It follows a $3.4B lawsuit filed early this year over the same policy reversal
An Australian coal company is alleging that Alberta is liable for billions after reversing course on policy tied to coal development in the province.
As first reported by the Calgary Herald, Atrum Coal Ltd., along with its subsidiary, Elan Coal Ltd., says it is seeking $3.53 billion, tied to the value of its Elan Project. It is also seeking an additional $300 million for losses to shareholders.
(Bloomberg) — India plans to expand its coal power fleet by about a quarter through the end of the decade as it continues to lean on the fuel to meet growing demand until energy storage costs fall.
The world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases will add nearly 56 gigawatts of coal power capacity unless there’s a substantial drop in the cost of storing electricity, Power Minister Raj Kumar Singh said in an interview this week in New Delhi. India is also planning major investments in renewable energy, but it has to prioritize providing reliable power to spur economic growth, he said.
Beijing (AFP) – China has stepped up spending on coal in the face of extreme weather, a domestic energy crunch and rising global fuel prices — raising concerns Beijing’s policies may hinder the fight against climate change.
The country is the world’s biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases driving global warming, and President Xi Jinping has vowed to reduce coal use from 2026 as part of a broad set of climate promises. Beijing has committed to peaking its carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.
DAR ES SALAAM, Sept 20 (Reuters) – The sleepy Tanzanian port of Mtwara mainly dealt in cashew nuts until late last year. Now it bustles with vessels loading up with coal, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drives a worldwide race for the polluting fuel.
Tanzania traditionally exports thermal coal only to neighbouring countries in east Africa; sending it further afield was out of the question, as it required trucking the material more than 600 km from mines in its southwest to Mtwara, the nearest Indian Ocean port.
DONKIN, N.S. – A Cape Breton coal mine that was shuttered two years ago amid slumping coal prices and repeated government stop-work orders following roof falls has resumed operations.
Nova Scotia’s Labour Department says inspectors with its occupational health and safety team were on-site Tuesday as work began at the Donkin coal mine. The department says it will continue to conduct regular announced and unannounced inspections at the underground operation.
I generally try to avoid arguments about climate change, given that most people already know what they believe. It’s like views on abortion or Donald Trump: this late in the game you’re unlikely to be swayed by anything someone else has to say.
Yet it’s also hard to ignore when certain things happen, like, for instance, a raging fire burning down your house, or a heating bill that’s suddenly 10 times higher than it used to be. As far as the climate crusade goes, if you Google “China coal power generation,” what you get is this:
Shares of Australian coal producer Whitehaven has risen 200% this year. The share price of the Australian-listed miner has risen about 150% since the Russia-Ukraine crisis started in late February, and hit a record high of 7.90 Australian dollars ($5.47) on Wednesday.
In other words, an investor who purchased Whitehaven shares late last year would have seen his or her investment increase more than three times. Chatter among stockwatchers on the popular online Australian stock market forum HotCopper has also increased.
https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/
It’s quiet in Coleman, Alta., a historic coal town located within the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass, a cluster of five communities along Highway 3 in southwestern Alberta. The downtown brims with symbols of this town’s past. Many historic buildings are boarded up, their futures plainly uncertain. The ruins of the town’s coal plant and coke ovens are still visible a short walk away.
The residents here are used to seeing reporters, given how much coal has been in the news over the past two years, but many are done talking about it. Business owners hesitate to take a public side lest they alienate potential customers.
In the far northwest corner of England, coal mining was so finished that the local museum paying tribute to the industry shut a few years ago after running into financial trouble.
Yet at the dormant Haig Pit in Whitehaven, there are signs that an activity long considered dead wants to come back to life. Next to the mine shaft tower and red-brick building that housed the exhibit space is the office of West Cumbria Mining Ltd., which plans to open the UK’s first deep coal mine in more than three decades.
(Bloomberg Law) — Coal leasing is temporarily banned once again on public lands after a federal judge on Friday reinstated an Obama-era moratorium.
The ruling reinstates a 2016 order by then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell banning coal leasing on federal lands pending further environmental review because of coal’s contribution to climate change. That order was scrapped in 2017 by Ryan Zinke, the Trump administration’s first Interior secretary.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/
Steven Preister’s house in Washington, D.C. is a piece of American history, a gorgeous 110-year-old colonial with wooden columns and a front porch, perfect for relaxing in the summer.
But Preister, who has owned it for almost four decades, is deeply concerned about the environment, so in 2014 he added something very modern: solar panels. First, he mounted panels on the back of the house, and they worked nicely. Then he decided to add more on the front, facing the street, and applied to the city for a permit.
(CNN)With rolling hills, forests and hiking trails, Southeast Ohio is a haven for lovers of the outdoors. Yet cutting through the landscape are countless orange-stained streams, colored by the iron oxide pollution that has seeped into them from abandoned coal mines.
These streams are contaminated with a toxic sludge known as acid mine drainage (AMD) — the overflow of highly acidic wastewater from underground mines, created when water comes into contact with exposed mining rocks.
LAUNCESTON, Australia, Aug 11 (Reuters) – One of the refrains of the environmental lobby is that Australia is extremely well-placed to become a renewable energy superpower, and that this will replace the loss of revenue from coal and natural gas exports.
The problem is that only one of the two above assertions is accurate, namely that Australia is in pole position when it comes to many of the minerals that will be critical to the energy transition. These include lithium, where Australia is already the world’s top producer, as well as copper, nickel, zinc and other metals.
Reconciliation is a word most Canadians are probably quite familiar with by now. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), established in 2007 as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and active through 2015, was one of the first initiatives that brought reconciliation to the forefront of Canadian politics.
The TRC defined reconciliation as a process “about establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in this country,” with the term Aboriginal designating the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis officially recognized as Indigenous to Canada.
FLEMING-NEON, Ky. — This sliver of land wedged between the thick woods and Wright Fork creek has been the home of Gary Moore’s family for as long as there has been a United States. The burial plot for an ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War, he said, is a mile away. Mr. Moore himself lives in a mobile home across from his father’s house; the house where his grandmother lived is next door.
All of that was wrecked in last week’s flooding. “This is kind of like the final straw,” Mr. Moore, 50, said as he looked out at a new terrain of shredded homes, crushed cars and endless debris. “We’re gradually losing it — that bond we had. It’s slipping away. People are getting out of here, trying to get better jobs and live better lives. I’m leaning in that direction myself.”
