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Coalmine fire put out after half a century
Jane Macartney, Times (UK)
After a three-year effort and untold quantities of water, Chinese firefighters have extinguished a fire that had been burning underground in a coalmine for more than 50 years.
The blaze had consumed as much as 12.5 million tonnes of coal as it raged unchecked beneath the surface and spewed out more than 70,000 tonnes of toxic gases annually since the 1950s.
Firefighters finally beat the fire by boring into the coal seam and flooding it with water and slurry. They then capped the mine shafts to starve the flames of oxygen. As well as staving off further environmental damage, they have saved more than 651 million tonnes of coal, which will be mined to fuel the Chinese economic and industrial juggernaut.
(22 November 2007)
Suggested by Big Gav who has more at a post today.
Declining coal reserves add to energy supply worries
Stephen Hume, Vancouver Sun
In mid-2000, Australian thermal coal bound for the Asian market — mostly China — was selling for $24.59 a tonne. Last week, it broke $116.
Some analysts speculate the price in 2008 might exceed $200. In the Indian business press, there was concern that since China became a net importer of metallurgical coal in 2007, the cost inflation for a tonne of steel had reached $90. Even melting down scrap from dismantled ships is getting expensive.
So, thinking about a new bicycle? You might consider buying it now. Common sense suggests prices will increase as competitive demand bids up coal prices which in turn boost primary manufacturing costs which will be inflated by freight costs that are already coupled to accelerating oil prices.
With coal prices setting records, you’d reasonably expect a stampede to find and develop new reserves, a pattern with which British Columb-ians are familiar. Every time metal prices get a good bounce, the mining industry goes into overdrive. And any sustained jump in petroleum prices triggers renewed exploration in the oil patch.
But with coal, it appears that as prices go up, proven reserves go down.
(6 February 2008)
Natural gas may boom by default
Tyler Hamilton, The Star (Canada)
As prospects for new coal and nuclear power plants dim, some see surge in gas used for power generation
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Roadblocks to building new coal and nuclear plants in the United States have some industry observers expecting a natural gas boom that could contribute to higher energy prices in Ontario over the coming decade.
Dozens of proposals for new coal and nuclear plants from U.S. utilities have been shelved or cancelled because of rocketing construction costs, financing risk, regulatory uncertainty and community resistance:
… The New York Times reported Tuesday that U.S. utilities are getting frustrated and beginning to choose a path of least resistance: natural gas.
They’re further motivated by the fact that investment banks Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley said Monday that decisions whether to finance new plants will weigh potential charges for carbon emissions and other financial and project risks.
The attraction to gas is that plants are much easier to build.
(8 February 2008)
Money Is the Real Green Power:
The hoax of eco-friendly nuclear energy
Karl Grossman, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
Nuclear advocates in government and the nuclear industry are engaged in a massive, heavily financed drive to revive atomic power in the United States-with most of the mainstream media either not questioning or actually assisting in the promotion.
“With a very few notable exceptions, such as the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. media have turned the same sort of blind, uncritical eye on the nuclear industry’s claims that led an earlier generation of Americans to believe atomic energy would be too cheap to meter,” comments Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. “The nuclear industry’s public relations effort has improved over the past 50 years, while the natural skepticism of reporters toward corporate claims seems to have disappeared.”
The New York Times continues to be, as it was a half-century ago when nuclear technology was first advanced, a media leader in pushing the technology, which collapsed in the U.S. with the 1979 Three Mile Island and 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant accidents. The Times has showered readers with a variety of pieces advocating a nuclear revival, all marbled with omissions and untruths.
Karl Grossman is a professor of journalism at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury. Books he has written about nuclear technology include Cover Up: What You ARE NOT Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He has hosted many television programs on nuclear technology on EnviroVideo.com
(January/February 2008)
Recommended by Albert Bates.
Green laws and regulation risk energy crisis, say Europe’s power companies
David Gow, Guardian
· Major projects cancelled because of uncertainty
· Planning problems will stall wind-farm growth
Europe is facing an energy crisis because of green-influenced legislation and regulation, and difficulty in obtaining planning approval for key projects, energy companies warned yesterday.
Europe needs to spend €2tn (£1.5tn) on upgrading power networks in the next 25 years but leading energy companies have cancelled investments in new power plants worth billions of euros because of increased regulatory uncertainty, a senior executive claimed yesterday.
(7 February 2008)
