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Regulators Couldn’t Close U.S. Mine Despite Poor Safety Record – by HOWARD BERKES & ANNA BOIKO-WEYRAUCH (Texas Public Radio – May 14, 2014)

http://tpr.org/

The West Virginia mine where two workers were fatally injured on Monday consistently violated federal mine safety laws, but federal regulators say they were unable to shut it down completely.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration confirmed that two workers were killed on May 12 when coal and rocks burst from mine walls at Patriot Coal’s Brody No. 1 mine in Boone County, W.Va.

MSHA says one victim was operating a mining machine and the other was drilling bolts into the roof of the mine, a process that prevents rockfalls. But MSHA and Patriot both say the miners were engaged in “retreat mining” at the time, a dangerous practice that involves cutting the coal pillars that hold up the mine roof, yielding the last loads of coal after a coal seam has been fully mined.

Federal data reviewed and analyzed by NPR show serious safety problems at the mine going back to 2007. The threat to miners was so serious and persistent that MSHA responded with one of its toughest enforcement actions. In October of last year, the Brody mine was designated a “pattern violator” and received extra regulatory scrutiny.

Patriot objected, blaming the troubled safety record and pattern of violations on a previous owner. NPR’s review of data from MSHA reveals serious safety issues under Patriot management that put miners at risk of injury or death.

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UPDATE 2-Mass funerals, mounting anger as Turkey mourns mine workers – by Ece Toksabay (Reuters India – May 15, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

SOMA, Turkey, May 15 (Reuters) – Loudspeakers broadcast the names of the dead and excavators dug mass graves in this close-knit Turkish mining town on Thursday, while protesters gathered in major cities as grief turned to anger following the country’s deadliest industrial disaster.

Rescuers were still trying to reach parts of the coal mine in Soma, 480 km (300 miles) southwest of Istanbul, almost 48 hours after fire knocked out power and shut down the ventilation shafts and elevators, trapping hundreds underground.

At least 282 people have been confirmed dead, mostly from carbon monoxide poisoning, and hopes are fading of pulling out any more alive of the 100 or so still thought to be inside.

Anger has swept a country that has boasted a decade of rapid economic growth under Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted government but which still suffers from one of the world’s worst workplace safety standards.

Furious residents heckled Erdogan and jostled his entourage on Wednesday as he toured the town, angry at what they see as the government’s cosiness with mining tycoons, its failure to ensure safety and a lack of information on the rescue effort.

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Engineers hurl scandalous accusations after Turkish mine fire kills hundreds – by Ben Brumfield, Gul Tuysuz and Diana Magnay (CNN.com – May 15, 2014)

 http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/

Soma, Turkey (CNN) — Turkey’s President spoke words of comfort to loved-ones of the nearly 300 miners who have died in a mine fire, a day after the Prime Minister was blasted over comments seen as insensitive.

The deadly mine fire in Turkey is a “sorrow for the whole Turkish nation,” President Abdullah Gul told reporters Thursday. He offered his condolences to the victims’ families.

Onlookers listened silently until a man interrupted Gul with shouts: “Please, president! Help us, please!” An investigation into the deadly Turkey mine disaster has begun, Gul said. “I’m sure this will shed light” on what regulations are needed. “Whatever is necessary will be done,” he said.

He commended mining as a precious profession. “There’s no doubt that mining and working … to earn your bread underground perhaps is the most sacred” of undertakings, he told reporters. Gul had entered the mine site with an entourage of many dozens of people — mostly men in dark suits — walking through a crowd of rescue workers who were standing behind loosely assembled police barricades.

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Cleaning Up Coal in India (New York Times Editorial – May 12, 2014)

http://www.nytimes.com/

India’s Enforcement Directorate has filed charges of money laundering against a former minister of state for coal, Dasari Narayana Rao, and Naveen Jindal, a member of Parliament who also happens to be chairman of Jindal Steel and Power. This is the latest turn in a major corruption scandal in India, known as Coalgate, in which the coal ministry awarded a handful of companies lucrative mining rights on a noncompetitive basis. The charges are a hopeful sign that India is ready to clean up its coal industry. But much more needs to be done.

Coal mining has long enjoyed sweetheart status in India, whatever the social and environmental costs. An 1894 land acquisition law that became an instrument of abuse, eventually fueling a Maoist insurgency, was finally replaced this year by a statute promising transparency and fair compensation.

Even so, activists are regularly harassed and even assassinated by thugs paid by powerful business interests to force people from their land. Ramesh Agrawal, who used India’s Right to Information Act to expose an illegal coal-mining venture by Jindal Steel and Power in Chhattisgarh, was shot and left for dead after he refused to back off. He accuses Mr. Jindal of ordering the attack. Mr. Agrawal was honored with a 2014 Goldman Environmental Prize for his fight for the communities threatened by the venture.

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Hopes fade for survivors after Turkish mine fire kills At least 245 – by Ece Toksabay (Reuters U.K. – May 14, 2014)

http://uk.reuters.com/

SOMA, Turkey – (Reuters) – Hopes faded of finding more survivors in a coal mine in western Turkey on Wednesday, where 245 workers were confirmed killed and around 120 still feared to be trapped in what is likely to prove the nation’s worst ever industrial disaster.

Anger over the deadly fire at the mine about 480 km (300 miles) southwest of Istanbul echoed across a country that has seen a decade of rapid economic growth but still suffers from one of the world’s worst workplace safety records. Opponents blamed Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government for privatising the country’s mines and ignoring repeated warnings about their safety.

“We as a nation of 77 million are experiencing a very great pain,” Erdogan told a news conference after visiting the site. But he appeared to turn defensive when asked whether sufficient precautions had been in place at the mine. “Explosions like this in these mines happen all the time. It’s not like these don’t happen elsewhere in the world,” he said, reeling off a list of global mining accidents since 1862.

Fire knocked out power and shut down ventilation shafts and elevators shortly after 3 pm (1 p.m.BST) on Tuesday. Emergency workers pumped oxygen into the mine to try to keep those trapped alive during a rescue effort that lasted through the night.

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Turkish coal mine disaster cranks up pressure on miners, utilities – by Henning Gloystein (Reuters India – May 14, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) – A coal mine explosion and fire that has killed over 200 people in Turkey coincides with increased pressure on miners and utilities to drastically improve safety and environmental standards for miners risking their lives.

Coal mining is responsible for more fatalities than the production of any other energy source due to poor working conditions in producing countries such as China, Turkey, South Africa, Indonesia and Colombia. It is also a major world polluter.

The disaster in western Turkey, likely to be the country’s deadliest, is still unfolding with hundreds believed to be trapped underground. It’s also the worst in a series of incidents in a sector that has seen 30,000 die since 1970.

A coal mine collapse in the U.S. state of West Virginia killed two workers this week at a facility that had “chronic compliance issues” and received numerous citations from inspectors last year.

Last month, two more workers were killed in Australia after a supporting wall in a coal mine about 240 kilometres (150 miles) west of Sydney gave way, trapping the two men about 500 metres (1,640 feet) below the surface.

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Over 200 killed, hundreds trapped after deadly coal mine explosion in Turkey – by Desmond Butler and Suzan Fraser (Globe and Mail May 14, 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.

SOMA, Turkey — The Associated Press – Rescuers desperately raced against time to reach more than 200 miners trapped underground Wednesday after an explosion and fire at a coal mine in western Turkey killed at least 201 workers, authorities said, in one of the worst mining disasters in Turkish history.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said 787 people were inside the coal mine in Soma, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) south of Istanbul, at the time of the explosion and 363 of them had been rescued so far.

“Regarding the rescue operation, I can say that our hopes are diminishing,” Yildiz said. Turkey’s worst mining disaster was a 1992 gas explosion that killed 263 workers near the Black Sea port of Zonguldak.

As bodies were brought out on stretchers, rescue workers pulled blankets back from the faces of the dead to give jostling crowds of anxious family members a chance to identify victims. One elderly man wearing a prayer cap wailed after he recognized one of the dead, and police restrained him from climbing into an ambulance with the body.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared three days of national mourning, ordering flags to be lowered to half-staff. Erdogan postponed a one-day visit to Albania and planned to visit Soma instead.

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Queensland Government announces $16b coal mine in Galilee Basin, subject to Federal approval – by Melinda Howells (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – May 9, 2014)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/

The Queensland Government has signed off on a $16 billion coal development in the Galilee Basin in the state’s central region that could become the largest coal mine in Australia.

The Carmichael Coal Mine north-west of Clermont will produce up to 60 million tonnes of coal each year and includes a 189-kilometre rail line. The project, which is being run by Adani Mining, a wholly owned subsidiary of India’s Adani Group, now goes to the Federal Government for final approval.

Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney says a processing plant, workers’ accommodation and an airport will also be built. “The coordinator-general has approved the project subject to an extensive list of environmental and social conditions,” he said. “If it proceeds, the Carmichael project would not only be the largest coal mine in Australia but one of the largest in the world.

“But it would also be a vital project in opening up the hugely significant Galilee Basin.” He says the coordinator-general had “worked closely” with the Commonwealth Department of Environment in finalising the report.

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UPDATE 1-Stanford University ending investments in coal companies – by Rory Carroll (Reuters India – May 7, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

May 7 (Reuters) – Stanford University said on Tuesday it will no longer use any of its $18.7 billion endowment to invest in coal mining companies, a move aimed at combating climate change that could influence college administrations elsewhere.

The university’s board of trustees agreed with recommendations from a panel of students, faculty, staff and alumni that found investments in alternatives to coal would be less harmful to the environment. The burning of coal for electricity is a major contributor to the output of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions globally.

The Stanford announcement is the most significant to date from a major, well-endowed college or university in the United States amid a growing movement by students around the country to pressure their institutions to divest from fossil fuels.

“The university’s review has concluded that coal is one of the most carbon-intensive methods of energy generation and that other sources can be readily substituted for it,” said Stanford President John Hennessy.

It was announced on the same day the White House released a report warning that climate change was already affecting the United States in the form of more severe droughts in some areas and more intense storms in others.

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Australian coal mining is entering ‘structural decline’, reports claims – by Oliver Milman (The Guardian – May 5, 2014)

http://www.theguardian.com/uk

Demand from India and China predicted to falter due to higher uptake of renewables and make huge coal mining projects commercially unattractive

Coal mining in Australia is entering a “structural decline”, with projects set to become unviable due to unrealistic expectations over the potential to export the fossil fuels to China and India, according to a new report.

The study, by the US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, suggests that two huge coal mining projects in central Queensland, backed by Indian cash, “are likely to prove uncommercial” due to unfavourable market conditions.

The projects, backed by Adani and GVK, which bought its coal assets from Gina Rinehart in 2011, will attempt to open up vast deposits of coal buried in the Galilee Basin region. Clive Palmer’s China First mine is also slated for completion by 2017, removing a projected 40m tonnes of coal a year for export.

But the IEEFA analysis shows that the wholesale cost of electricity in India, a key export market, is half that of Galilee coal-fired power, making it financially unattractive for the Indian government.

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Asian coal demand is set for robust revival, study says – by Brent Jang (Globe and Mail – May 5, 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.

SEATTLE — Global coal markets are depressed amid a supply glut, but reports of the commodity’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, a new study says.

Prices for thermal coal, a commodity used by power plants to generate electricity, fell recently to less than $75 (U.S.) a tonne, compared with $190 in mid-2008. And prices for metallurgical (or coking) coal, a key ingredient used in the production of steel, have tumbled to $120 a tonne, from $300 in late 2011.

Some industry observers have warned that there will be many more dark months ahead for the coal industry. But the long-term forecast calls for robust Asian demand, which should give producers hope, as long as they are able to ride out the tough times.

“Despite increasing environmental opposition to the use of coal, coal still plays a crucial role in the global energy mix and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future,” according to a study by Shoichi Itoh, senior analyst at the Tokyo-based Institute of Energy Economics. “The importance of coal use will be all the more important in Asia.”

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Mine Waste Transformed to Tap Water for 80,000 Consumers – by Firat Kayakiran, Randall Hackley and Kevin Crowley (Bloomberg News – May 2, 2014)

 http://www.bloomberg.com/

Anglo American Plc (AAL) was the first company to transform the wastewater from its coal mines into something 80,000 people drink. Now they’re seen as a model.

Purifying contaminated waters from three sites in South Africa has proven so successful that Anglo’s plant in Witbank is doubling in size and being replicated elsewhere in the country by BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the biggest mining company, and Glencore Xstrata Plc. (GLEN)

While the $130 million plant won’t upend the $600 billion world water industry, Anglo’s treatment center provides as much as 12 percent of the area’s municipal drinking supply and serves as a template for how the industry could treat waste in the future. It also shows how companies and municipalities are finding new ways to confront an increasingly water-stressed planet.

Water of a different sort — sewer water — is similarly about to be treated, purified and pumped back to residents in Wichita Falls, Texas, to augment shortages caused by growth and the area’s worst drought on record.

Mines often treat wastewater to some extent yet until the Emalahleni water-reclamation plant, 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Johannesburg, none was of drinking quality.

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Eastern Ukrainian miners yearn for Russia, bygone Soviet era – by Kristina Jovanovski (Al Jazeera America – April 30, 2014)

http://america.aljazeera.com/

As crisis grips industrial Donetsk region, many workers dismiss politics but seek better living standards of yesteryear

SHAKHTARSK, Ukraine — Off a dirt road in the outskirts of this eastern Ukrainian town, Valeriy stands outside his house and cuddles his wife, Tanya. She wears a blue bathrobe and slippers, and Valeriy says the fading bruise high on her left cheek was caused by a fall at a party while they were both drunk.

Valeriy is a miner but has not been employed as one since completing his fifth prison sentence for theft. Previously, he risked his life working at an illegal coal mine in the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland now roiled by political unrest.

Despite the epic contest between forces, mostly Russian speakers aligned with Moscow against Ukrainian speakers loyal to Kyiv, he is more concerned with the daily struggle to get by and the desperate hope for some improvement in his life. Valeriy, who identifies as Russian, hopes for a better future if Donetsk becomes part of Russia — with a catch. “I don’t want it to be like Russia,” he says. “I want it to be like the past, the USSR.”

The future of the mines and the miners is at the center of the political battle being waged by pro-Russian separatists who have occupied public buildings and set up barricades in response to the overthrow of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February.

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Coal to Fill China’s Nuclear Gap – (Wall Street Journal – April 28, 2014)

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

Gigawatt Buildup by 2030 Will Be Huge, but Likely Short of Goal

HONG KONG—Though China is pushing hard to promote the use of nuclear and renewable energy, coal is likely to be the fuel of the world’s most populous and polluted country into the foreseeable future.

To combat worsening greenhouse-gas emissions and pollution, China aims to raise its nuclear capacity to 200 gigawatts by 2030, from only 14.6 gigawatts last year. But it probably won’t reach that goal, energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie forecast in a report Monday—which will offer opportunities for mining companies to supply huge amounts of additional coal to make up the power shortfall.

Technology constraints, inadequate infrastructure for uranium-fuel fabrication and disposal, public opposition to inland nuclear plants, and shortages of qualified personnel all mean a more realistic nuclear capacity in 2030 will be 175 gigawatts.

“China’s nuclear capacity will account for 30% of the world’s total nuclear fleet,” said Gavin Thompson, head of Asian-Pacific natural-gas and power research at the consultancy. “Putting things into context, in 2013 China made up a mere 4.5% of the global nuclear fleet. Therefore the growth we expect in this time frame is phenomenal, even if targets are not met.”

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China’s war on smog will put the reins on global coal demand – by Jeff Rubin (Globe and Mail – April 24, 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.

China’s pollution epidemic has finally spurred the country’s leadership to declare a war on smog. It’s about time. Chinese citizens are angry about what’s going into their lungs, while a recent government report says pollution has left 16 per cent of the country’s land unfit for use.

Much of that pollution can be traced back to the billowing smoke stacks attached to China’s fleet of coal-fired power plants. If Beijing is indeed sincere about taking the fight to pollution, then these ageing plants will be on the front line. Global coal producers are already sitting up and taking notice.

China relies on coal for roughly three-quarters of its power generation. Its coal-fired power plants combust nearly as much coal as the rest of the world put together. Coal prices, for their part, are already tumbling in part due to a slowdown in China’s economic growth. Spot prices at Newcastle, Australia, the world’s largest thermal coal exporting terminal, have plunged from a monthly average high of $142 a tonne in January 2011 to $78 a tonne last month.

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