tagged w/ in the pockets of big coal
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Just how far will they go to shill for the coal industry? I actually thought this was a joke. It's not enough with all of the pesticides, GMOs, and artificial crap in our food. Let's just add some toxic coal ash to the mix to make it taste real good. Unbelievable.
Excerpt:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency are asking farmers to use coal ash to grow their crops, despite a paucity of research on possible risks, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). USDA endorses use of coal combustion wastes by farmers "for crop production" while acknowledging uncertainty on the extent to which "toxic elements" are absorbed into produce entering the market.
This month, USDA enters the final year of a three-year partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency as part of a larger effort by the American Coal Ash Association, the Electric Power Research Institute and others to "promote appropriate increased use of" coal ash in agriculture. The implementing Memorandum of Understanding obliges USDA to generate "documentation of the effectiveness, safety and environmental benefits, including bioavailability of trace elements such as mercury, arsenic and selenium...to satisfy the concerns of producers, generators, regulators and the public."
According to EPA, agriculture annually uses more than 180,000 tons of coal ash and other coal combustion byproducts. There are no federal standards governing agricultural applications of coal ash. EPA has publicly vowed to promulgate hazardous waste rules by the end of 2009 for coal ash, one year after last December's disastrous coal ash spills from Tennessee Valley Authority sludge ponds.
"USDA should pull out of the coal ash business tomorrow morning," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who obtained the documents under the Freedom of Information Act. "USDA does American agriculture no favors by duping farmers into spreading hazardous wastes across their fields."
In an April 2, 2009 letter to EPA, USDA Agricultural Research Service Deputy Administrator Steven Shafer expressed "ARS interest" in exploring greater use of coal combustion wastes in crop production as a fertilizer treatment and soil amendment. His letter cites current application of coal ash in growing corn, tomatoes, alfalfa, peanuts, and other crops. While generally sanguine about coal ash use, Shafer concedes that the "long-term effects...remain a subject of research."
Nonetheless, EPA promotional materials state that EPA and "USDA support the use of" coal combustion byproducts "in appropriate soil and hydrogeologic conditions as an effective method of soil conservation and industrial material recycling."
"The public does not want its food to come from ‘industrial material recycling' any more than it wants coal-flavored cauliflower," Ruch added. "This coal ash re-use campaign is really just a multi-billion dollar backdoor subsidy to the coal industry to relieve it of the true costs of handling its toxic wastes."Just how far will they go to shill for the coal industry? I actually thought this was... more
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The Obama administration announced the winners of the first phase of "clean coal" dollars from the economic stimulus package, with the largest sums going to oil firms.
Only $21.6 million of the $1.4 billion for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies was made available in phase one. The money was awarded to 12 companies that will test ways to catch and compress CO2 from polluting plants, transport it by pipeline and pump it underground.
The biggest winners were C6 Resources, a Shell Oil affiliate; ConocoPhillips; and Shell Chemicals, another division of Shell Oil. Each nabbed $3 million to demonstrate their technologies for seven months.
In the announcement, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu recycled the 'clean coal' boilerplate of past releases: "These new technologies will not only help fight climate change, they will create jobs now," although there was no estimate of how many jobs will be generated.
He also repeated this claim:
"The investments will help position the United States to lead the world in carbon dioxide capture technologies."
America still has a long way to go, though. A few subsidy-funded R&D tests are now being carried out, but none is considered economically feasible on a large scale, or even that clean.
A massive, 1,300-MW West Virginia coal plant just became the nation's first facility to pipe a small portion of its global-warming emissions back in the Earth. For an investment of more than $100 million, about 1.5 percent of the plant's CO2 will be sequestered.
Despite his critics, Chu has stood firm on CCS, becoming one of its staunchest proponents. In a September op-ed in Science Magazine he explained why:
"... the United States, Russia, China, and India account for two-thirds of the [world's coal] reserves. Coal accounts for roughly 25% of the world energy supply and 40% of the carbon emissions. It is highly unlikely that any of these countries will turn their back on coal any time soon, and for this reason, the capture and storage of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power plants must be aggressively pursued."
Some form of CO2 reduction technology is necessary. And while CCS has become the solution of choice for politicians, its actual implementation worldwide is all close to absent – and it's certain to be devilishly complex if and when it begins.
Research shows that returning a fraction of global emissions back into the Earth would require pumping as much compressed gas underground as all the oil being taken out. The infrastructure needed for that exceeds what is possible to build in a generation – or maybe ever.The Obama administration announced the winners of the first phase of "clean... more
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