sources; others, immediate preparation for “geo-engineering” or “abatement” projects to offset the effects of climate disruption once they occur. But in a sense they were all in harmony, because everything on all the lists works toward the same end. The best-known illustration of the need for an all-fronts approach is the “carbon wedge” analysis from the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton. Its premise is that to keep the carbon-dioxide level from going into the 500s, or twice its pre-industrial-age level, over the next 50 years, the world collectively will need to reduce its carbon-dioxide emissions by a total of about 26 billion tons per year. (Technically, CMI measures its goals in billions of tons of carbon contained within the carbon dioxide. For clarity, I’ve converted the figures.) To reach that total, CMI proposes seven “stabilization wedges” of a little less than 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide each. A 4-billion-ton “wedge” through efficiency efforts of all kinds; another wedge of that size through renewable power; another through avoiding deforestation and changing agricultural practices. Eventually it adds up. “There are many good options,” Julio Friedmann, a geologist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, told me soon after I first met him in Beijing two years ago. “But there are no unlimited options. Each is limited by cost, limited by scale, limited by physics and chemistry, limited by thermodynamics. For example, there’s nothing wrong with switchgrass as a biofuel”—one of George W. Bush’s novel proposals—“but there’s not a lot of energy in it.” We’ll hear from Friedmann again. This emphasis on limits is what begins pointing us back to coal. “Emotionally, we would all like to think that wind, solar, and conservation will solve the problem for us,” David Mohler of Duke Energy told me. “Nothing will change, our comfort and convenience will be the same, and we can avoid that nasty coal. Unfortunately, the math doesn’t work that way.” The math he has in mind starts with the role that coal now plays around the world, and especially for the two biggest energy consumers, America and China. Overall, coal-burning power plants provide nearly half (about 46 percent this year) of the electricity consumed in the United States. For the record: natural gas supplies another 23 percent, nuclear power about 20 percent, hydroelectric power about 7 percent, and everything else the remaining 4 or 5 percent. The small size of the “everything else” total is worth noting; even if it doubles or triples, the solutions we often hear the most about won’t come close to meeting total demand. In China, coal-fired plants supply an even larger share of much faster-growing total electric demand: at least 70 percent, with the Three Gorges Dam and similar hydroelectric projects providing about 20 percent, and (in order) natural gas, nuclear power, wind, and solar energy making up the small remainder. For the world as a whole, coal-fired plants provide about half the total electric supply. On average, every American uses the electricity produced by 7,500 pounds of coal each year. Precisely because coal already plays such a major role in world power supplies, basic math means that it will inescapably do so for a very long time. For instance: through the past decade, the United States has talked about, passed regulations in favor of, and made technological breakthroughs in all fields of renewable energy. Between 1995 and 2008, the amount of electricity coming from solar power rose by two-thirds in the United States, and wind-generated electricity went up more than 15-fold. Yet over those same years, the amount of electricity generated by coal went up much faster, in absolute terms, than electricity generated from any other source. The journalist Robert Bryce has drawn on U.S. government figures to show that between 1995 and 2008, “the absolute increase in total electricity produced by coal was about 5.8 times as great as the increase from wind and 823 times as great as the increase from solar”—and this during the dawn of the green-energy era in America. Power generated by the wind and sun increased significantly in America last year; but power generated by coal increased more than seven times as much. As Americans have read many times, Chinese companies are the world’s leaders in manufacturing solar panels, often using technology originally developed in the United States. Many of the panels are used inside China for its own rapidly growing solar-power system; still, solar energy accounts for about 1 percent of its total power supply. In his book PowerHungry, Bryce describes a visit to a single coal mine, the Cardinal Mine in western Kentucky, whose daily output supports three-quarters as much electricity generation as all the solar and wind facilities in the United States combined. David MacKay, of the physics department at Cambridge University in England, has compiled an encyclopedia of such energy-related comparisons, which is available for free download (under the misleadingly lowbrow title Sustainable Energy—Without the Hot Air). For instance: he calculates that if the windiest 10 percent of the entire British landmass were completely covered with wind turbines, they would produce power roughly equivalent to half of what Britons expend merely by driving each day. Similar patterns apply even more starkly in China. Other sources of power are growing faster in relative terms, but year by year the most dramatic increase is in China’s use of coal. “Coal simply is going to be with us for decades,” a technical adviser to China’s energy ministry told me this summer in Beijing. “We hope someday to have 15 percent of our power from renewable sources. Even so, the percentage of power generated by coal will not drop by more than a few points, and the absolute amount will quickly grow.” Another government energy expert in Beijing said that the only serious limit on how fast Chinese power companies can increase their use of coal is the capacity of the country’s transportation system. “It’s kind of an existential question, whether they can handle the physical volumes they are planning to consume,” he said. “Right now railroads are at capacity, you have entire highways being blocked with coal trucks, and the problems cascade.” Part of the reason China has committed some $80 billion over the next decade to build light-rail networks across the country is to get human passengers off the main rail lines, opening up more capacity to move coal. “People without a technical background think, ‘Coal is dirty! It’s bad,’” I was told in Beijing by Ming Sung, a geologist and energy expert who was born in Shanghai, worked for decades in America and became a citizen, and has now returned to China. “But will you turn off your refrigerator for 30 years while we work on renewables? Turn off the computer? Or ask people in China to do that? Unless you will, you can’t get rid of coal for decades. As [U.S. Energy Secretary] Steven Chu has said, we have to face the nightmare of coal for a while.” Coal will be with us because it is abundant: any projected “peak coal” stage would come many decades after the world reaches “peak oil.” It will be with us because of where it’s located: the top four coal-reserve countries are the United States, Russia, China, and India, which together have about 40 percent of the world’s population and more than 60 percent of its coal. It will be with us because its direct costs are in most circumstances far lower than those of the alternatives—that’s why so much is used. (Prices vary widely from place to place and company to company, but one utility executive said that the lowest-price coal plant might generate electricity for 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, while the same amount of power from a new wind farm in the same area might cost 20 cents.) It will be with us because its indirect costs, in miner deaths, environmental destruction, and carbon burden on the atmosphere are unregulated and “externalized.” Power companies that answer to shareholders or ratepayers have a hard time justifying a more expensive choice. “Coal is so cheap because its dirtiness still doesn’t count against it,” an air-pollution expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council told The Wall Street Journal 10 years ago. In the absence of climate legislation in the United States and international agreements to reduce emissions, the dirtiness still doesn’t count. Coal will be with us because changing a power infrastructure—like building a new transportation system or extending cable or fiber-optic connections through an entire country—is the very opposite of a “virtual” process, and takes many years to complete. And it will be with us because of a surprising constraint: after a century in which medical diagnosis and treatment, computer and communications systems, aerospace and nanotech industries, and nearly every other form of technology have routinely achieved the magical, energy production is essentially what it was in the time of James Watt. With the main exception of nuclear-power plants and the hoped-for future exception of practical nuclear-fusion systems, we mostly create electricity by burning something that was once underground—coal, oil, natural gas—to boil water and turn turbines with the steam. (Windmills use the wind’s force, and hydropower systems use falling water, to turn turbines directly.) The computer of 10 years from now will be unrecognizably more powerful than today’s, and its predictably increased capability will make medical, navigation, and other systems better, too. If the power plant of 10 years from now is even slightly more efficient than today’s, that will be a major achievement. The most advanced of today’s “ultra-supercritical” coal-fired plants, which operate at very high temperatures and pressures to maximize the efficiency of combustion, convert up to 48 percent of the coal’s potential energy to electric power; the rest is lost as heat. “Subcritical” plants typically have efficiencies in the mid-30s. The costliest and most advanced technology is an improvement—but not a breakthrough. A breakthrough is what it would take to move beyond reliance on coal. “I know this is a theological issue for some people,” Julio Friedmann of Lawrence Livermore said. “Solar and wind power are going to be important, but it is really hard to get them beyond 10 percent of total power supply.” He pointed out the huge engineering achievement it has taken to raise the efficiency of solar photovoltaic cells from about 25 percent to about 30 percent; whereas “to make them useful, you would need improvements of two- or threefold in cost,” say from about 18 cents per kilowatt-hour to 6 cents. He recited a skeptic’s line used about the Carter administration’s clean-energy programs—“You’re not going to run a steel plant with solar panels”—and then made a point that summarized the outlook of those who have decided they can best wage the climate fight by working on dirty, destructive coal. “It is very hard to go around the world and think you can make any difference in carbon-loading the atmosphere without some plan for how people can continue to use coal,” Friedmann said. “It is by far the most prevalent and efficient way to generate electricity. People are going to use it. There is no story of climate progress without a story for coal. In particular, U.S.-China progress on coal.” The Technical Challenge What would progress on coal entail? The proposals are variations on two approaches: ways to capture carbon dioxide before it can escape into the air and ways to reduce the carbon dioxide that coal produces when burned. In “post-combustion” systems, the coal is burned normally, but then chemical or physical processes separate carbon dioxide from the plume of hot flue gas that comes out of the smokestack. Once “captured” as a relatively pure stream of carbon dioxide, this part of the exhaust is pressurized into liquid form and then sold or stored. Refitting an existing coal plant can be very costly. “It’s like trying to remodel your home into a mansion,” a coal-plant manager told me in Beijing. “It’s more expensive, and it’s never quite right.” Apart from research projects, only two relatively small coal-fired power plants now operate in America with post-combustion capture. Designing a capture system into a plant from the start is cheaper than doing refits. But even then the “parasitic load” of energy required to treat, compress, and otherwise handle the separated stream of carbon dioxide can come to 30 percent or more of the total output of a coal-fired power plant—so even more coal must be burned (and mined and shipped) to produce the same supply of electricity. Without mandatory emission limits or carbon prices, burning coal more cleanly is inevitably more expensive than simply burning coal the old way. “When people like me look for funding for carbon capture, the financial community asks, ‘Why should we do that now?’” an executive of a major American electric utility told me. “If there were a price on carbon”—a tax on carbon-dioxide emissions—“you could plug in, say, a loss of $30 to $50 per ton, and build a business case.” “Pre-combustion” systems are fundamentally more efficient. In them, the coal is treated chemically to produce a flammable gas with lower carbon content than untreated coal. This means less carbon dioxide going up the smokestack to be separated and stored. Either way, pre- or post-, the final step in dealing with carbon is “sequestration”—doing something with the carbon dioxide that has been isolated at such cost and effort, so it doesn’t just escape into the air. Carbon dioxide has a surprisingly large number of small-scale commercial uses, starting with adding the sparkle to carbonated soft drinks. (This is not a big help on the climate front, since the carbon dioxide is “sequestered” only until you pop open the bottle’s top.) All larger-scale, longer-term proposals for storing carbon involve injecting it deep underground, into porous rock that will trap it indefinitely. In the right geological circumstances, the captured carbon dioxide can even be used for “enhanced oil recovery,” forcing oil out of the porous rock into which it is introduced and up into wells. These efforts are in one way completely different from “advanced research and development” as we often conceive of it, and in another way very much the same. They are different in that the scientists and entrepreneurs involved do not seem to count on, or even hope for, the large breakthroughs we have come to assume in biological sciences and info-tech. Consistent with two centuries of incremental improvement in power systems since the time of James Watt, practical refinements and ever-improving efficiency are the goal. They are similar in the operational advantage conferred by doing. Because Google indexes more data and handles more queries than any competitor, it can more quickly determine which innovations are succeeding (News, Translate, Earth, Maps) and which are failing (Wave), and exactly how the promising products still need to be improved. The first million copies of each new chip that Intel produces help it debug the production process, so that subsequent millions are cheaper and increasingly defect-free. “Whenever you scale something up, there are always differences from what you planned,” an engineer from a major American technology company told me. “It’s never quite the same. China is building plants like mad, so they can afford to experiment. We are not.” In the search for “progress on coal,” like other forms of energy research and development, China is now the Google, the Intel, the General Motors and Ford of their heyday—the place where the doing occurs, and thus the learning by doing as well. “They are doing so much so fast that their learning curve is at an inflection that simply could not be matched in the United States,” David Mohler of Duke Energy told me. “In America, it takes a decade to get a permit for a plant,” a U.S. government official who works in China said. “Here, they build the whole thing in 21 months. To me, it’s all about accelerating our way to the right technologies, which will be much slower without the Chinese. “You can think of China as a huge laboratory for deploying technology,” the official added. “The energy demand is going like this”—his hand mimicked an airplane taking off—“and they need to build new capacity all the time. They can go from concept to deployment in half the time we can, sometimes a third. We have some advanced ideas. They have the capability to deploy it very quickly. That is where the partnership works.” The good aspects of this partnership have unfolded at a quickening pace over the past decade, through a surprisingly subtle and complex web of connections among private, governmental, and academic institutions in both countries. Perhaps I should say unsurprisingly, since the relationships among American and Chinese organizations in the energy field in some ways resemble the manufacturing supply chains that connect factories in China with designers, inventors, and customers in the United States and elsewhere. The difference in this case is how much faster the strategic advantage seems to be shifting to the Chinese side. In the normal manufacturing supply chain—Apple creating computers, Walmart outsourcing clothes and toys—the United States provides branding, design, and a major market for products, while China supplies labor, machines, and the ability to turn concepts into products at very high speed. In the quest for cleaner coal, America’s contribution is mainly “soft power”—advice, coordination, prodding, and expertise—in hopes of influencing what Chinese organizations do. Ten years ago, at the end of the Clinton administration, the Chinese and American governments signed a “Fossil Energy Protocol,” to coordinate research on better use of coal and oil. Political leaders have come and gone since then, but the cast of technicians, civil servants, and business officials on each side has been relatively stable and has gotten used to working together. After taking office as secretary of energy last year, Steven Chu—a celebrity in China because of his Chinese heritage and his Nobel Prize—gave a new push to these efforts, hiring additional staff members for the U.S.-China office and committing $75 million to a joint Clean Energy Research Center. The efforts of two scientists we’ve already met, Julio Friedmann and Ming Sung, illustrate what Americans can and cannot do to shape what happens in China—and the mounting advantages on China’s side relative to America’s. Friedmann, who is in his mid-40s, has become one of the world’s experts on sequestration: how and where carbon dioxide can safely be stored underground. He was trained in geology at MIT and the University of Southern California and initially went to work for ExxonMobil. But by the early 2000s he had become fascinated with the emerging science of underground carbon-dioxide storage. “At that point, it was clear that nearly all of the really cool work was being done in the national labs,” he told me. In 2004 he and his family moved from Maryland to California, where he joined Lawrence Livermore. He is now the head of the Carbon Management Program there and the technical leader of a government-university-business consortium that this summer won a Department of Energy competition to help develop carbon-sequestration projects in China. To give an idea of the consortium’s range, it includes three universities, three national laboratories, two scientific nongovernmental organizations, and six large corporations, among them General Electric, Duke Energy, and AEP. After talking with Friedmann many times in China, I finally asked about the ethnic derivation of his name. His grandparents were Ashkenazim from Poland and Hungary who left for Latin America in the 1930s; his parents, raised in Colombia and Venezuela, met on an arranged date at Grossinger’s in the Catskills. Although Friedmann bikes to work through the bucolic Northern California setting of the Lawrence Livermore lab—a setting punctuated by the watchtowers and electrified fencing that surround the plutonium stockpile for the lab’s weapons-research center—he comes across as a fast-talking, high-pressure East Coast urban type. In many meetings in America and China in the past two years, I have seen him turn that intensity to one great question: how quickly geologists from America and elsewhere can work with their counterparts in China to improve systems for pumping carbon dioxide underground, and to identify the right rock formations where it can safely be stored. On a typical trip to China, he will spend half his time in Beijing or Shanghai, meeting with government and corporate officials—and the other half in Xi’an or the Inner Mongolian wilderness, where many of the most promising storage locations are found. What he and his team have to offer, from the American part of the supply chain, is expertise on geological formations, on computer models for how the “plume” of liquefied carbon dioxide will settle into porous rock, and on other benefits of America’s decades of experience in petroleum geology. He can also put Chinese plant managers, scientists, and bureaucrats in touch with overseas counterparts they would otherwise never meet. “Projects like these are sort of like the school dance,” he told me. “You’re not getting married, but you’re figuring out how to interact. We need to start the process in a way that gives people the confidence to do it again, and again, and again. The confidence is the product.” The more often Chinese and foreign officials work together, the more easily they continue to work together. This might sound trivial, but I’ve become convinced that the steady expansion of these contacts will make a major difference in how an ever more powerful China deals with the rest of the world. What does Friedmann, or the United States, get from the process? “More tons sequestered, rather than emitted, in China,” he told me. But also something unavailable in America: a chance to see new technology in new plants and learn how it works. “In the U.S. today, there is not a single demonstration of capturing CO2 from a coal-fired plant at large scale,” he said. “The technologies have been a little too expensive to actually implement. That’s why we started looking at China.” They can afford to build, and Americans can hope to watch and learn. Ming Sung’s role illustrates a similar balance of influence and knowledge between the United States and China. Sung, who is in his early 60s, was born in Shanghai and raised there and in Hong Kong, where his family fled in 1958. Ten years later he came to the United States for college and graduate studies in geology. He became a U.S. citizen, worked in the newly formed Department of Energy during the Carter administration, and then left for a 25-year career around the world as an executive with Shell Oil. After he retired from Shell and founded a software company, he and his wife decided to move back to China. He now works in Beijing for a Boston-based nonprofit environmental group called the Clean Air Task Force. (Disclosure: my sister is on the board.) In the early 2000s the task force, originally a conventional anti-air-pollution group, embraced the necessity of cleaning up coal. In Beijing, Sung gave me a copy of its latest working paper, in both Chinese and English, called “Coal Without Carbon.” The group has sponsored research on sequestration, on post-combustion capture, and on the “cleanest” of the emerging pre-combustion coal technologies—“underground coal gasification.” In this process, jets of air (or pure oxygen), sometimes with steam or various chemicals, are blasted into coal seams deep underground. They interact chemically with the coal to produce a gas that flows back up a pipe and can be burned. It leaves in the ground much of the carbon, sulfur, nitrogen, and other elements that create greenhouse gases and other pollutants when coal is burned. “And this can be very cheap,” Sung told me. “You don’t have to mine the coal. You don’t have to send men underground or haul coal around or dispose of ash. All the dirty stuff stays buried.” Because of these and other savings, he said, coal used this way could match or beat the price of today’s standard dirty power plant. But in advocating the whole range of “clean coal” technologies, Sung and his team have the same problem Julio Friedmann has with carbon sequestration: it’s not happening in the United States. There’s one significant exception: the Texas Clean Energy Project, a plant being built outside Odessa, which will apply underground-gasification technology to capture 90 percent of its carbon, more than any other commercial plant in the world. It received a $450 million federal award, just over half from the Department of Energy’s Clean Coal Power Initiative and the rest from the American Recovery and Reinvestment stimulus program (toward the $2.1 billion total capital cost). If it works as promised, this facility will be an advance over any coal-fired plant operating anywhere: it will gasify coal underground, eliminating the cost and damage of mining; it will sell urea (for fertilizer) and other chemical by-products of the underground gasification; and it will use the captured carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery in the nearby Permian Basin oil fields—all in addition to generating power. But otherwise, to see new technology in action and to influence the next dozen coal plants being built in the world, Ming Sung had to go back to China. “For the last 30 years, we have not been able to build a coal-to-gas conversion plant in this country,” a U.S. coal-company official told me. “China has done many. That is what we need to learn from them, all that production and operating experience.” And in exchange? “We do have safety and environmental information that we can definitely provide.” Ten years ago, the United States and many other countries set joint targets of building a series of experimental low- emissions, high-efficiency coal-fired power plants: FutureGen in America, ZeroGen in Australia, various European efforts without a “Gen” name, and GreenGen in China. America’s FutureGen was proposed early, and China’s GreenGen was proposed late. Now—surprise!—GreenGen is closest to being completed, with its scheduled opening moved up from 2015 to 2013, and FutureGen has only recently begun to move beyond the congressional-wrangling stage. What Sung takes from the interaction is both operational knowledge and the chance to influence China’s decisions in some way. What he has provided is another sort of connection, between Chinese organizations and the private businesses that mine coal and generate electricity in the United States. “That is the reason we are here—to get companies together,” Sung said. “It is taking too long for governments to agree on policies, so we believe in B-to-B connections.” At a crucial point, he arranged a meeting in Beijing between the CEO of Duke Energy, Jim Rogers, and Zhang Guobao, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, essentially China’s director of industrial policy. “After the meeting, Zhang said, ‘I fully support this collaboration,’” Sung told me. “With that sentence, what more could you ask for?” Duke got serious about China only two and a half years ago, after Rogers, the CEO, took his grandson on a trip there in the summer of 2008 as a high-school graduation present. The elder Rogers, like so many first-time visitors, was stunned by the scale and dynamism of what he saw. He immediately urged his senior management team to learn about and visit China. “There is something you can’t sense from your office in America,” the director of Duke’s China operations, a 30-year-old woman named River Lu, told me. She grew up in Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong. “Here you feel the pollution, you feel the growth, you feel the energy.” (Her Chinese name is Lu Yun; she chose the English name “River” in her teens. The creativity and often beauty of these chosen names is a dependable pleasure of meeting young English-speaking Chinese.) Although she did not leave China until her mid-20s, for graduate work at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, she has a native-American accent, which she says comes from watching Friends and Ally McBeal on Hong Kong TV. David Mohler, Duke’s chief technology officer, was one of the first visitors and most frequent return travelers. “We learned that China is preparing, by 2025, for 350 million people to live in cities that don’t exist now,” he told me. “They have to build the equivalent of the U.S. electrical system”—that is, almost as much added capacity as the entire U.S. grid—“by 2025. It took us 120 years.” Rogers, Mohler, and the company as a whole moved quickly from being impressed or frightened by Chinese growth to determining how they could work with it. “We realized there was no way we could duplicate their speed, the scale, or the constancy of energy policy within the United States,” Mohler said. “So we wondered if we could find Chinese partners to work with in applying these clean technologies, so we could bring the benefits of their speed and scale back to the United States.” In his speeches and interviews, Rogers frequently emphasizes that by 2050, Duke will need to replace or rebuild every one of its existing power plants in the United States, except for its hydroelectric facilities. Some, because of age; the rest, to meet what Duke considers to be inevitably tightening clean-energy standards. “We will have a huge need for capital,” Mohler said. Duke’s capital budget for the next three years is $18 billion, and only in China can the company find that plus the operational experience of seeing cleaner-coal technologies as they are deployed. Duke Energy supported the Obama administration’s now-abandoned climate bill, because it would have added predictability to the future standards the company will have to meet. With or without a bill, it is looking to China for future financing. Within months of Rogers’s first visit, Duke had opened an office in China, headed by River Lu. Within a year of the visit, in the summer of 2009, Duke signed an agreement for joint research with China’s largest energy company, Huaneng, and with the government’s Thermal Power Research Institute. Within the clean-energy world, the institute’s director of technology, Xu Shisen, is a celebrity known for his advocacy of clean-coal projects. Huaneng has bought a share in a new low-emissions Duke plant in Edwardsport, Indiana. [Correction: The Memorandum of Understanding between Duke and Huaneng, which involves employees of each company visiting the other’s plants and sharing information and research, does not include direct investment by Huaneng. Duke has a joint-venture understanding with another Chinese company, the ENN group, toward developing merchant solar panel plants in the United States.] “As China meets its capacity, it is likely that the best technologies will be commercialized and applied here faster than anywhere else,” River Lu said. “We want to be involved in that process.” China’s cooperation with the United States on coal is good news for the world. If the two countries had decided to make this another arena for demonstrating their respective toughness—if, as at the failed Copenhagen talks last winter, they had mainly exchanged accusations about who was more to blame for emissions problems—they would have guaranteed that the problems could not be solved. If that cooperation breaks down, Julio Friedmann said, “we’ll end up paying twice as much to get the same learnings—and delaying the technology on both sides by another decade.” Both sides seem to have looked for ways to keep the cooperation going. They have not been in the newspapers, but they deserve recognition for attempting to do the world’s work. But China’s very effectiveness and dynamism, beneficial as they may be in this case, highlight an American failure—a failure that seems not transient or incidental but deep and hard to correct. The manifestation of the failure is that China is where the world’s “doing” now goes on, in this industry and many others. If you want to learn how the power plants of the future will work, you must go to Tianjin—or Shanghai, or Chengdu—to find out. Power companies from America, Europe, and Japan are fortunate to have a place to learn. Young engineers and managers and entrepreneurs in China are fortunate that the companies teaching the rest of the world will be Chinese. The deeper problem is the revealed difference in national capacity, in seriousness and ability to deliver. The Chinese government can decide to transform the country’s energy system in 10 years, and no one doubts that it will. An incoming U.S. administration can promise to create a clean-energy revolution, but only naïfs believe that it will. “The most impressive aspect of the Chinese performance is their determination to do what is needed,” Julio Friedmann told me. “To be the first, to be the biggest, to have the best export technology for cleaning up coal.” America obviously is not displaying comparable determination—and the saddest aspect of the U.S. performance, he said, is that it seems not deliberate but passive and accidental, the product of modern America’s inability to focus public effort on public problems. “No one in the U.S. government could ever imagine a 10-year plan to ensure U.S. leadership in solar power or batteries or anything else,” Joseph Romm, a former Department of Energy official who now writes the blog Climate Progress, told me. “It’s just not possible, so nobody even bothers to propose it.” The Chinese system as a whole has great weaknesses as well as great strengths. Its challenges, as I have reported so often in these pages, make the threats facing America look trivial by comparison. But its response to the energy challenge—including its commitment to dealing with the dirty, unavoidable reality of coal—reveals a seriousness about facing big problems that America now appears to lack. --- Oliver Bernstein Senior Communications Strategist Sierra Club Phone: 512.477.2152 Cell: 512.289.8618 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS list, send any message to: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp

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Fw: New Kingston Coal Ash Movie
by Jim Sconyers 09 Nov '10

09 Nov '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Joshua Ulan Galperin <josh(a)CLEANENERGY.ORG> To: COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Sent: Mon, November 8, 2010 5:00:16 PM Subject: New Kingston Coal Ash Movie I wanted to make sure that everybody had a chance to look at this excellent short documentary from Alexandra Cousteau and Expedition Blue Planet. Its a great short film about coal ash, using Kingston as a valuable example. *** http://vimeo.com/16524532 "Nearly two years after the TVA Kingston Coal Ash Spill, many have already forgotten its impacts on the community and the environment and yet the TVA coal ash spill is still the largest industrial spill in American history. It was six times larger in volume than the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In September 2010 Alexandra Cousteau and Expedition Blue Planet visited Kingston, Tennessee to find out exactly what the toll of "clean coal" is on water quality, water ecosystems and the communities that lie fractured by the pollution of their waterways." Josh Galperin Policy Analyst and Research Attorney Southern Alliance for Clean Energy PO Box 1842 Knoxville, TN 37901 (O) 865.637.6055 X 23 (F) 865.524.4479 josh(a)cleanenergy.org www.cleanenergy.org <http://www.cleanenergy.org/> Please think about the environment before printing this email. CONFIDENTIAL LEGAL COMMUNICATION / WORK PRODUCT: The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to whom it is addressed, and may contain privileged and confidential attorney-client communications and/or confidential attorney work product. If you receive this message in error, please send a reply e-mail to the sender and delete the material from any and all computers. Unintended transmissions shall not constitute waiver of the attorney-client or any other privilege. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE list, send any message to: COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp

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drilling in WV state park okayed because of old mineral severance deed
by Frank Young 03 Nov '10

03 Nov '10

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/watchdog/2010/11/03/supreme-court-paves-way-for-… Supreme Court paves way for Chief Logan drilling November 3, 2010 by Ken Ward Jr. The West Virginia state Supreme Court of Appeals has just issued an opinion that affirms a Logan Circuit Court decision paving the way for oil and gas drilling at Chief Logan State Park. Justices ruled that a state law that bans such drilling does not apply, because it was enacted after a 1960 deed in which previous owners of the property preserved their mineral rights and the right to drill for oil and gas. You can read the opinion here. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to Heartwood's "issues" group. To post to this group, send email to issues(a)heartwood.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to issues+unsubscribe(a)heartwood.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/a/heartwood.org/group/issues?hl=en __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic Messages in this topic (1) Recent Activity: Visit Your Group Working since 1967 for the conservation and wise management of West Virginia's natural resources MARKETPLACE Hobbies & Activities Zone: Find others who share your passions! Explore new interests. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Get great advice about dogs and cats. Visit the Dog & Cat Answers Center. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stay on top of your group activity without leaving the page you're on - Get the Yahoo! Toolbar now. Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use. __,_._,___

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Re: [EC] Fw: DAILY UPDATE 3 November 2010. News of interest to Mon river wate...
by DSGJr＠aol.com 03 Nov '10

03 Nov '10

Privately, Miley has always been supportive. So it's good to see him go public. Of course, he may not agree with us on everything we want in a bill. don In a message dated 11/3/2010 10:48:30 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Karen.Grubb(a)fairmontstate.edu writes: On the local Bridgeport CBS news last night, Tim Miley was interviewed about what priorities would be with the new legislative session. He said, 1. Sorting out the new governor and new election, 2. Marcellus gas drilling legislation to protect roads, environment, etc. From: ec-bounces(a)osenergy.org [mailto:ec-bounces@osenergy.org] On Behalf Of DSGJr(a)aol.com Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 11:33 AM To: jkotcon(a)wvu.edu; jbc329(a)earthlink.net; lesleemac1(a)frontier.com; ec(a)osenergy.org Subject: Re: [EC] Fw: DAILY UPDATE 3 November 2010. News of interest to Mon river watershed... We've been talking, but not about specifics yet. He really went after an industry guy at last interim session about all the out-of-state trucks and workers. Orphy is a good guy. I am basically NOT talking to anyone yet (except DEP and judiciary committee staff) about what should be in a bill. I am waiting to see what DEP proposes, which I will know more about on Nov. 10, and what judiciary subcommittee A proposes, which we will see at interims Nov.15-17. When we know those two things, we will be able to decide if we need/want our own bill. don In a message dated 11/3/2010 10:10:58 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, jkotcon(a)wvu.edu writes: Is someone talking to Orphy Klempa about what needs to go in a Marcellus bill? JBK >>> "Donald C. Strimbeck" <dcsoinks(a)comcast.net> 11/3/2010 4:07 AM >>> Don Strimbeck, Sec/Treas Upper Mon River Assoc UpperMon.org MonRiverSummit.org WVU t-shirts & prints - FindHarri.com 109 Broad Street, P. O. Box 519 Granville WV 26534-0519 304-599-7585 (fax 4131) dcsoinks(a)comcast.net ----- Original Message ----- From: Donald C. Strimbeck To: Veronica Coptis ; Tom Bond ; Shari Wilson ; Scott Brewer ; Robert Vagnetti ; Mark Estlack ; Loretta Florence ; Judy Hunter ; John King ; Joel Morris ; Janice Christopher ; Ida Hughes ; Glen Kelly ; Garry Berti ; Connie Watson ; Chuck Wyrostok ; Chip West ; Catherine Lozier ; Carol Mapstone ; Brian K. Parker ; Bradley Omanson ; Bill Weiss ; Bill Hughes ; Bonnie Hall Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 4:07 AM Subject: DAILY UPDATE 3 November 2010. News of interest to Mon river watershed denizens. DUNKARD CREEK-3NovY2K10 Wheeling WV THE INTELLIGENCER Wednesday 3 November 2010: Klempa Looks to Take On Drilling in Senate November 3, 2010 - By CASEY JUNKINS Staff Writer With increasingly more Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling taking place throughout West Virginia's Northern Panhandle, state Sen.-elect Orphy Klempa knows it is time for the Legislature to act. "Right now, there is entirely too much drilling with not enough regulations in place," said Klempa, D-Ohio, following his Tuesday general election victory over Republican Charles Schlegel of Wheeling. "We need to make sure these gas companies are respecting our land." Klempa, who has served as a state delegate since his 2006 election, will replace outgoing 1st District state Sen. Ed Bowman, D-Hancock, who decided not to seek re-election this year. Klempa carried 58.7 percent of the vote in the district, which includes all of Hancock and Brooke counties, along with most of Ohio County. Unofficial election totals indicate Klempa garnered a total of 17,044 votes, with 7,632 coming in Ohio County, 4,292 in Brooke County and 5,120 in Hancock County. Schlegel, meanwhile, carried a total of 12,015 ballots, including 5,437 in Ohio County, 2,448 in Brooke County and 4,130 in Hancock County. "It seems like every time I'm in a race, it goes down to the last moment," Klempa said, noting he campaigned throughout the district. "My wife and I worked very hard because this was by no stretch of the imagination a good year to be a Democrat." Schlegel, though disappointed in the results, pledged to support Klempa's efforts in Charleston. "This was a very clean race," Schlegel said. "The voters of Ohio, Hancock and Brooke counties are getting a good representative. ... He (Klempa) will do a good job for us." Klempa also thanked Schlegel for the amicable race, noting, "This was not a mud-slinging campaign." "Charlie (Schlegel) is a man of honor. I wish him all the best," Klempa said. The senator-elect added he hopes to continue the work he began in the House in his new role, including confronting some of the state's unfunded liabilities. "I am very humbled by the level of support I got. I plan to do the very best I can do for the voters," Klempa added. North Huntingdon Township moving forward with plans to regulate Marcellus Shale drilling By Michael DiVittorio MCKEESPORT DAILY NEWS Tuesday, November 2, 2010 North Huntingdon Township officials are moving forward with their plans to help regulate Marcellus Shale drilling. Planning commissioner Virginia Stump brought up the idea of creating a gas drilling ordinance last month to help reduce negative effects regarding such drilling. Township planning director/engineer Andrew Blenko announced at Monday night's planning commission meeting that a draft ordinance is being prepared by assistant township manager Michael Turley, and could be available for review by the planning commission within weeks. Blenko said a meeting took place about four weeks ago with Westmoreland County and gas company officials regarding Marcellus Shale drilling and what could and what should be regulated. Murrysville and Jefferson Hills both passed gas drilling ordinances earlier this year, and township officials have copies of those documents for review. "We're not trying to outlaw the drilling. We're trying to outlaw the negative impacts of it," Blenko said. "The noise, the additional storm water run-off, damage to our local roads, potential ground water contamination, the long-term health effects, if any, the public safety aspects of it. Those can all be regulated. There's no reason why gas wells can't coexist alongside our commercial or residential areas of the township. "I think that's what everybody's trying to do is come up with a set of regulations that will reasonably safeguard against some of those negative impacts while allowing it to coexist." The engineer said he will meet with Turley today to discuss the ordinance. Stump said she likes the language and some of the stipulations in the Murrysville ordinance. "What I thought was pretty good about it is they have all new definitions," she said. "There's so much new terminology with this type of industry. You have to update the ordinance just for the terminology, and they had an application fee of $5,000 and the company has to put up an escrow of $25,000 so that the expenses that the municipality has with engineering and what have you, the municipality's not left holding the bag of those expenses." Planning Commissioner Bernard Solomon said he read an article about a woman and her daughters getting sick from chemicals used at a Marcellus Shale site. "What are they going to do to our underground water resources that we depend on?" Solomon questioned. Blenko said a possible tour of a Marcellus Shale site is being scheduled through Westmoreland County officials. The proposed ordinance could be available for public input in December. Blenko said it would have to come through the planning commission before it is brought to township commissioners. "Things are moving," he said. "I know it's been a long time coming. We kind of wanted to see what other people were doing." The township was scheduled to get its first Marcellus Shale well along Hahntown-Wendel Road this summer. Atlas Energy was to drill the well on a 9.5-acre parcel near Barnes Lake Road. Blenko said the last communication he had with Atlas Energy was in May, and that parcel is not an active Marcellus Shale site. In other matters, the planning commission tabled a motion to approve the Hampton Heights plan of lots, phases 1 through 3. It is a proposed 85-lot residential subdivision on the site of the former Carradam Golf Course. Blenko said RWS Development needed an extension to address some sewer issues. The site is outside the sewer lines of the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County. Blenko said there are plans for deep sewers to pump into MAWC lines, and the plan will be addressed by the planning commission again at next month's meeting. The planning commission tabled the plan last month because of sewer-related concerns. Michael DiVittorio can be reached at mdivittorio(a)dailynewsemail.com or 412-664-9161. CEOs: Third World thirst to boost coal By Chris Togneri PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW Wednesday, November 3, 2010 The coal industry rebounded from the global recession and is poised to ride developing countries' thirst for steel and energy production for decades to come, said industry analysts and CEOs of energy producers Tuesday at the 14th annual Met Coke World Summit, Downtown. "Coal is the fuel for the entire world," said J. Brett Harvey, CEO of Cecil-based Consol Energy Inc. "I don't see any change in that for the next 50 years." Consol projects shipping more than 700,000 tons of coal from the United States to China in the fourth quarter. Harvey; Don Blankenship, CEO of Richmond, Va.-based Massey Energy Co.; Michael Thomson, CEO of Knoxville, Tenn.-based SunCoke Energy; and John Elmore, director of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. in India, talked about trends in the industry at an event attended by about 250 coal industry insiders. The summit continues today. Blankenship agreed that coal is the fuel of the present and the future, particularly in developing countries. Access to electricity improves quality of life and leads to longer life expectancy, he said. "It's strange that that idea hasn't caught on," he told the audience, eliciting a round of laughter. The Massey CEO predicted coal use will increase by 81 percent in "emerging" countries and 1 percent in developed countries by 2035. Brazil, Russia, India and China, which make up 43 percent of the world's population, will account for much of that growth, he said. Coal is "good for the environment" because it is the cheapest way to raise living standards by providing electricity to poor countries, Blankenship said. "It bothers me that we are spending so much on renewable energy that supposedly will improve the environment when there is a lot of suffering going on," he said after his presentation. China, India and Brazil will continue to be major importers of coal, particularly metallurgical coal for production of coke and steel, the CEOs said. Brazil, which will host the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016, has limited resources but a strong economy. Its need to build infrastructure quickly makes it a major player, they agreed. "The same thing happened in China (before it hosted the 2008 Olympics), but it just kept going," Harvey said. "They are raising their standard of living. We could see the same thing in Brazil. Maybe not on the same pace, but once they get a taste of it ..." The auto industry's rising thirst for steel also drives coal use, the CEOs said. Particularly in China, car production is soaring with plenty of room to grow, Blankenship said, noting that 128 people out of every 1,000 people in China own cars, compared to 765 out of 1,000 in the United States. China last year produced 13.3 million vehicles, compared to 8.8 million in North America, the Massey CEO said. Africa will become a major importer of coal as the country begins to modernize, Harvey and Blankenship said. Blankenship declined to answer questions regarding a possible sale of Massey or whether he might step down. In a conference call with analysts last week, he acknowledged the rumors, saying Massey is "considering all options," but declined to discuss specifics. Massey runs the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va., where an April 5 explosion killed 29 miners and injured two. It was the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in 40 years. State, federal and company investigations are ongoing. Chris Togneri can be reached at ctogneri(a)tribweb.com or 412-380-5632. ----- Original Message ----- From: <stombond(a)hughes.net> To: "Donald C. Strimbeck" <dcsoinks(a)comcast.net>; "jOHN ELEYETTE" <JMELEYETTE(a)rocketmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 9:46 PM Subject: Letter to the Wheeling Intelligencer > Mr. Strimbeck: > I sent the following letter to the Wheeling Intelligencer a couple of > days ago. It is a response to the article "Chesapeake Energy Officials > Pledge to Maintain Roads" published in your newsletter dated the 29th. > You may use it if your want to. > > As a person with training as a chemist, I was highly amused by the > article "Chesapeake Energy Officials Pledge to Maintain Roads" in the 29 > October 2010 INTELLIGENCER. It includes a statement of Stacey R. Brodak, > manager of corporate development for Chesapeake concerning the 25,000 > gallons or so of chemicals in frac fluid for a Marcellus well. > > Her claims are right about all of them. HOWEVER, isopropanol is also > used to denature alcohol, to make it undrinkable. Petroleum distillates > is a very broad category (many different compounds) used for solvent > properties. It is toxic, but is considered to have low toxicity. Guar > gum, citric acid (think citrus fruits), potassium chloride, are, in fact > food ingredients. Sodium and potassium carbonate are very similar and > are sometime used as food additives. Glutaradldehyde is used in water > treatment for killing algae and as a disinfectant for medical equipment. > It causes severe irritation of eyes and respiratory system. It is a > source of occupational asthma. > > Ammonium persulfate is an extremely strong oxidizing agent listed as > having low toxicity. It is used to etch copper and would doubtless cause > other metals to dissolve. Formaldehyde is another protein denaturant. > Among its uses is in embalming fluid. It is used in resins for plywood > type materials, glue, etc. It is the source of eye irritation when these > products are used. It is a known human carcinogen. Borate salts are > toxic, but probably not at the concentration they are used in frac > fluid. These things are what go down to begin with. > > Now, what about the stuff that comes up with the "flowback." At the > several hundred degree temperatures and huge pressures solubility of > many compounds increase compared to solubility at the surface. What else > comes up with the cuttings, which present a very large surface area for > solution of the shale components? The shale contains a huge number of > complex compounds. Things that come up with the flowback include heavy > metals, highly poisonous, which the body accumulates because there is no > mechanism to eliminate them, and radioactivity. One case is known where > the radioactivity of returning frac water was 1000 times the allowed > radioactivity of drinking water. > > Ms. Brodak's list almost invariably cites external uses of the > compounds. The objection is to drinking these compounds in surface water > and ground water contaminated by flowback! I don't doubt her integrity, > she is an executive and not educated in chemistry. But who put that list > on hydraulicfracturing.com ought to have his backside kicked. We're not > all rubes out here. > > Somebody ought to be out there sampling and testing for a wide range of > contaminants. The whole Marcellus industry has its collective fingers > crossed, screaming "There's nothing wrong with our work!" and "Just > think about the money it will bring in." They are in the same position > as the original oil and gas industry and the strip mining industry: they > are running a humongous experiment while doing all they can to block out > any bad news. > By Mari Margil, Ben Price Licking, Pennsylvania defies state law by banning corporations from dumping fracking wastewater. In Pennsylvania-a central target for natural gas drilling and the controversial drilling practice known as horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking"-local communities don't have the legal authority to keep unwanted drilling from happening. As fracking's impacts on water safety make headlines and public resistance to drilling grows, some towns have tried to use land use zoning to keep drilling companies out-but they can't use zoning laws to stop an activity the state has declared legal. (At best, they can zone where the corporations site their drill pads. But since drilling is not vertical but horizontal, there's no way to contain its impact on a community's water and environment.) Taking local control One small community in western Pennsylvania wanted more say over what happens within its borders. Licking Township, population 500, chose to defy state law with its own local ordinance, banning corporations from dumping fracking wastewater within its borders. Licking sits atop the Marcellus Shale, a geological formation that contains large and mostly untapped natural gas reserves. On Oct. 12, 2010, the Licking Township Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ban corporations from dumping fracking wastewater within the township. "When it comes to land use issues and the preservation of important resources, the local community is best suited to set priorities as they feel impacts most acutely," said Mik Robertson, chairman of the Licking Township Supervisors. Pennsylvania's preferential laws for drilling companies are not unique. For years, the drilling industry has worked closely with government to pave the way for widespread drilling, eliminating regulatory barriers that may stand in its way. The so-called "Halliburton Loophole" was inserted into the federal Safe Drinking Water Act to exempt companies drilling for natural gas, including those drilling in the Marcellus Shale (which extends from New York to West Virginia) from having to comply. Corporations have also been exempted from a host of other laws and regulations, and states have enacted laws pre-empting municipalities from taking steps to reign in the industry. The residents of Licking felt that they should be the ones to decide what happens in their township. "People have the right to determine what is suitable for their community, as they are most directly affected by intended or unintended consequences of resource extraction," said Robertson. The dangers of fracking The residents of Licking aren't alone in their concerns about fracking. Across the Appalachian highlands, residents worried about the health effects of fracking have been calling on their elected officials to protect them. In New York, a citizen movement convinced the state Senate to place a 9-month moratorium on the practice while its safety is evaluated. However, the moratorium is only temporary and has not been voted into state law. Fracking involves pumping water laced with sand and a cocktail of chemicals underground to fracture the shale rock and release the natural gas. In the process, thousands of gallons of toxic wastewater are produced and can contaminate waterways and drinking water. Natural gas wells are often driven through aquifers. The impacts from drilling can include exploding wells, groundwater contamination, and fish kills. Recently, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture quarantined cattle believed to have drunk from a frack wastewater spill. Their milk was no longer considered safe to drink. A new study by researchers at the University of Buffalo found that fracking also releases uranium trapped in the rock, raising additional health concerns. Collateral damage includes lost property value, drying up of mortgage loans for prospective home buyers, and the threatened loss of organic certification for farmers. And it's not only rural communities feeling the pressure. In Pittsburgh and Buffalo (both of which straddle the Marcellus), gas extraction corporations have quietly signed leases with landowners to drill under the surface. A new direction Drafted with the help of Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), the "Licking Township Community Water Rights and Self-Government Ordinance" is the first of its kind in the nation. The City of Pittsburgh is also considering a CELDF-drafted ordinance, which is scheduled for a vote on November 16. With an expected veto-proof majority of City Council members in favor, that ordinance would impose an outright ban on gas drilling by corporations within city limits. Communities across the Marcellus Shale region, including Lehman Township in eastern Pennsylvania, are also considering CELDF ordinances that would ban corporations from drilling or from extracting water to use in drilling. In addition to banning corporate disposal of frack wastewater, Licking Township's ordinance asserts the right to local self-government and the community's right to a healthy environment and to clean water. In adopting the ordinance, Licking joins more than a dozen other communities in legally recognizing the rights of nature and subordinating corporate constitutional rights to the rights of human and natural communities. By recognizing the rights of nature, Licking is effectively protecting ecosystems and natural communities within the township from efforts by corporations to drill there-or by higher levels of governments to authorize that drilling. Residents of the community are empowered by the ordinance to enforce those rights on behalf of threatened ecosystems. By prohibiting the introduction of frack wastewater into the Township's environment, Licking's new law effectively blocks hydro-fracturing. Critics of the ordinance claim that, by denying corporations that violate its prohibitions the civil rights protections conferred on them by the courts, the ordinance goes too far. Robertson responds to these charges, saying, "People have rights, like the gifts of nature. People have rights to property. Property does not have rights. Corporations are property." Corporations may sue to overturn the ordinance, with the argument that it violates their corporate constitutional rights. Such a lawsuit would finally raise imperative questions about whose rights trump whose: Do the court-endowed privileges of corporations override the inalienable rights of the people and ecosystems of Licking Township, nullifying their claim to have a legal right to their health, safety, and welfare? Or does the community have the right to make critical decisions to protect its well-being-and that of the ecosystems upon which it depends? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Mari Margil and Ben Price wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Mari is the associate director and Ben is projects director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit, public interest law firm providing legal services to communities facing threats to their local environment, agriculture, economy, and quality of life. Washington PA Observer Reporter Wednesday 3 November 2010: Sessions to provide info on roustabout training 11/3/2010 3:33 AM Free information sessions on Marcellus Shale roustabout training will be held in November and December by Westmoreland County Community College in partnership with Pennsylvania College of Technology at WCCC's Greene County Education Center, EverGreene Technology Park, Waynesburg. The sessions are designed for those interested in applying for free training for roustabout jobs in the natural gas drilling and production industry and will be conducted from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Nov. 12; 10 to 11:30 a.m. Nov. 20; and 3 to 4:30 p.m. Dec. 8. Roustabouts prepare sites for natural gas well drilling, set up and operate drilling rigs and dismantle rigs for movement to another location. They work around moving equipment such as forklifts, back hoes and excavators and carry 80-pound bags of concrete and heavy pipe. "This is physically demanding work requiring 12-hour shifts outside in all kinds of weather," said James Hayes, WCCC director of work force development. Some drilling jobs require 14 consecutive working days with 14 days off. "Employers will not tolerate drugs, and workers will be randomly drug tested," said Hayes. The three-week roustabout training program will run Jan. 17 through Feb. 4, and classes meet Monday through Friday. The training is a highly interactive, industry-oriented program and will be taught by expert instructors. Class size is limited to 15 students. The sessions will provide information on drilling rig jobs, the free training program and the application process. The sessions are free, but prospective applicants must register by calling Pennsylvania CareerLink Greene County at 724-852-2900. Copyright Observer Publishing Co. Don Strimbeck, Sec/Treas Upper Mon River Assoc UpperMon.org MonRiverSummit.org WVU t-shirts & prints - FindHarri.com 109 Broad Street, P. O. Box 519 Granville WV 26534-0519 304-599-7585 (fax 4131) dcsoinks(a)comcast.net

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Re: [EC] Fw: DAILY UPDATE 3 November 2010. News of interest to Mon river watershed...
by DSGJr＠aol.com 03 Nov '10

03 Nov '10

We've been talking, but not about specifics yet. He really went after an industry guy at last interim session about all the out-of-state trucks and workers. Orphy is a good guy. I am basically NOT talking to anyone yet (except DEP and judiciary committee staff) about what should be in a bill. I am waiting to see what DEP proposes, which I will know more about on Nov. 10, and what judiciary subcommittee A proposes, which we will see at interims Nov.15-17. When we know those two things, we will be able to decide if we need/want our own bill. don In a message dated 11/3/2010 10:10:58 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, jkotcon(a)wvu.edu writes: Is someone talking to Orphy Klempa about what needs to go in a Marcellus bill? JBK >>> "Donald C. Strimbeck" <dcsoinks(a)comcast.net> 11/3/2010 4:07 AM >>> Don Strimbeck, Sec/Treas Upper Mon River Assoc UpperMon.org MonRiverSummit.org WVU t-shirts & prints - FindHarri.com 109 Broad Street, P. O. Box 519 Granville WV 26534-0519 304-599-7585 (fax 4131) dcsoinks(a)comcast.net ----- Original Message ----- From: Donald C. Strimbeck To: Veronica Coptis ; Tom Bond ; Shari Wilson ; Scott Brewer ; Robert Vagnetti ; Mark Estlack ; Loretta Florence ; Judy Hunter ; John King ; Joel Morris ; Janice Christopher ; Ida Hughes ; Glen Kelly ; Garry Berti ; Connie Watson ; Chuck Wyrostok ; Chip West ; Catherine Lozier ; Carol Mapstone ; Brian K. Parker ; Bradley Omanson ; Bill Weiss ; Bill Hughes ; Bonnie Hall Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 4:07 AM Subject: DAILY UPDATE 3 November 2010. News of interest to Mon river watershed denizens. DUNKARD CREEK-3NovY2K10 Wheeling WV THE INTELLIGENCER Wednesday 3 November 2010: Klempa Looks to Take On Drilling in Senate November 3, 2010 - By CASEY JUNKINS Staff Writer With increasingly more Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling taking place throughout West Virginia's Northern Panhandle, state Sen.-elect Orphy Klempa knows it is time for the Legislature to act. "Right now, there is entirely too much drilling with not enough regulations in place," said Klempa, D-Ohio, following his Tuesday general election victory over Republican Charles Schlegel of Wheeling. "We need to make sure these gas companies are respecting our land." Klempa, who has served as a state delegate since his 2006 election, will replace outgoing 1st District state Sen. Ed Bowman, D-Hancock, who decided not to seek re-election this year. Klempa carried 58.7 percent of the vote in the district, which includes all of Hancock and Brooke counties, along with most of Ohio County. Unofficial election totals indicate Klempa garnered a total of 17,044 votes, with 7,632 coming in Ohio County, 4,292 in Brooke County and 5,120 in Hancock County. Schlegel, meanwhile, carried a total of 12,015 ballots, including 5,437 in Ohio County, 2,448 in Brooke County and 4,130 in Hancock County. "It seems like every time I'm in a race, it goes down to the last moment," Klempa said, noting he campaigned throughout the district. "My wife and I worked very hard because this was by no stretch of the imagination a good year to be a Democrat." Schlegel, though disappointed in the results, pledged to support Klempa's efforts in Charleston. "This was a very clean race," Schlegel said. "The voters of Ohio, Hancock and Brooke counties are getting a good representative. ... He (Klempa) will do a good job for us." Klempa also thanked Schlegel for the amicable race, noting, "This was not a mud-slinging campaign." "Charlie (Schlegel) is a man of honor. I wish him all the best," Klempa said. The senator-elect added he hopes to continue the work he began in the House in his new role, including confronting some of the state's unfunded liabilities. "I am very humbled by the level of support I got. I plan to do the very best I can do for the voters," Klempa added. North Huntingdon Township moving forward with plans to regulate Marcellus Shale drilling By Michael DiVittorio MCKEESPORT DAILY NEWS Tuesday, November 2, 2010 North Huntingdon Township officials are moving forward with their plans to help regulate Marcellus Shale drilling. Planning commissioner Virginia Stump brought up the idea of creating a gas drilling ordinance last month to help reduce negative effects regarding such drilling. Township planning director/engineer Andrew Blenko announced at Monday night's planning commission meeting that a draft ordinance is being prepared by assistant township manager Michael Turley, and could be available for review by the planning commission within weeks. Blenko said a meeting took place about four weeks ago with Westmoreland County and gas company officials regarding Marcellus Shale drilling and what could and what should be regulated. Murrysville and Jefferson Hills both passed gas drilling ordinances earlier this year, and township officials have copies of those documents for review. "We're not trying to outlaw the drilling. We're trying to outlaw the negative impacts of it," Blenko said. "The noise, the additional storm water run-off, damage to our local roads, potential ground water contamination, the long-term health effects, if any, the public safety aspects of it. Those can all be regulated. There's no reason why gas wells can't coexist alongside our commercial or residential areas of the township. "I think that's what everybody's trying to do is come up with a set of regulations that will reasonably safeguard against some of those negative impacts while allowing it to coexist." The engineer said he will meet with Turley today to discuss the ordinance. Stump said she likes the language and some of the stipulations in the Murrysville ordinance. "What I thought was pretty good about it is they have all new definitions," she said. "There's so much new terminology with this type of industry. You have to update the ordinance just for the terminology, and they had an application fee of $5,000 and the company has to put up an escrow of $25,000 so that the expenses that the municipality has with engineering and what have you, the municipality's not left holding the bag of those expenses." Planning Commissioner Bernard Solomon said he read an article about a woman and her daughters getting sick from chemicals used at a Marcellus Shale site. "What are they going to do to our underground water resources that we depend on?" Solomon questioned. Blenko said a possible tour of a Marcellus Shale site is being scheduled through Westmoreland County officials. The proposed ordinance could be available for public input in December. Blenko said it would have to come through the planning commission before it is brought to township commissioners. "Things are moving," he said. "I know it's been a long time coming. We kind of wanted to see what other people were doing." The township was scheduled to get its first Marcellus Shale well along Hahntown-Wendel Road this summer. Atlas Energy was to drill the well on a 9.5-acre parcel near Barnes Lake Road. Blenko said the last communication he had with Atlas Energy was in May, and that parcel is not an active Marcellus Shale site. In other matters, the planning commission tabled a motion to approve the Hampton Heights plan of lots, phases 1 through 3. It is a proposed 85-lot residential subdivision on the site of the former Carradam Golf Course. Blenko said RWS Development needed an extension to address some sewer issues. The site is outside the sewer lines of the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County. Blenko said there are plans for deep sewers to pump into MAWC lines, and the plan will be addressed by the planning commission again at next month's meeting. The planning commission tabled the plan last month because of sewer-related concerns. Michael DiVittorio can be reached at mdivittorio(a)dailynewsemail.com or 412-664-9161. CEOs: Third World thirst to boost coal By Chris Togneri PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW Wednesday, November 3, 2010 The coal industry rebounded from the global recession and is poised to ride developing countries' thirst for steel and energy production for decades to come, said industry analysts and CEOs of energy producers Tuesday at the 14th annual Met Coke World Summit, Downtown. "Coal is the fuel for the entire world," said J. Brett Harvey, CEO of Cecil-based Consol Energy Inc. "I don't see any change in that for the next 50 years." Consol projects shipping more than 700,000 tons of coal from the United States to China in the fourth quarter. Harvey; Don Blankenship, CEO of Richmond, Va.-based Massey Energy Co.; Michael Thomson, CEO of Knoxville, Tenn.-based SunCoke Energy; and John Elmore, director of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. in India, talked about trends in the industry at an event attended by about 250 coal industry insiders. The summit continues today. Blankenship agreed that coal is the fuel of the present and the future, particularly in developing countries. Access to electricity improves quality of life and leads to longer life expectancy, he said. "It's strange that that idea hasn't caught on," he told the audience, eliciting a round of laughter. The Massey CEO predicted coal use will increase by 81 percent in "emerging" countries and 1 percent in developed countries by 2035. Brazil, Russia, India and China, which make up 43 percent of the world's population, will account for much of that growth, he said. Coal is "good for the environment" because it is the cheapest way to raise living standards by providing electricity to poor countries, Blankenship said. "It bothers me that we are spending so much on renewable energy that supposedly will improve the environment when there is a lot of suffering going on," he said after his presentation. China, India and Brazil will continue to be major importers of coal, particularly metallurgical coal for production of coke and steel, the CEOs said. Brazil, which will host the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016, has limited resources but a strong economy. Its need to build infrastructure quickly makes it a major player, they agreed. "The same thing happened in China (before it hosted the 2008 Olympics), but it just kept going," Harvey said. "They are raising their standard of living. We could see the same thing in Brazil. Maybe not on the same pace, but once they get a taste of it ..." The auto industry's rising thirst for steel also drives coal use, the CEOs said. Particularly in China, car production is soaring with plenty of room to grow, Blankenship said, noting that 128 people out of every 1,000 people in China own cars, compared to 765 out of 1,000 in the United States. China last year produced 13.3 million vehicles, compared to 8.8 million in North America, the Massey CEO said. Africa will become a major importer of coal as the country begins to modernize, Harvey and Blankenship said. Blankenship declined to answer questions regarding a possible sale of Massey or whether he might step down. In a conference call with analysts last week, he acknowledged the rumors, saying Massey is "considering all options," but declined to discuss specifics. Massey runs the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va., where an April 5 explosion killed 29 miners and injured two. It was the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in 40 years. State, federal and company investigations are ongoing. Chris Togneri can be reached at ctogneri(a)tribweb.com or 412-380-5632. ----- Original Message ----- From: <stombond(a)hughes.net> To: "Donald C. Strimbeck" <dcsoinks(a)comcast.net>; "jOHN ELEYETTE" <JMELEYETTE(a)rocketmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 9:46 PM Subject: Letter to the Wheeling Intelligencer > Mr. Strimbeck: > I sent the following letter to the Wheeling Intelligencer a couple of > days ago. It is a response to the article "Chesapeake Energy Officials > Pledge to Maintain Roads" published in your newsletter dated the 29th. > You may use it if your want to. > > As a person with training as a chemist, I was highly amused by the > article "Chesapeake Energy Officials Pledge to Maintain Roads" in the 29 > October 2010 INTELLIGENCER. It includes a statement of Stacey R. Brodak, > manager of corporate development for Chesapeake concerning the 25,000 > gallons or so of chemicals in frac fluid for a Marcellus well. > > Her claims are right about all of them. HOWEVER, isopropanol is also > used to denature alcohol, to make it undrinkable. Petroleum distillates > is a very broad category (many different compounds) used for solvent > properties. It is toxic, but is considered to have low toxicity. Guar > gum, citric acid (think citrus fruits), potassium chloride, are, in fact > food ingredients. Sodium and potassium carbonate are very similar and > are sometime used as food additives. Glutaradldehyde is used in water > treatment for killing alge and as a disinfectant for medial equipment. > It causes severe irritation of eyes and respiratory system. It is a > source of occupational asthma. > > Ammonium persulfate is an extremely strong oxidizing agent listed as > having low toxicity. It is used to etch copper and would doubtless cause > other metals to dissolve. Formaldehyde is another protein denaturant. > Among its uses is in embalming fluid. It is used in resins for plywood > type materials, glue, etc. It is the source of eye irritation when these > products are used. It is a known human carcinogen. Borate salts are > toxic, but probably not at the concentration they are used in frac > fluid. These things are what go down to begin with. > > Now, what about the stuff that comes up with the "flowback." At the > several hundred degree temperatures and huge pressures solubility of > many compounds increase compared to solubility at the surface. What else > comes up with the cuttings, which present a very large surface area for > solution of the shale components? The shale contains a huge number of > complex compounds. Things that come up with the flowback include heavy > metals, highly poisonous, which the body accumulates because there is no > mechanism to eliminate them, and radioactivity. One case is known where > the radioactivity of returning frac water was 1000 times the allowed > radioactivity of drinking water. > > Ms. Brodak's list almost invariably cites external uses of the > compounds. The objection is to drinking these compounds in surface water > and ground water contaminated by flowback! I don't doubt her integrity, > she is an executive and not educated in chemistry. But who put that list > on hydraulicfracturing.com ought to have his backside kicked. We're not > all rubes out here. > > Somebody ought to be out there sampling and testing for a wide range of > contaminants. The whole Marcellus industry has its collective fingers > crossed, screaming "There's nothing wrong with our work!" and "Just > think about the money it will bring in." They are in the same position > as the original oil and gas industry and the strip mining industry: they > are running a humongous experiment while doing all they can to block out > any bad news. > By Mari Margil, Ben Price Licking, Pennsylvania defies state law by banning corporations from dumping fracking wastewater. In Pennsylvania-a central target for natural gas drilling and the controversial drilling practice known as horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking"-local communities don't have the legal authority to keep unwanted drilling from happening. As fracking's impacts on water safety make headlines and public resistance to drilling grows, some towns have tried to use land use zoning to keep drilling companies out-but they can't use zoning laws to stop an activity the state has declared legal. (At best, they can zone where the corporations site their drill pads. But since drilling is not vertical but horizontal, there's no way to contain its impact on a community's water and environment.) Taking local control One small community in western Pennsylvania wanted more say over what happens within its borders. Licking Township, population 500, chose to defy state law with its own local ordinance, banning corporations from dumping fracking wastewater within its borders. Licking sits atop the Marcellus Shale, a geological formation that contains large and mostly untapped natural gas reserves. On Oct. 12, 2010, the Licking Township Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ban corporations from dumping fracking wastewater within the township. "When it comes to land use issues and the preservation of important resources, the local community is best suited to set priorities as they feel impacts most acutely," said Mik Robertson, chairman of the Licking Township Supervisors. Pennsylvania's preferential laws for drilling companies are not unique. For years, the drilling industry has worked closely with government to pave the way for widespread drilling, eliminating regulatory barriers that may stand in its way. The so-called "Halliburton Loophole" was inserted into the federal Safe Drinking Water Act to exempt companies drilling for natural gas, including those drilling in the Marcellus Shale (which extends from New York to West Virginia) from having to comply. Corporations have also been exempted from a host of other laws and regulations, and states have enacted laws pre-empting municipalities from taking steps to reign in the industry. The residents of Licking felt that they should be the ones to decide what happens in their township. "People have the right to determine what is suitable for their community, as they are most directly affected by intended or unintended consequences of resource extraction," said Robertson. The dangers of fracking The residents of Licking aren't alone in their concerns about fracking. Across the Appalachian highlands, residents worried about the health effects of fracking have been calling on their elected officials to protect them. In New York, a citizen movement convinced the state Senate to place a 9-month moratorium on the practice while its safety is evaluated. However, the moratorium is only temporary and has not been voted into state law. Fracking involves pumping water laced with sand and a cocktail of chemicals underground to fracture the shale rock and release the natural gas. In the process, thousands of gallons of toxic wastewater are produced and can contaminate waterways and drinking water. Natural gas wells are often driven through aquifers. The impacts from drilling can include exploding wells, groundwater contamination, and fish kills. Recently, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture quarantined cattle believed to have drunk from a frack wastewater spill. Their milk was no longer considered safe to drink. A new study by researchers at the University of Buffalo found that fracking also releases uranium trapped in the rock, raising additional health concerns. Collateral damage includes lost property value, drying up of mortgage loans for prospective home buyers, and the threatened loss of organic certification for farmers. And it's not only rural communities feeling the pressure. In Pittsburgh and Buffalo (both of which straddle the Marcellus), gas extraction corporations have quietly signed leases with landowners to drill under the surface. A new direction Drafted with the help of Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), the "Licking Township Community Water Rights and Self-Government Ordinance" is the first of its kind in the nation. The City of Pittsburgh is also considering a CELDF-drafted ordinance, which is scheduled for a vote on November 16. With an expected veto-proof majority of City Council members in favor, that ordinance would impose an outright ban on gas drilling by corporations within city limits. Communities across the Marcellus Shale region, including Lehman Township in eastern Pennsylvania, are also considering CELDF ordinances that would ban corporations from drilling or from extracting water to use in drilling. In addition to banning corporate disposal of frack wastewater, Licking Township's ordinance asserts the right to local self-government and the community's right to a healthy environment and to clean water. In adopting the ordinance, Licking joins more than a dozen other communities in legally recognizing the rights of nature and subordinating corporate constitutional rights to the rights of human and natural communities. By recognizing the rights of nature, Licking is effectively protecting ecosystems and natural communities within the township from efforts by corporations to drill there-or by higher levels of governments to authorize that drilling. Residents of the community are empowered by the ordinance to enforce those rights on behalf of threatened ecosystems. By prohibiting the introduction of frack wastewater into the Township's environment, Licking's new law effectively blocks hydro-fracturing. Critics of the ordinance claim that, by denying corporations that violate its prohibitions the civil rights protections conferred on them by the courts, the ordinance goes too far. Robertson responds to these charges, saying, "People have rights, like the gifts of nature. People have rights to property. Property does not have rights. Corporations are property." Corporations may sue to overturn the ordinance, with the argument that it violates their corporate constitutional rights. Such a lawsuit would finally raise imperative questions about whose rights trump whose: Do the court-endowed privileges of corporations override the inalienable rights of the people and ecosystems of Licking Township, nullifying their claim to have a legal right to their health, safety, and welfare? Or does the community have the right to make critical decisions to protect its well-being-and that of the ecosystems upon which it depends? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Mari Margil and Ben Price wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Mari is the associate director and Ben is projects director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit, public interest law firm providing legal services to communities facing threats to their local environment, agriculture, economy, and quality of life. Washington PA Observer Reporter Wednesday 3 November 2010: Sessions to provide info on roustabout training 11/3/2010 3:33 AM Free information sessions on Marcellus Shale roustabout training will be held in November and December by Westmoreland County Community College in partnership with Pennsylvania College of Technology at WCCC's Greene County Education Center, EverGreene Technology Park, Waynesburg. The sessions are designed for those interested in applying for free training for roustabout jobs in the natural gas drilling and production industry and will be conducted from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Nov. 12; 10 to 11:30 a.m. Nov. 20; and 3 to 4:30 p.m. Dec. 8. Roustabouts prepare sites for natural gas well drilling, set up and operate drilling rigs and dismantle rigs for movement to another location. They work around moving equipment such as forklifts, back hoes and excavators and carry 80-pound bags of concrete and heavy pipe. "This is physically demanding work requiring 12-hour shifts outside in all kinds of weather," said James Hayes, WCCC director of work force development. Some drilling jobs require 14 consecutive working days with 14 days off. "Employers will not tolerate drugs, and workers will be randomly drug tested," said Hayes. The three-week roustabout training program will run Jan. 17 through Feb. 4, and classes meet Monday through Friday. The training is a highly interactive, industry-oriented program and will be taught by expert instructors. Class size is limited to 15 students. The sessions will provide information on drilling rig jobs, the free training program and the application process. The sessions are free, but prospective applicants must register by calling Pennsylvania CareerLink Greene County at 724-852-2900. Copyright Observer Publishing Co. Don Strimbeck, Sec/Treas Upper Mon River Assoc UpperMon.org MonRiverSummit.org WVU t-shirts & prints - FindHarri.com 109 Broad Street, P. O. Box 519 Granville WV 26534-0519 304-599-7585 (fax 4131) dcsoinks(a)comcast.net

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Fwd: Fw: DAILY UPDATE 3 November 2010. News of interest to Mon river watershed denizens.
by James Kotcon 03 Nov '10

03 Nov '10

Is someone talking to Orphy Klempa about what needs to go in a Marcellus bill? JBK >>> "Donald C. Strimbeck" <dcsoinks(a)comcast.net> 11/3/2010 4:07 AM >>> Don Strimbeck, Sec/Treas Upper Mon River Assoc UpperMon.org MonRiverSummit.org WVU t-shirts & prints - FindHarri.com 109 Broad Street, P. O. Box 519 Granville WV 26534-0519 304-599-7585 (fax 4131) dcsoinks(a)comcast.net ----- Original Message ----- From: Donald C. Strimbeck To: Veronica Coptis ; Tom Bond ; Shari Wilson ; Scott Brewer ; Robert Vagnetti ; Mark Estlack ; Loretta Florence ; Judy Hunter ; John King ; Joel Morris ; Janice Christopher ; Ida Hughes ; Glen Kelly ; Garry Berti ; Connie Watson ; Chuck Wyrostok ; Chip West ; Catherine Lozier ; Carol Mapstone ; Brian K. Parker ; Bradley Omanson ; Bill Weiss ; Bill Hughes ; Bonnie Hall Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 4:07 AM Subject: DAILY UPDATE 3 November 2010. News of interest to Mon river watershed denizens. DUNKARD CREEK-3NovY2K10 Wheeling WV THE INTELLIGENCER Wednesday 3 November 2010: Klempa Looks to Take On Drilling in Senate November 3, 2010 - By CASEY JUNKINS Staff Writer With increasingly more Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling taking place throughout West Virginia's Northern Panhandle, state Sen.-elect Orphy Klempa knows it is time for the Legislature to act. "Right now, there is entirely too much drilling with not enough regulations in place," said Klempa, D-Ohio, following his Tuesday general election victory over Republican Charles Schlegel of Wheeling. "We need to make sure these gas companies are respecting our land." Klempa, who has served as a state delegate since his 2006 election, will replace outgoing 1st District state Sen. Ed Bowman, D-Hancock, who decided not to seek re-election this year. Klempa carried 58.7 percent of the vote in the district, which includes all of Hancock and Brooke counties, along with most of Ohio County. Unofficial election totals indicate Klempa garnered a total of 17,044 votes, with 7,632 coming in Ohio County, 4,292 in Brooke County and 5,120 in Hancock County. Schlegel, meanwhile, carried a total of 12,015 ballots, including 5,437 in Ohio County, 2,448 in Brooke County and 4,130 in Hancock County. "It seems like every time I'm in a race, it goes down to the last moment," Klempa said, noting he campaigned throughout the district. "My wife and I worked very hard because this was by no stretch of the imagination a good year to be a Democrat." Schlegel, though disappointed in the results, pledged to support Klempa's efforts in Charleston. "This was a very clean race," Schlegel said. "The voters of Ohio, Hancock and Brooke counties are getting a good representative. ... He (Klempa) will do a good job for us." Klempa also thanked Schlegel for the amicable race, noting, "This was not a mud-slinging campaign." "Charlie (Schlegel) is a man of honor. I wish him all the best," Klempa said. The senator-elect added he hopes to continue the work he began in the House in his new role, including confronting some of the state's unfunded liabilities. "I am very humbled by the level of support I got. I plan to do the very best I can do for the voters," Klempa added. North Huntingdon Township moving forward with plans to regulate Marcellus Shale drilling By Michael DiVittorio MCKEESPORT DAILY NEWS Tuesday, November 2, 2010 North Huntingdon Township officials are moving forward with their plans to help regulate Marcellus Shale drilling. Planning commissioner Virginia Stump brought up the idea of creating a gas drilling ordinance last month to help reduce negative effects regarding such drilling. Township planning director/engineer Andrew Blenko announced at Monday night's planning commission meeting that a draft ordinance is being prepared by assistant township manager Michael Turley, and could be available for review by the planning commission within weeks. Blenko said a meeting took place about four weeks ago with Westmoreland County and gas company officials regarding Marcellus Shale drilling and what could and what should be regulated. Murrysville and Jefferson Hills both passed gas drilling ordinances earlier this year, and township officials have copies of those documents for review. "We're not trying to outlaw the drilling. We're trying to outlaw the negative impacts of it," Blenko said. "The noise, the additional storm water run-off, damage to our local roads, potential ground water contamination, the long-term health effects, if any, the public safety aspects of it. Those can all be regulated. There's no reason why gas wells can't coexist alongside our commercial or residential areas of the township. "I think that's what everybody's trying to do is come up with a set of regulations that will reasonably safeguard against some of those negative impacts while allowing it to coexist." The engineer said he will meet with Turley today to discuss the ordinance. Stump said she likes the language and some of the stipulations in the Murrysville ordinance. "What I thought was pretty good about it is they have all new definitions," she said. "There's so much new terminology with this type of industry. You have to update the ordinance just for the terminology, and they had an application fee of $5,000 and the company has to put up an escrow of $25,000 so that the expenses that the municipality has with engineering and what have you, the municipality's not left holding the bag of those expenses." Planning Commissioner Bernard Solomon said he read an article about a woman and her daughters getting sick from chemicals used at a Marcellus Shale site. "What are they going to do to our underground water resources that we depend on?" Solomon questioned. Blenko said a possible tour of a Marcellus Shale site is being scheduled through Westmoreland County officials. The proposed ordinance could be available for public input in December. Blenko said it would have to come through the planning commission before it is brought to township commissioners. "Things are moving," he said. "I know it's been a long time coming. We kind of wanted to see what other people were doing." The township was scheduled to get its first Marcellus Shale well along Hahntown-Wendel Road this summer. Atlas Energy was to drill the well on a 9.5-acre parcel near Barnes Lake Road. Blenko said the last communication he had with Atlas Energy was in May, and that parcel is not an active Marcellus Shale site. In other matters, the planning commission tabled a motion to approve the Hampton Heights plan of lots, phases 1 through 3. It is a proposed 85-lot residential subdivision on the site of the former Carradam Golf Course. Blenko said RWS Development needed an extension to address some sewer issues. The site is outside the sewer lines of the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County. Blenko said there are plans for deep sewers to pump into MAWC lines, and the plan will be addressed by the planning commission again at next month's meeting. The planning commission tabled the plan last month because of sewer-related concerns. Michael DiVittorio can be reached at mdivittorio(a)dailynewsemail.com or 412-664-9161. CEOs: Third World thirst to boost coal By Chris Togneri PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW Wednesday, November 3, 2010 The coal industry rebounded from the global recession and is poised to ride developing countries' thirst for steel and energy production for decades to come, said industry analysts and CEOs of energy producers Tuesday at the 14th annual Met Coke World Summit, Downtown. "Coal is the fuel for the entire world," said J. Brett Harvey, CEO of Cecil-based Consol Energy Inc. "I don't see any change in that for the next 50 years." Consol projects shipping more than 700,000 tons of coal from the United States to China in the fourth quarter. Harvey; Don Blankenship, CEO of Richmond, Va.-based Massey Energy Co.; Michael Thomson, CEO of Knoxville, Tenn.-based SunCoke Energy; and John Elmore, director of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. in India, talked about trends in the industry at an event attended by about 250 coal industry insiders. The summit continues today. Blankenship agreed that coal is the fuel of the present and the future, particularly in developing countries. Access to electricity improves quality of life and leads to longer life expectancy, he said. "It's strange that that idea hasn't caught on," he told the audience, eliciting a round of laughter. The Massey CEO predicted coal use will increase by 81 percent in "emerging" countries and 1 percent in developed countries by 2035. Brazil, Russia, India and China, which make up 43 percent of the world's population, will account for much of that growth, he said. Coal is "good for the environment" because it is the cheapest way to raise living standards by providing electricity to poor countries, Blankenship said. "It bothers me that we are spending so much on renewable energy that supposedly will improve the environment when there is a lot of suffering going on," he said after his presentation. China, India and Brazil will continue to be major importers of coal, particularly metallurgical coal for production of coke and steel, the CEOs said. Brazil, which will host the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016, has limited resources but a strong economy. Its need to build infrastructure quickly makes it a major player, they agreed. "The same thing happened in China (before it hosted the 2008 Olympics), but it just kept going," Harvey said. "They are raising their standard of living. We could see the same thing in Brazil. Maybe not on the same pace, but once they get a taste of it ..." The auto industry's rising thirst for steel also drives coal use, the CEOs said. Particularly in China, car production is soaring with plenty of room to grow, Blankenship said, noting that 128 people out of every 1,000 people in China own cars, compared to 765 out of 1,000 in the United States. China last year produced 13.3 million vehicles, compared to 8.8 million in North America, the Massey CEO said. Africa will become a major importer of coal as the country begins to modernize, Harvey and Blankenship said. Blankenship declined to answer questions regarding a possible sale of Massey or whether he might step down. In a conference call with analysts last week, he acknowledged the rumors, saying Massey is "considering all options," but declined to discuss specifics. Massey runs the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va., where an April 5 explosion killed 29 miners and injured two. It was the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in 40 years. State, federal and company investigations are ongoing. Chris Togneri can be reached at ctogneri(a)tribweb.com or 412-380-5632. ----- Original Message ----- From: <stombond(a)hughes.net> To: "Donald C. Strimbeck" <dcsoinks(a)comcast.net>; "jOHN ELEYETTE" <JMELEYETTE(a)rocketmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 9:46 PM Subject: Letter to the Wheeling Intelligencer > Mr. Strimbeck: > I sent the following letter to the Wheeling Intelligencer a couple of > days ago. It is a response to the article "Chesapeake Energy Officials > Pledge to Maintain Roads" published in your newsletter dated the 29th. > You may use it if your want to. > > As a person with training as a chemist, I was highly amused by the > article "Chesapeake Energy Officials Pledge to Maintain Roads" in the 29 > October 2010 INTELLIGENCER. It includes a statement of Stacey R. Brodak, > manager of corporate development for Chesapeake concerning the 25,000 > gallons or so of chemicals in frac fluid for a Marcellus well. > > Her claims are right about all of them. HOWEVER, isopropanol is also > used to denature alcohol, to make it undrinkable. Petroleum distillates > is a very broad category (many different compounds) used for solvent > properties. It is toxic, but is considered to have low toxicity. Guar > gum, citric acid (think citrus fruits), potassium chloride, are, in fact > food ingredients. Sodium and potassium carbonate are very similar and > are sometime used as food additives. Glutaradldehyde is used in water > treatment for killing alge and as a disinfectant for medial equipment. > It causes severe irritation of eyes and respiratory system. It is a > source of occupational asthma. > > Ammonium persulfate is an extremely strong oxidizing agent listed as > having low toxicity. It is used to etch copper and would doubtless cause > other metals to dissolve. Formaldehyde is another protein denaturant. > Among its uses is in embalming fluid. It is used in resins for plywood > type materials, glue, etc. It is the source of eye irritation when these > products are used. It is a known human carcinogen. Borate salts are > toxic, but probably not at the concentration they are used in frac > fluid. These things are what go down to begin with. > > Now, what about the stuff that comes up with the "flowback." At the > several hundred degree temperatures and huge pressures solubility of > many compounds increase compared to solubility at the surface. What else > comes up with the cuttings, which present a very large surface area for > solution of the shale components? The shale contains a huge number of > complex compounds. Things that come up with the flowback include heavy > metals, highly poisonous, which the body accumulates because there is no > mechanism to eliminate them, and radioactivity. One case is known where > the radioactivity of returning frac water was 1000 times the allowed > radioactivity of drinking water. > > Ms. Brodak's list almost invariably cites external uses of the > compounds. The objection is to drinking these compounds in surface water > and ground water contaminated by flowback! I don't doubt her integrity, > she is an executive and not educated in chemistry. But who put that list > on hydraulicfracturing.com ought to have his backside kicked. We're not > all rubes out here. > > Somebody ought to be out there sampling and testing for a wide range of > contaminants. The whole Marcellus industry has its collective fingers > crossed, screaming "There's nothing wrong with our work!" and "Just > think about the money it will bring in." They are in the same position > as the original oil and gas industry and the strip mining industry: they > are running a humongous experiment while doing all they can to block out > any bad news. > By Mari Margil, Ben Price Licking, Pennsylvania defies state law by banning corporations from dumping fracking wastewater. In Pennsylvania-a central target for natural gas drilling and the controversial drilling practice known as horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking"-local communities don't have the legal authority to keep unwanted drilling from happening. As fracking's impacts on water safety make headlines and public resistance to drilling grows, some towns have tried to use land use zoning to keep drilling companies out-but they can't use zoning laws to stop an activity the state has declared legal. (At best, they can zone where the corporations site their drill pads. But since drilling is not vertical but horizontal, there's no way to contain its impact on a community's water and environment.) Taking local control One small community in western Pennsylvania wanted more say over what happens within its borders. Licking Township, population 500, chose to defy state law with its own local ordinance, banning corporations from dumping fracking wastewater within its borders. Licking sits atop the Marcellus Shale, a geological formation that contains large and mostly untapped natural gas reserves. On Oct. 12, 2010, the Licking Township Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ban corporations from dumping fracking wastewater within the township. "When it comes to land use issues and the preservation of important resources, the local community is best suited to set priorities as they feel impacts most acutely," said Mik Robertson, chairman of the Licking Township Supervisors. Pennsylvania's preferential laws for drilling companies are not unique. For years, the drilling industry has worked closely with government to pave the way for widespread drilling, eliminating regulatory barriers that may stand in its way. The so-called "Halliburton Loophole" was inserted into the federal Safe Drinking Water Act to exempt companies drilling for natural gas, including those drilling in the Marcellus Shale (which extends from New York to West Virginia) from having to comply. Corporations have also been exempted from a host of other laws and regulations, and states have enacted laws pre-empting municipalities from taking steps to reign in the industry. The residents of Licking felt that they should be the ones to decide what happens in their township. "People have the right to determine what is suitable for their community, as they are most directly affected by intended or unintended consequences of resource extraction," said Robertson. The dangers of fracking The residents of Licking aren't alone in their concerns about fracking. Across the Appalachian highlands, residents worried about the health effects of fracking have been calling on their elected officials to protect them. In New York, a citizen movement convinced the state Senate to place a 9-month moratorium on the practice while its safety is evaluated. However, the moratorium is only temporary and has not been voted into state law. Fracking involves pumping water laced with sand and a cocktail of chemicals underground to fracture the shale rock and release the natural gas. In the process, thousands of gallons of toxic wastewater are produced and can contaminate waterways and drinking water. Natural gas wells are often driven through aquifers. The impacts from drilling can include exploding wells, groundwater contamination, and fish kills. Recently, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture quarantined cattle believed to have drunk from a frack wastewater spill. Their milk was no longer considered safe to drink. A new study by researchers at the University of Buffalo found that fracking also releases uranium trapped in the rock, raising additional health concerns. Collateral damage includes lost property value, drying up of mortgage loans for prospective home buyers, and the threatened loss of organic certification for farmers. And it's not only rural communities feeling the pressure. In Pittsburgh and Buffalo (both of which straddle the Marcellus), gas extraction corporations have quietly signed leases with landowners to drill under the surface. A new direction Drafted with the help of Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), the "Licking Township Community Water Rights and Self-Government Ordinance" is the first of its kind in the nation. The City of Pittsburgh is also considering a CELDF-drafted ordinance, which is scheduled for a vote on November 16. With an expected veto-proof majority of City Council members in favor, that ordinance would impose an outright ban on gas drilling by corporations within city limits. Communities across the Marcellus Shale region, including Lehman Township in eastern Pennsylvania, are also considering CELDF ordinances that would ban corporations from drilling or from extracting water to use in drilling. In addition to banning corporate disposal of frack wastewater, Licking Township's ordinance asserts the right to local self-government and the community's right to a healthy environment and to clean water. In adopting the ordinance, Licking joins more than a dozen other communities in legally recognizing the rights of nature and subordinating corporate constitutional rights to the rights of human and natural communities. By recognizing the rights of nature, Licking is effectively protecting ecosystems and natural communities within the township from efforts by corporations to drill there-or by higher levels of governments to authorize that drilling. Residents of the community are empowered by the ordinance to enforce those rights on behalf of threatened ecosystems. By prohibiting the introduction of frack wastewater into the Township's environment, Licking's new law effectively blocks hydro-fracturing. Critics of the ordinance claim that, by denying corporations that violate its prohibitions the civil rights protections conferred on them by the courts, the ordinance goes too far. Robertson responds to these charges, saying, "People have rights, like the gifts of nature. People have rights to property. Property does not have rights. Corporations are property." Corporations may sue to overturn the ordinance, with the argument that it violates their corporate constitutional rights. Such a lawsuit would finally raise imperative questions about whose rights trump whose: Do the court-endowed privileges of corporations override the inalienable rights of the people and ecosystems of Licking Township, nullifying their claim to have a legal right to their health, safety, and welfare? Or does the community have the right to make critical decisions to protect its well-being-and that of the ecosystems upon which it depends? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mari Margil and Ben Price wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Mari is the associate director and Ben is projects director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit, public interest law firm providing legal services to communities facing threats to their local environment, agriculture, economy, and quality of life. Washington PA Observer Reporter Wednesday 3 November 2010: Sessions to provide info on roustabout training 11/3/2010 3:33 AM Free information sessions on Marcellus Shale roustabout training will be held in November and December by Westmoreland County Community College in partnership with Pennsylvania College of Technology at WCCC's Greene County Education Center, EverGreene Technology Park, Waynesburg. The sessions are designed for those interested in applying for free training for roustabout jobs in the natural gas drilling and production industry and will be conducted from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Nov. 12; 10 to 11:30 a.m. Nov. 20; and 3 to 4:30 p.m. Dec. 8. Roustabouts prepare sites for natural gas well drilling, set up and operate drilling rigs and dismantle rigs for movement to another location. They work around moving equipment such as forklifts, back hoes and excavators and carry 80-pound bags of concrete and heavy pipe. "This is physically demanding work requiring 12-hour shifts outside in all kinds of weather," said James Hayes, WCCC director of work force development. Some drilling jobs require 14 consecutive working days with 14 days off. "Employers will not tolerate drugs, and workers will be randomly drug tested," said Hayes. The three-week roustabout training program will run Jan. 17 through Feb. 4, and classes meet Monday through Friday. The training is a highly interactive, industry-oriented program and will be taught by expert instructors. Class size is limited to 15 students. The sessions will provide information on drilling rig jobs, the free training program and the application process. The sessions are free, but prospective applicants must register by calling Pennsylvania CareerLink Greene County at 724-852-2900. Copyright Observer Publishing Co. Don Strimbeck, Sec/Treas Upper Mon River Assoc UpperMon.org MonRiverSummit.org WVU t-shirts & prints - FindHarri.com 109 Broad Street, P. O. Box 519 Granville WV 26534-0519 304-599-7585 (fax 4131) dcsoinks(a)comcast.net

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Fwd: State energy efficiency rankings
by James Kotcon 02 Nov '10

02 Nov '10

West Virginia ranks 43rd in energy efficiency among the states, dropping from 35th place in the first scorecard in 2006. Lossing points for building codes was one contributor. JBK ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To get off this list, send email to: LISTSERV(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Make the message text (not the Subject): SIGNOFF CONS-FRED The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has released <http://www.aceee.org/sector/state-policy/scorecard> a new report ranking states by the strength of their energy efficiency policies. Has your chapter won substantial victories to improve energy efficiency in your state? If so, be sure to let us know by filling out our victory reporting form <http://tinyurl.com/y8fn9an> . In the meantime, if you're looking for some good news, check out these recent victories won by Sierra Club activists throughout the country: Scott Elkins, Director for Chapter Coordination Sierra Club 612-659-9124

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EC November 2010