Twitter

Coal

Extracting rare-earth elements from coal could soon be economical in U.S. – by Liam Jackson (Penn State News – February 2, 2016)

http://news.psu.edu/

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The U.S. could soon decrease its dependence on importing valuable rare-earth elements that are widely used in many industries, according to a team of Penn State and U.S. Department of Energy researchers who found a cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to extract these metals from coal byproducts.

Rare-earth elements are a set of seventeen metals — such as scandium, yttrium, lanthanum and cerium — necessary to produce high-tech equipment used in health care, transportation, electronics and numerous other industries.

They support more than $329 billion of economic output in North America, according to the American Chemistry Council, and the United States Geological Survey expects worldwide demand for REEs to grow more than 5 percent annually through 2020. China produces more than 85 percent of the world’s rare-earth elements, and the U.S. produces the second most at just over 6 percent, according to the USGS.

Read more

Appalachian Miners Are Learning to Code – by Tim Loh (Bloomberg News – February 3, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Jim Ratliff worked for 14 years in the mines of eastern Kentucky, drilling holes and blasting dynamite to expose the coal that has powered Appalachian life for more than a century.

Today, he rolls into an office at 8 a.m., settles into a small metal desk and does something that, until last year, was completely foreign to him: computer coding.

“A lot of people look at us coal miners as uneducated,” said Ratliff, a 38-year-old with a thin goatee and thick arms. “It’s backbreaking work, but there’s engineers and very sophisticated equipment. You work hard and efficiently and that translates right into coding.”

He works for Bit Source now, a Pikeville, Kentucky, startup that’s out to prove there’s life after coal for the thousands of industry veterans who’ve lost their jobs in an unprecedented rout that has already forced five major producers into bankruptcy.

Read more

Ukraine’s Illegal Miners Come Out of the Darkness – by Kyrre Lien and Per Christian Selmer-Anderssen (Slate.com – January 29, 2016)

http://www.slate.com/

Civil war has led to the legalization of a dangerous shadow industry.

SNIZHNE, Ukraine—The darkness bred fear. Tolek Golovko tried to calm down as a wagon carried him 800 meters down into the mine. The boy was afraid the wooden pillars would fail and the ceiling would come crashing down on him and the rest of the group. That happens on a regular basis here in Eastern Ukraine.

Most recently in March last year, 33 people were killed when a mine collapsed outside of Donetsk. That one was large and state-owned, so the news went global. But when illegal mines like the one in Snizhne collapse, it is not always reported. Instead, families are compensated, mines are closed—and they become another secret mass grave deep in the woods.

In other words, the 14-year-old had reasons to be afraid. “It was so dark, so cold, so wet. It was almost as if I couldn’t breathe,” Golovko recalls six years later, when we meet him after his shift.

Read more

THE INTERVIEW: Coal comfort: Murray Energy Corp.’s CEO fights back – by John Daly (Globe and Mail – January 29, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The founder of America’s largest underground coal mining company was infuriated, but not surprised, by last December’s UN climate change summit. “The errant President, Barack Obama, is attempting to commit the United States to draconian carbon dioxide emissions requirements when the rest of the world is not going to make any commitments,” declares Bob Murray, 76-year-old CEO of Murray Energy Corp.

The U.S. coal industry has been in Obama’s crosshairs since he took office in 2009, vowing to shift to a green-energy economy. Since then, the toll of coal-fired units (of which power plants are comprised) that have closed, fixed dates for closing or converted to cleaner-burning natural gas has grown to more than 400.

In the same period, the share of U.S. electricity generated from coal has declined from about one-half to one-third. The Dow Jones U.S. Coal Index has fallen by more than 97 per cent from its peak in 2008.

Read more

No unicorns or rainbows for British Columbia’s resource industries – by Justine Hunter ( Globe and Mail – January 24, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

VICTORIA — The last bricks of coal from the Quinsam mines near Campbell River were hauled out of the ground last week. The once-mighty industry, with more than 150 years of history on Vancouver Island, will vanish once the processed ore is shipped out and the mine slips into care and maintenance.

Gary Gould, Quinsam Coal Corp.’s general manager, keeps hearing that the B.C. economy is leading the country and that there are jobs aplenty for skilled workers. “It’s hard to listen to that,” he admits. Brutal, really, when you are busy overseeing the company’s final shifts.

British Columbia’s coal companies have been hammered by sustained low commodity prices and, for the thermal coal producers on Vancouver Island, shrinking markets as the world looks for cleaner fuels.

Read more

Let Coal Die. Save Coal Country.- Editorial Board (Bloomberg News – January 25, 2016)

http://www.bloombergview.com/

The decline of coal as a source of electric power is inevitable and well under way. This is a good thing, because whether measured by its effect on public health or its contribution to global warming, coal is more harmful than any other widely used source of electricity.

But there’s a human cost to this transition: unemployment in coal country. Over the past five years, as the U.S. coal mining industry has lost 94 percent of its market value, some 15,000 jobs have disappeared in West Virginia and Kentucky alone. West Virginia’s Boone County and Kentucky’s Union County have lost roughly one job for every 24 residents.

Although the pain has been cruelly concentrated, it should be of national concern. That’s not because the government is to blame; more than anything else, the low price of natural gas has undermined the market value of coal-fired power.

Read more

Court Rejects a Bid to Block Coal Plant Regulations – by Coral Davenport (New York Times – January 21, 2016)

http://www.nytimes.com/

In a significant victory for President Obama, a federal appeals panel on Thursday rejected an effort by 27 states and dozens of corporations and industry groups to block the administration’s signature regulation on emissions from coal-fired power plants while a lawsuit moves through the courts.

The rule, issued last summer by the Environmental Protection Agency, is at the heart of Mr. Obama’s efforts to tackle climate change. It would require each state to significantly cut greenhouse gas pollution from electric power plants, the nation’s largest source of such emissions.

Once fully in place, the regulation — which would cut emissions from existing power plants by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 — could transform the electricity system, closing hundreds of heavily polluting coal-fired plants and sharply increasing production of wind and solar powers.

Read more

The Mine Wars: West Virginia’s Coal Miners March on Public Television – by Mark Hand (CounterPunch.org – January 20, 2016)

 

http://www.counterpunch.org/

In the 1980s, writer Denise Giardina’s “Storming Heaven” offered a wide-ranging portrait of southern West Virginia’s coal camps, while film director John Sayles’ “Matewan” focused on one of the defining moments in the long-running battle between the state’s coal industry and its workers. One was a novel and the other one was a low-budget movie drama. And yet both storytellers filled a hole in research that professional historians had neglected to cover for more than half a century.

Miners and their family members, who had kept quiet for decades, gradually found the courage to speak out. Since the release of Storming Heaven and Matewan, numerous other books, films and articles have been produced about this important period in the nation’s industrial and labor history.

Read more

SEEKING CURES IN KENTUCKY COAL MINES – by Jessica Firger (Newsweek Magazine – January 20, 2016)

http://www.newsweek.com/

The Matrix Energy Mine No. 1 in eastern Kentucky stretches 7 miles to its deepest point. Tiny cars creak along tracks laid on the ground in the bowels of the operation, opened in 2004, and miners here collect 4,500 tons of coal each day.

But Jon Thorson, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Kentucky and director at the Center for Pharmaceutical Research and Innovation, isn’t all that interested in fossilized carbon. He believes the true value to be found in the mine lies in the soil and rocks. Thorson is digging for blockbuster drugs.

Natural medicine is often associated with ancient civilizations or bogus alternative treatments endorsed by celebrities. However, unique compounds in plants, soil and the sea have played a major role in modern treatments for conditions ranging from bacterial infections and malaria to high cholesterol and cancer. According to one study, as much as 50 percent of drug compounds on the market have their origins or are structurally based upon some type of natural product.

Read more

Mining giant BHP pessimistic on iron ore, coal prices in next few years – by Sonali Paul (Reuters U.S. – January 20, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE – BHP Billiton flagged on Wednesday that it sees no recovery in iron ore or coal prices in the next few years, while holding out hope for a rebound in copper and oil as it fights slumping earnings set to hit its long-protected dividend.

The top global miner reinforced the bleak outlook for most commodities in the near term, with markets slammed by oversupply as the economy slows in China, the world’s biggest metals consumer.

In a sign the company may cut its dividend, ending a long-held policy to maintain or raise its payout every year, BHP Chief Executive Andrew Mackenzie said in a quarterly production report that it was focused on defending its investment grade credit rating.

Read more

COMMENT: Coal, hard facts – by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – January 18, 2016)

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Mining coal has always been a tough endeavour. Underground miners work in the dust and dark with the threat of deadly explosion. Surface miners must be ever alert to the hazards of large equipment. And in today’s markets the industry has become even less attractive.

As Chinese demand for steel has softened, the price of metallurgical coal has plummeted. Over the past year it has slid to roughly US$75 to US$80 per tonne, a six-year low. Some producers were commanding as much as US$300/tonne in 2011.

High cost coal producers are being forced to close their doors. Several have announced recent suspensions in Australia. Chinese authorities have anticipate the closing of 1,000 more coal mines this year on top of the 1,300 that were shuttered a year ago.

Read more

Last working coal mine on Vancouver Island shuts down, marking end of era (CBC News British Columbia – January 17, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/

‘In so many ways, coal has laid the foundation for the island,” says historian

The last working coal mine on Vancouver Island has halted production indefinitely, marking the end of an industry that established towns, a railway, and some of the province’s first labour unions, says a B.C. historian.

The owners of Quinsam coal mine near Campbell River suspended operations earlier this month, stating the move is in response to a decline in coal prices and market demand.

“In so many ways, coal has laid the foundation for the island,” said University of Victoria history professor John Lutz. “Between the 1850s and the early 20th century coal was the main economic resource on the island.”

Read more

China ban on new coal mines barely scratches the surface of tackling capacity – by Kathy Chen and David Stanway (Reuters U.S. – January 18, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING – Jan 18 China’s decision to stop approving new coal mines for three years has been applauded by green groups, but the move is likely to make barely a dent on the world’s biggest coal industry given its vast existing production capacity.

Some estimates suggest China’s surplus capacity could be as high as 2 billion tonnes of coal a year – more than 50 percent of 2015 output – in a country with nearly 11,000 mines.

Beijing wants to cut the share of coal in its energy mix to contain pollution and meet climate change goals, while it is also trying to manage the fortunes of a struggling sector that employs nearly 6 million people.

Read more

In Climate Move, Obama Halts New Coal Mining Leases on Public Lands – by Coral Davenport (New York Times – January 14, 2016)

http://www.nytimes.com/

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced on Friday a halt to new coal mining leases on public lands as it considers an overhaul of the program that could lead to increased costs for energy companies and a slowdown in extraction.

“Given serious concerns raised about the federal coal program, we’re taking the prudent step to hit pause on approving significant new leases so that decisions about those leases can benefit from the recommendations that come out of the review,” said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

“During this time, companies can continue production activities on the large reserves of recoverable coal they have under lease, and we’ll make accommodations in the event of emergency circumstances to ensure this pause will have no material impact on the nation’s ability to meet its power generation needs.”

Read more

Bid to mine more coal on U.S. federal lands tests Obama’s green agenda – by Patick Rucker and Valerie Volcovici (Reuters U.S. – January 13, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s State of the Union pledge to better manage fossil fuel development will face a test within days, when federal officials rule on whether to open public lands containing more than 600 million tons of coal to more mining.

Interior Department officials are due to decide Jan. 27 on whether to lease two mine sites on federal land in Wyoming’s coal-rich Powder River Basin, where the black rock runs in 10-story seams.

Environmentalists strongly oppose more coal mining on federal land, saying burning all that coal would exacerbate climate change. Reforming government controls on federal lands is one of the few actions still available to Obama in his final year in office.

Read more