Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Help stop what Al Gore calls “A horrible mistake”

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Our most recent “banging of the drum” is coverage of regional displeasure in ths bill (Liquid Coal Backlash in Coal Mining Region), anti-coal activism (Asheville NC activists confront Bank of America for coal industry investments), and hope for a different, better future (Resource Rich, Dirt Poor: Time for a New Deal in Appalachia).

The Coal to Liquid Fuel bill is a bad piece of legislation. It will increase, not decrease carbon emissions. It will increase, not decrease destruction Mountain Top Removal coal mining. It will increase, not decrease the transfer of wealth to corporate energy owners. This bill is bad energy policy, bad social policy, and bad environmental policy.

Thank you for your support to stop tax-payer subsidies for Liquid Coal.

Clem Guttata

West Virginia Blue

www.wvablue.com

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Comments

  1. The Rape of Appalachia

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    Appalachia’s mountains are being blasted at a rate of several ridgetops each week. Parents fear for the health of their children. And those trying to fight the devastation have found that coal baron Don Blankenship, C.E.O. of Massey Energy, is tougher than bedrock.

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    Vanity Fair, May 2006

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    Before I read this shortly after it was published in hardcopy, I was unaware that coal mining companies were actually doing strip-mining in WVA.  I knew they had been doing it in the west for decades, but not WVA.

    • Thanks, raj, I hadn’t seen that article before. It’s quite an amazing piece. It does a great job of summarizing what’s been going on down here in West Virginia.

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      If you want to learn more about Mountain Top Removal, probably the best website to start from is ilovemountains.org.

  2. that it’s not a local issue.  (irreparable double negative there, sorry) There’s a whole lot of sniffing around going on.

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    Thanks for posting this Clem.  Energy policy never takes the entire coal lifecycle issues into account.  The NYTimes had a great editorial last week called The Coal Trap which looked at the absurdity of trying to solve one problem by exacerbating another (worse) problem. Here’s a big excerpt:

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    There is a rule for judging solutions to the twin problems of energy dependence and global warming: A policy designed to solve one problem should not make the other worse. But that is a likely outcome of the many ?energy independence? bills circulating in Congress that aim to build a whole new generation of coal-to-liquid plants to convert coal into automotive fuel…snip
    snip…What this means is that the country would be investing billions to produce fuels that, from a global warming perspective, leave us at best treading water. That is unacceptable at a time when mainstream scientists are warning that greenhouse gases must be cut by 60 percent or better over the next half-century to avert the worst consequences of global warming.

    Researchers at M.I.T. estimate that it will cost $70 billion to build enough coal-to-liquid plants to replace 10 percent of American gasoline consumption. A similar investment in biofuels like cellulosic or sugar-based ethanol ? which could yield substantial reductions in greenhouse gases ? would seem a lot smarter. Given the dimensions of our energy problems, new ideas must be explored. But it makes little sense to shackle the country now to a coal-based technology of such uncertain promise.

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