Coal - Sept 17
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World Bank spends billions on coal-fired power stations
Ben Webster, Times online
The World Bank is spending billions of pounds subsidising new coal-fired power stations in developing countries despite claiming that burning fossil fuels exposes the poor to catastrophic climate change. The bank, which has a goal of reducing poverty and is funded by Britain and other developed countries, calls on all nations in a report today to “act differently on climate change”.
It says that the world must reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, but it is funding several giant coal-burning plants that will each emit millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide a year for the next 40 to 50 years.
Britain is contributing £400million to a World Bank fund that claims to support “clean technology” but is financing coal power plants.
The bank’s World Development Report says: “Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change — a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared. Increasing access to energy and other services using high-carbon technologies will produce more greenhouse gases, hence more climate change.”
(16 Sept 2009)
EPA moves to block W.Va.'s largest mining permit
Ken Ward, Jr., Charleston Gazette
Citing "clear evidence" of likely environmental damage, the Obama administration has moved toward revoking the largest mountaintop-removal permit in West Virginia history.
Late last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency urged the federal Army Corps of Engineers to revoke or suspend the corps' approval of a Clean Water Act permit for Arch Coal Inc.'s Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County.
EPA officials outlined their concerns in a Thursday letter to the corps. A day later, corps lawyers asked a federal judge to delay legal proceedings concerning the permit to give agency officials a chance to revisit the permit.
William E. Early, acting regional EPA administrator, recommended the corps conduct a new environmental impact study of the permit proposal to evaluate "new information and circumstances" and "recent data and analyses" of mountaintop removal...
(8 Sept 2009)
"The Coal Nightmare" (video & transcript)
Four Corners, ABC (Australia)
The story of the political game that's undermined the drive to create "clean coal" technology. Liz Jackson investigages.
(7 September 2009)
Recommended by EB contributor Michael Lardelli
