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The EPA issued a blockbuster announcement about a strict new guidance for the permitting of mountaintop removal mines in Appalachia. The announcement left many people -- reporters, politicians and the general public alike -- confused whether or not the EPA had just put an end to mountaintop removal. The announcement generated headlines ranging from a fairly modest "E.P.A. to Limit Water Pollution From Mining" in the New York Times to "New regulations will put an end to mountaintop mining?" in the Guardian.

Valley fills are the typical disposal sites for the waste that is generated when coal companies blow the tops off mountains to access thin seams of coal. As community activist Judy Bonds of the organization Coal River Mountain Watch describes it, "A valley fill is an upside down mountain turned inside out." Most -- but not all -- mountaintop removal mines require valley fills.

A plethora of recent scientific research has shown that conductivity higher than about five times the normal level downstream from valley fills is associated with severe impairment of the ecological communities in Appalachian headwater streams. The photo to the right that I took below a valley fill in Magoffin County, Kentucky, illustrates the trouble these standards create for coal companies. According to a huge compilation of scientific studies that the EPA simultaneously released with their guidance, conductivity levels below Appalachian valley fills average around 10 times normal levels. The bright orange water coming out of this valley fill indicates enormously high levels of iron, which in turn suggests both high conductivity levels and high levels of toxic and heavy metals regulated under the Clean Water Act.



To be sure, the EPA's move is a big first step that provides immediate protection to Appalachian families threatened with new mountaintop removal permits above their homes. It's a tourniquet that will stop the hemorrhaging, but here are five reasons why this guidance doesn't immediately or permanently put an end to mountaintop removal:

1. The EPA's action will not affect permits that have already been issued. Moreover, an excellent piece of reporting by Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward revealed that those existing permits will allow some companies to continue mountaintop removal operations without a hitch for the next couple of years.

2. Not all mountaintop removal mines require valley fills and coal companies are already using loopholes by which they can obliterate miles of streams without the need to obtain a valley fill permit. The million or so acres of wholesale destruction that coal companies drove through a narrow loophole in the Surface Mine Control and Reclamation Act since 1977 is testament to their skill and creativity at exploiting loopholes.

3. Some valley fills will still be allowed under this guidance and the EPA even provided a set of "best practices" by which companies can do mountaintop removal in a manner consistent with it. Moreover, there are a number of recent cases where coal companies went ahead and constructed valley fills without even bothering to obtain a permit.

4. While the guidance takes effect immediately, it is a preliminary document released in response to calls from coal state legislators and coal companies for greater clarity on how the EPA was basing its decision whether to grant a valley fill permit for an Appalachian surface mine. The EPA plans to initiate an extended public comment period before the guidelines will be finalized.

5. An agency guidance document is different from a formal rule and can be easily overturned by a new administration. Even if this guidance proves to be effective in curtailing mountaintop removal, environmental and community advocates still need to ask what happens when a hypothetical President Palin enters the White House in January of 2013 or 2017.

There are any number of laws and regulations that affect surface mining, and so there is no single mechanism to ensure mountaintop removal is stopped permanently. But the first and most important step is for Congress to pass a strong law that prohibits the dumping of mine waste into streams.

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
As for the transfprmation to renewables, it doesnt take much time, it takes the doing of it, which many countries are now doing.

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Originally posted by Niki2:
By now nearly everyone knows "clean coal" is an oxymoron, but some still advocate it and claim it IS "clean". We are such a gullible people, and amazingly good at self-delusion!

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:

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Originally posted by Hero:

Can you imagine the jobs we could create if we built a dozen brand new 21st Century technology coal and nuclear plants.

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Dunno. Ten? Maybe twenty?

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Monsanto (and other providers) have known since at least the 1980s that glyphosate (the active ingredient in this stuff) causes malformations in test animals when used at high dosage. They’ve also known since 1993 that these same deformities can occur at low and mid-level doses

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Originally posted by DREAMTROVE:
Cows are a disaster. People aren't aware of it because it takes them longer, but most of the world's deserts are cow made, with man assist. The problem is that a large number of species grow from the top. I'd rather have cows on a biofuel plantation than deforested brazil, but ideally, they should be grain fed if they're going to be kept above subsistance levels.

As for yields, i've been crunching some numbers.

In barrels per acre, we're comparing against an average production for a standard oil well of 32. New oil finds can be much higher

Natural gas brings in about 12.5. One of the criticisms of horizintal fracking is inability to hold the yield, (BP oil spill level is very common if not the norm) and the sierra club says effective yields are closer to 2. Either way, natural gas is not going to do it, and we have much better sources.

Corn ethanol is fairly inefficient, and produces around 17.

I've read about switchgrass a fair amount before, yields are around 40

Algae yields are around 90 in practical real world ground use.

If you stack the algae in greenhouses, you can get up to 240, but your cost of production is going up to maybe $80 a barrel.

The US consumes about 7 billion barrels a year, and has about 2 billion acres of farm land, roughly half of which is under cultivation at any given time. Assuming basic figures don't change, we're going to need a source that provideds us with at least 14 barrels per acre. Ethanol will do that, but we'd be looking to convert half of the nation's yield into oil. Natural Gas will definitely not do it. Switchgrass with do it with room to spare, but my first choice would be for maximum yield, I'm looking to algae as our ultimate energy production engine. I think that in time we'll probably take apart the biochemical mechanism at work that turn sunlight, water and co2 into oil and create straight oil production units, but the nice thing about biofarms is that they grow themselves, you don't need to synthesize more algae.

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