World's coal dependency hits environment

Chinese coal workers load coal unto trucks in Baotou, nestled
in the sand-sculpted ravines of Inner Mongolia, China,
Tuesday, May 8, 2007. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Dalziel)

Some people fear China. They fear its growing economic power and military strength. Perhaps its use of coal coupled with its manufacturing growth should generate more fear and anxiety.

It takes five to 10 days for the pollution from China's coal-fired plants to make its way to the United States, like a slow-moving storm.

It shows up as mercury in the bass and trout caught in Oregon's Willamette River. It increases cloud cover and raises ozone levels. And along the way, it contributes to acid rain in Japan and South Korea and health problems everywhere from Taiyuan to the United States.

This is the dark side of the world's growing use of coal.

Cheap and abundant, coal has become the fuel of choice in much of the world, powering economic booms in China and India that have lifted millions of people out of poverty. Worldwide demand is projected to rise by about 60 percent through 2030 to 6.9 billion tons a year, most of it going to electrical power plants.

But the growth of coal-burning is also contributing to global warming, and is linked to environmental and health issues including acid rain and asthma. Air pollution kills more than 2 million people prematurely, according to the World Health Organization.

"Hands down, coal is by far the dirtiest pollutant," said Dan Jaffe, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington who has detected pollutants from Asia at monitoring sites on Mount Bachelor in Oregon and Cheeka Peak in Washington state. "It is a pretty bad fuel on all scores."

May I suggest you go back and read those first two paragraphs of the report?

Via Yahoo! News.

Coal Use Grows Despite Warming Worries

There's always, always a fucking second shoe. First shoe?

Almost nonstop, gargantuan 145-ton trucks rumble through China's biggest open-pit coal mine, sending up clouds of soot as they dump their loads into mechanized sorters.

The black treasure has transformed this once-isolated crossroads nestled in the sand-sculpted ravines of Inner Mongolia into a bleak boomtown of nearly 300,000 people. Day and night, long and dusty trains haul out coal to electric power plants and factories in the east, fueling China's explosive growth.

People loves their power and couldn't care less what hideous things produce it.

Oh well, they'll learn if they don't all die first.

Via Knoxnews.

Making molehills out of mountains

An area of Hale Gap, Virginia, being
strip mined with mountaintop removal.
(Michael Temchine for The New York Times)

The headline actually reads: Bush's 'parting gift to the coal industry'

The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that would extend the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams.

To be fair it states it "extends" the practice. But I've never been one to buy into its always been done that way logic.

This is raping the earth without equivocation.

Via International Herald Tribune.