BS: Coal Ash overflow

Subject: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Barry Finn
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 01:28 AM

Seems that there been an enviormental Foo-Poo that's not getting the proper spin.
So far I've heard that there's not really any potential for much risk. It seems to me that there's a disaster & it's being handled like it was a water spill & nothing more. In truth it's now a toxic waste site & that's an enviormental disaster not matter hope you spell it & Bush is trying to ease up the EPA's reg's. Are there any mudcatters closer to the diaster that can give us a bit more of the truth about what is & what isn't being reported on.

Here's a link to what I read as a watered down NPR story.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 05:04 AM

The sludge flood is of course a local catastrophe, especially for the four homes that were destroyed, but the NPR article agrees with the majority of other reports that the testing done thus far shows that it's not "immediately toxic."

Clean up of the site will be a massive, and difficult, job. The material is essentially "fly-ash" that will be about like cleaning out a fireplace that's been in regular use. (Much of the ash goes straight through ordinary vacuum cleaner bags.)

The prinicpal contaminants that could pose a danger to the more widespread environment, especially to the water system in the area and downstream, would be heavy metal residues from the coal. Even in fine particulate matter like this sludge, these migrate slowly, if at all; so if one believes in the "dilution theory" even if some gets away into the ecosystem its effect should be "small" - if an effective cleanup of the local spill is properly done.

The worse environmental damage has been done by Bush with a pencil.

The Congressional mandate to EPA called for progressively lowering limits on contamination, and both the law and advice from technically competent comments required a lowering of allowed airborne particulates "across the board" at this time.

At Bush direction, the EPA has rushed through a rule to retain the previous limits on "average airborne particulates" although it did slightly lower limits on "intermittent emissions." This locks in the current limits on sources that run continuously (such as coal-fired generating plants) although it applies heavy fines to places like Anchorage Alaska where the start of the snow-blower season intermittently "spikes" the emissions.

Additionally, despite a Supreme Court decision that the Congressional mandate requires the EPA to regulate CO₂ emissions, Bush has ordered a revision of the EPA regulation on power plants that includes a prohibition preventing consideration of CO₂ emissions in licensing for new coal-fired plants.

An additional new EPA regulation permits mines (coal mines are principal offenders) to dump mine tailings directly into streams as long as they "promise that they don't think it will hurt anything" and if they promise that "once the mine is no longer profitable they'll clean it up" (as part of the bankruptcy settlement for the mine when they abandon it?). This new regulation effectively prohibits the EPA even from inspecting what the mines are doing, as long as the mine operators say "trust us, we're good guys."

John

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 07:18 AM

The latest release by news media doubles the estimate of the volume of ash sludge released, but does not seem to change the assessment of the environmental damage.

See Utility doubles estimate of sludge damage for the change.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 09:26 AM

Remember the Beatles lyrics...

4,000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire...we had to count them all

It refers to when coal ash flowed and buried many children in the UK.


its a shame and another testament to clean coal technology.

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 10:09 AM

They are being headily sunny in their outlook. Last night on NBC they reported that they hope to have the spill back in its bed within six weeks.

They didn't/don't even know how much spilt because they don't even know how much they had behind the walls. As one environmentalist said, The by-product isn't regulated, so they don't have to keep track.

It occurs to me that fly ash is the ultimate derivative. I don't understand how they can expect to dot the country with these "permanent" ponds- twenty feet deep! - and not expect the occasional disaster.

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: pdq
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 12:06 PM

Coal supplies half the electricity used in the US.

The population of the US is growing so fast that we are frantically trying to feed, clothe and house all the new people.

Our gasoline refineries are inadequate for the current population. So is our infastructure. So is our electrical generating capacity.

The US population was 281,000 in the year 2000. It is well over 300,000 now. In the year 2089, the US is expected to be home for 1 billion people. Yes, say that slowly: one billion people.

The best way to prevent small disasters like this ash spill is to stop the population growth and give our technological experts time to catch up.

BTW, the 400 acres described here is puny. About the size of a suburban shopping center. If you could come back in 50 years, you will find that this spill will have been cleaned up and the land looking fine. A 400 acre shopping center, in contrast, will still sterile.

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 12:21 PM

Wow, a jump from three hundred thousand people to o billion people in less than a hundred years. Impressive.

:) ( I know, I know.)

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: pdq
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 12:33 PM

For your edification:

                                 the numbers came from here

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Alice
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 12:38 PM

pdq, you forgot to include the description of "in millions" along with the numbers you posted (it's at the top of the page you linked).

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: pdq
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 12:47 PM

A bit confusing, alright.

The US population in 2008 is about 310 million, but that is reasonably common knowledge.

The point I am making is that problems cannot be fixed if we are always running just to keep up.

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: mrdux
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 02:03 PM

400 acres is better than half a square mile. i guess puniness is relative: seems like a lot of sludge to me. anyway, here's a less sanguine bit of spin from Southern Alliance for Clean Energy reported in this morning's AP story.

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Bert
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 04:35 PM

...workers try to move millions of pounds of soggy ash back to the artificial mountain it came from...

Now that's a bright idea. Let's do it again! We are paying someone to make these decisions.

Shades of Aberfan.

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: pdq
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 11:22 AM

The coal-powered electricity-producing plant is question is owned and operated by the TVA, meaning that it is owned by us. The Tennessee Valley Authority was started by the Federal government in 1933:

"President Franklin Roosevelt needed innovative solutions if the New Deal was to lift the nation out of the depths of the Great Depression. And TVA was one of his most innovative ideas. Roosevelt envisioned TVA as a totally different kind of agency. He asked Congress to create "a corporation clothed with the power of government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise." On May 18, 1933, Congress passed the TVA Act"

"By the end of the war, TVA had completed a 650-mile (1,050-kilometer) navigation channel the length of the Tennessee River and had become the nation's largest electricity supplier. Even so, the demand for electricity was outstripping TVA's capacity to produce power from hydroelectric dams. Political interference kept TVA from securing additional federal appropriations to build coal-fired plants, so it sought the authority to issue bonds. Congress passed legislation in 1959 to make the TVA power system self-financing, and from that point on it would pay its own way."

                                 TVA website that paints a rosy picture of FDR and the TVA

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Alice
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 02:52 PM

Another example of how our infrastructure has been neglected.

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Janie
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 10:59 PM

Just another good example of the need for a national (actually, international) imperative, to reduce the demand for all forms of energy, but especially for fossil fuels.

If humankind, and many other forms of life are to survive, we have to finally internalize a very basic idea. "Don't sh*t in camp." Further, we have to understand that "camp" is now the entire globe.

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 03:45 AM

from my days as a hobby potter I can asure you that wood ash is definitely caustic. My hands testified to it. Coal Ash may not be as bad but I would bet it is alkaline.

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 08:22 AM

I wonder how many of you are willing to give up your computers, TVs, video games, air conditioners. etc in order to make the environment cleaner.
All of our gadgets require power. Supplying that power CHEAPLY (we want that too) leads to problems like ash floods, Three Mile Island, etc.
Be interesting to see if a system could be set up alloting X number of kilowatts per person. Use it as you see fit. Sell them if you don't use them to electricity pigs. I see a whole new industry developing. And a bureaucracy to run it.

Sorry, haven't had my coffee yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 12:14 AM

A billion billion tons of goop. Some homes are buried and some have the stuff up to the windows.

This may be a job for a super fungus to break down with its mycielia.
Still it won't eliminate the mercury or other heavy metals.

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 07:55 AM

Of course wood ash is caustic -- they used to make lye from it. Fly ash is also not something you want to mess with.

When I made tombstones I had to shake down the filters and remove the buckets of silica dust (this was ultra-fine, it flowed like a a liquid) collected. I disposed of it in accordance with the instructions at the time: I dumped it in the alley outside the shop. I have a suspicion that this wouldn't be permitted today....

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 11:53 AM

Be interesting to see if a system could be set up alloting X number of kilowatts per person

hmmmm methinks the only regulation that works on these things is price. Relative to income that is.

See "Petrol, SUV, US carmakers, and credit crunch" for clues

Subject: RE: BS: Coal Ash overflow
From: open mike
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 02:59 PM

yes wood ash makes lye...
drano...cleans plumbing
and also takes your skin
off...

but in the right combination
with fat, oil, lard or

it becomes soap..a benevolent
substance...what can be used to
tame this coal ash and make it
less harmful?