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Groups ask why no charges have been laid a year after Alberta coal mine spill – by (The Canadian Press/Globe and Mail – November 12, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

EDMONTON — Conservation groups want to know why no federal or provincial charges have been laid over a massive spill from a coal tailings pond in west-central Alberta.

An estimated 670 million litres of waste water spilled into tributaries that feed into the Athabasca River after an earth berm broke at the Obed Mountain mine on Oct. 31, 2013.

The mine was owned at the time by Sherritt International, which has since sold it to Westmoreland Coal Company. Groups including the Alberta Wilderness Association say Sherritt should be charged under the federal Fisheries Act.

They also say they want both governments to make public what was in the tailings, how the spill has affected the rivers and how it may affect the health of people who live downstream. Federal officials and staff at the Alberta Energy Regulator were not immediately available for comment.

“The lack of enforcement and charges for a spill of this magnitude calls into question the approval of any mining development in Alberta,” Brittany Verbeek, a spokeswoman for the wilderness association, said Wednesday.

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Book review: John Grisham’s ‘Gray Mountain’ is a searing look at Big Coal – by Patrick Anderson (Washington Post – October 19, 2014)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

At the start of “Gray Mountain,” John Grisham’s angry and important new novel, Samantha Kofer — age 29, Washington native, graduate of Georgetown and Columbia Law — is a third-year associate at a huge New York law firm. She works 100 hours a week, doing boring chores that she hates, but she’s earning $180,000 a year and expects to be a $2 million-a-year partner by age 35.

Or she did expect that, until September 2008, when the economy tanked and panicked law firms began ridding themselves of associates and partners. We meet Samantha at the moment — “day ten after the fall of Lehman Brothers” — when the ax falls for her, with only one consolation offered. If laid-off associates will agree to intern with a nonprofit agency, they can keep their health benefits and will be considered for rehiring if prosperity returns. Thus it is that Samantha finds herself at the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic in tiny Brady, Va., in the heart of Appalachia.

That opening scene, wherein a world of privilege abruptly vanishes for astonished young people who have known only success, is startling, but no more than Grisham’s portrait of the world of poverty and injustice that Samantha soon enters. The author does justice to the physical beauty of Appalachia and to the decency of most of its people, but his real subject is the suffering inflicted on those people by mining companies and politicians who pander to them.

Samantha’s new boss, Mattie Wyatt, has kept the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic alive for 26 years. The first case she assigns to Samantha is that of a woman who needs protection from a husband who deals in crystal meth and beats her.

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Miners reveal a poverty of thinking on coal – by Richard Denniss (The Age – November 8, 2014)

 http://www.theage.com.au/

Richard Denniss is the Australia Institute executive director.

In a world in which war is waged for humanitarian reasons but sending doctors and nurses to prevent an outbreak of Ebola is considered too risky, almost any spin seems possible. But surely the mining industry’s claim that the best way to tackle global energy poverty is to build more coal mines takes the biscuit.

Coal companies have been very vocal in recent times about the billions of people around the world without access to energy or safe cooking facilities. The CEO of coal mining company Peabody Energy went as far as to say that tackling energy poverty is “the world’s number one human and environmental crisis”.

Now, after a century of making a fortune selling coal to those who could afford it and ignoring those who couldn’t, the mining industry has had an epiphany. Poor people in poor countries lack many of the necessities that Australians take for granted. And, according to their PR firms at least, the miners really want to do something about it.

The world’s greatest hearts and minds have long wrestled with the issue of how to lift people out of poverty. Mahatma Gandi, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates – they’ve all spent years pondering where best to start and how best to help. Is it by educating the masses, preventing aids and malaria, providing micro finance, or just cutting taxes and letting the market rip?

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Russia’s Dependence on the West – by Grzegorz Kaliszuk (New Eastern Europe – November 3, 2014)

http://www.neweasterneurope.eu/

The conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has been lasting for nearly ten months, has had direct implications on the Russian economy. Foreign investments, as the best tool to integrate the world’s economies, are more and more often bypassing Russia. According to the Central Bank of Russia, the country is going to lose 90 billion US dollars of foreign investments as a result of the war.

The energy industry, which is the core of the Russian economy, is very close to the heart of the Kremlin. As a place where hundreds of different minerals are exploited every day, we generally associate the Russian energy industry with oil and natural gas. However, besides “black gold” and “blue fuel”, Russia’s coal mining is also a very significant part of its energy business. One-third of the world’s coal supplies are located in Russia, primarily in Siberia.

In 2012, the Russian Federation endorsed a long-term coal development programme. Its main aim is to increase Russia’s annual coal production to 430 million tonnes. The first step to success is its large coal reserve. The second are the specialised technologies which are usually purchased from other countries. The current level of exhaustion in the mining infrastructure shows an immediate upgrade is needed in up to 60 per cent of production sites (in 139 open-pit mines and in 93 underground mines).

The Russian coal industry is also a chance for the Polish economy. Until the end of the 1960s, Poland imported coal-mining technologies from Russia – now the boot is on the other foot and the Russian market is dominated by companies like Becker Mining Systems (Germany), Sandvik Mining Construction (Finland) and the export alliance of Czech Mining Technology.

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Germany’s Turn Against Coal Risks More Reliance on Russia – by Stefan Nicola, Tino Andresen and Brian Parkin (Bloomberg News – November 3, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Germany is turning against coal as a fuel for generating electricity, a move that will boost the nation’s reliance on natural gas from Russia.

Alarmed that curtailing nuclear power has prompted utilities to burn the most coal in six years, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is working on a plan to reinforce Germany’s commitment to reduce fossil-fuel emissions. The Economy Ministry on Oct. 31 published a paper laying the groundwork for the most strict steps yet to limit coal in Europe.

The shift, if implemented, would force Germany to tap Russia for additional supplies, to import power from neighbors and to further subsidize renewables such as solar and wind. That would swell the country’s 100 billion-euro ($126 billion) annual fuel import bill and may raise the cost of electricity paid by consumers, already the second-highest in the European Union.

It would also run counter to efforts by the U.S. and EU to isolate Russia economically.

“The importance of gas, and with that the dependence on Russia, will increase,” said Guido Hoymann, an analyst at B. Metzler Seel Sohn & Co. KGaA. Cross-border exchanges of electricity also would rise, helping the nuclear plants just outside Germany’s border, he said.

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Australia coal mining marks challenge for U.N. green push – by James Regan (Reuters U.S. – November 3, 2014)

http://www.reuters.com/

SYDNEY, Nov 3 (Reuters) – U.N. calls to curb greenhouse gas emissions by ending most electricity generation using coal will face some tough challenges, with coal mining going through a growth spurt in countries such as Australia.

The U.N on Sunday released a report saying governments could keep climate change in check at manageable costs but would have to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2100 to limit risks of irreversible damage.

Although coal is blamed for contributing to climate change and causing large amounts of harmful pollution, it remains by far the most important fuel for power generation at a global share of around 40 percent.

Australian production of thermal coal is forecast to rise by 8 percent over the next two years to 270 million tonnes, according to government figures, confirming the nation as the world’s second’s biggest-exporter after Indonesia.

By fiscal 2018/19, production will reach 290 million tonnes, says the Australian Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics, the government’s forecaster.

Australian growth is expected to continue as companies including Rio Tinto , BHP Billiton and Glencore earmark capital to dig and acquire new mines.

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Coal mining comeback? – by Melissa Villeneuve(Lethbridge Herald – October 30, 2014)

http://lethbridgeherald.com/

The Crowsnest Pass has a rich history in the coal-mining industry. While there hasn’t been a working coal mine in southern Alberta for decades, an Australian company, Riversdale Resources, hopes to revive that.

Riversdale Resources has acquired property at Grassy Mountain and plans to build an open-pit mine producing two to four million tonnes of high-quality coking coal per year over 28 years. The company plans to export it to the Asian steel-making industry.

Managing director Steve Mallyon said there isn’t a lot of new coal supply coming online, and they found the quality of the coal in the Crowsnest Pass region is suitable for high-quality steel-making.

“Grassy itself has very good-quality coking coal, a significant reserve there we inherited plus we added to. We have rail and infrastructure on the doorstep, but also being a town that services the coal industry already, there are a lot of people in that area that have a connection to the coal industry.”

The first coal mine in the Crowsnest Pass opened in 1900, and many of the surrounding communities were mining towns. Mallyon said there are many benefits in coming to a community rich with mining experience. Many who live in the area work across the border at Teck in Sparwood, B.C.

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Mine closures contribute to 60-70% jobless rate in Tumbler Ridge, says deputy mayor – by Jonny Wakefield (Alaska Highway News/Business Vancouver – October 30, 2014)

http://www.biv.com/

Hundreds of people in the district of Tumbler Ridge lost their jobs in a rash of mine closures this year.

But the town’s exact rate of unemployment – which district staff say would help a push for government assistance – remains a mystery.

Tumbler Ridge councillor Rob Mackay, who also serves as deputy mayor, said a local unemployment rate of between 60 and 70% “would be in the right ball park” since Anglo American Coal and Walter Energy idled their mines in Northeast British Columbia.

The town of 2,700 has been largely dependent on mining since it was incorporated in 1981. Around 700 people directly lost their jobs over a period of around six months, and by the end of the year, there will be no working coal mines in Tumbler Ridge.

“[60 to 70% unemployment] has got to be fairly close, though I don’t know the exact number,” said Mackay. “Those mines were the major employers in Tumbler Ridge.” Both companies cited falling metallurgical coal prices as the reason for the shutdowns.

Jordan Wall, Tumbler Ridge’s economic development officer, said being able to put a hard number on the town’s unemployment rate would underline how bad things are to senior levels of government.

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Column – India, Indonesia take different, but similar coal paths – by Clyde Russell (Reuters India – October 27, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia – India, poised to become the world’s largest importer of thermal coal, appears to be opening up its domestic mining sector to foreign competition just as Indonesia, its biggest supplier, is making it harder for exporters.

On a superficial level it appears that India and Indonesia are choosing different paths for their coal sectors, but the policies being pursued by the countries’ new, reform-minded leaders may have more in common than first appearances suggest.

India may allow foreign companies to mine coal, as long as they set up units in the country, Reuters reported on Oct. 22, citing a source familiar with the matter.

This would be a major change for the South Asian nation, which has the world’s fifth-largest coal reserves but suffers from ongoing shortages because of inefficiencies across the mining, transportation and distribution chains.

Coal mining has been dominated by state-controlled Coal India, which consistently fails to meet targets for production and supply. What private mining existed in India was thrown into chaos recently by court rulings that found the allocation of coal blocks by the previous government had been illegal, and that these areas would be returned to the state and Coal India.

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Coal, Climate and Orangutans in Indonesia – by Daniel Stiles (The Epoche Times – October 24, 2014)

http://www.theepochtimes.com/

What do the climate and orangutans have in common? They are both threatened by coal – the first by burning it, and the second by mining it.

At the recent United Nations Climate Summit in New York, world leaders and multinational corporations pledged a variety of actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation to avert a looming disaster caused by global warming.

Indonesia, home to most of the world’s orangutans, is a major player in both emissions and deforestation, with the third largest tropical forest area in the world, after the Amazon and the Congo Basin. In 2012, Indonesia surpassed Brazil as the country with the highest annual rate of primary forest loss. The country is also ranked the fourth top emitter of greenhouse gases in the world (after China, the U.S., and the European Union) during some years, largely due to high deforestation rates and peatland fires.

The New York Declaration on Forests, announced at the UN Climate Summit, called on partners to work to at least halve the rate of natural forest loss globally by 2020 and strive to end natural forest loss by 2030. It also targeted achieving a reduction in deforestation-related emissions by 4.5-8.8 billion tons per year by 2030.

The now-former Indonesia president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, announced in 2009 a voluntary commitment to reduce the country’s carbon footprint by 26 percent.

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Gordienko, Hunt, Cochrane and Sigurdson: Environmentalists get facts wrong about coal – (Vancouver Province – October 26, 2014)

http://www.theprovince.com/index.html

Mark Gordienko is president, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada; Steve Hunt is director, United Steel Workers District 3; Brian Cochrane is business manager, International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115; and Tom Sigurdson is executive director, B.C. Building Trades.

“I look at it from the perspective of the importance of coal…..in terms of employment, it’s huge here but I would remind city folk that it provides employment also for people in the Greater Vancouver area.” — Sparwood Mayor Lois Halko

While there has been much attention and controversy surrounding a small, proposed coal terminal — Fraser Surrey Docks — the larger picture of how important coal mining and exports are to British Columbia’s economy is being missed.

Our unions’ members are the coal miners and workers who ship steelmaking coal from B.C. to markets overseas, where steel is made to produce everything from cellphones to wind turbines to subway cars to surgical equipment.

B.C.’s coal sector employs 26,000 people directly and indirectly, creates $3.2 billion in economic activity and generates $715 million in tax revenues for the province and B.C. cities and towns every year.

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Coal Miners Fired in Appalachia Getting Hired in Wyoming – by Tim Loh (Bloomberg News – October 23, 2014)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

It’s boom times in Wyoming for embattled U.S. coal companies, where the mining industry is hiring workers while shedding them in Appalachia.

Alpha Natural Resources Inc. (ANR), the second-largest U.S. producer, hasn’t posted a profit in three years and is closing money-losing mines in West Virginia amid plans to increase production out West by as much as 30 percent.

Miner Steven King is going along for the ride. After losing his job last month at the company’s Black Castle operation, King, 42, is getting ready to move his family 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) to a state he’s never visited to work at an Alpha site in Wyoming.

With the U.S. coal industry in its worst decline in decades, companies including Alpha and Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU), the biggest producer, are pivoting toward pockets of future profit. No prospect is bigger than the Powder River Basin, a high, mineral-rich plain of yellow grass and sagebrush stretching from central Wyoming to southern Montana.

“It’s going to be running a good while in Wyoming, because of how much coal they put out,” said King, who expects to start work by next month. While he doesn’t know what he’ll be earning, a friend made the move a year ago and since then his base pay has increased to about $35 an hour from $25.

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Indonesia’s Choice: Coal vs. Environment – by David Fogarty (Epoch Times – October 19, 2014)

http://www.theepochtimes.com/

Indonesia cannot build power stations fast enough. And neither can most of its Asian neighbors. Rapid economic and population growth are driving equally rapid demands for electricity as the region builds out power grids to connect up millions of people to fuel prosperity.

Electricity generation is forecast to nearly triple in Southeast Asia between 2011 and 2035, the International Energy Agency says, with fossil fuels providing most of the energy.

With a population of 600 million, nearly twice that of the United States, and about 130 million people without electricity, Southeast Asia faces an immense challenge to meet that demand in a cost-efficient manner that doesn’t cause serious air and water pollution and drive up health costs.

For Indonesia, the Asia energy story is a blessing worth untold riches in terms of royalties, money it needs to develop its economy and provide jobs. The IEA says demand for coal in Southeast Asia will rise 4.8 percent per year, with Indonesia in the geographic sweet spot to be the region’s main supplier.

In the wider Asia-Pacific, demand for coal will increase by 52.8 percent from 2010 to 2035, according to the Asian Development Bank.

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RPT-UPDATE 3-India’s Modi steps up economic reforms, eyes privatisation [coal sector] – by By Manoj Kumar and Krishna N Das (Reuters India – October 21, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

NEW DELHI, Oct 20 (Reuters) – India promised on Monday to open up the coal industry to private players and moved closer to selling a stake in a state-run oil company, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi picked up the pace on economic reform days after relaxing fuel price controls.

Using an executive order, the cabinet agreed to allow private Indian companies to mine and sell coal at an unspecified future date, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said. That sets the stage for the biggest liberalisation of the industry in more than 40 years.

The ruling party’s success in two state elections last week capped several days of action on the economic front and has given Modi more room to cut through a thicket of regulations and state controls he says holds back Asia’s third-largest economy.

“Reform is the art of the possible,” Jaitley earlier told TV network ET Now, hinting that more was to come. “In the first year, when people expect lot of reforms and there is lot of popular support behind the reform process, it is more easily possible.

Modi was elected in May on promises he would create jobs and rejuvenate the Indian economy, but investors and economists were disappointed by his first budget and a lack of early progress on fixing structural economic problems. In the last week, he has gone some way towards quelling those concerns, putting in a reform-minded team at the finance ministry that includes prominent economist Arvind Subramanian to help formulate the budget and policy.

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Poland’s coal miners dig in for struggle over restructuring – by Henry Foy (Financial Times – October 19, 2014)

http://www.ft.com/intl/companies/mining

Knurow, Poland – Almost 1km below the rolling hills of southern Poland, four men, their faces coated in a slick layer of coal dust and sweat, pilot a colossal grinder as it rips metre-wide chunks of glistening black coal from the walls of a narrow tunnel.

At temperatures above 30C, by the dim light of torches and surrounded by the deafening cacophony of the screaming grinder and a thundering conveyor belt, such men and their machines work 24 hours a day, six days a week, churning out a fuel that was supposed to be the answer to Poland’s energy problems. But it has not worked out that way.

Over 300km north, in Warsaw’s government meeting rooms, lit by bulbs that rely on coal for almost 90 per cent of their power, the country’s politicians and bureaucrats have been debating how to rescue an industry in existential crisis: chronically lossmaking, inefficient and under threat from external pressures.

Poland’s vast coal reserves, the second-largest in Europe, were seen as the energy ace up its sleeve – offsetting reliance on Russian resources and providing enough cheap, domestic fuel to power decades of economic growth.

But then the US shale boom sent coal prices tumbling and exposed vast inefficiencies across the country’s state-owned miners. At the same time, environmental concerns have led to pressure from the EU for Poland to wean itself off the black stuff.

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