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BioFuels and Energy

BioFuels and Energy | Environment
Late Rule Change Eases Rules On Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
12/03/2008
The Bush White House and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed to revoke a 25-year old rule that could make it harder for coal mining companies to remove the tops of mountains and deposit the soil and rocks in streams running through the valleys below. Mountaintop removal mining has been a concern of people living in the coalfields of Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston (WV) Gazette explains the situation best. Ward reports that governors from Tennessee and Kentucky have joined with environmental groups to oppose the Bush Administration's plans.

The Washington Post writes: "A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the rule has not been published, said new safeguards in the regulation will reduce the amount of waste deposited in Appalachian mountain waterways and is "going to impose costs on the coal industry." But coal officials, who had lobbied for the change, said it would not burden the industry and would help protect Appalachia's 14,000 mountaintop mining jobs."
BioFuels and Energy
Power Couple Reaps a Right, Light Harvest
12/02/2008
sharen thumbWhat to do in your retirement? A Colorado couple has built a solar power station in the backyard.
BioFuels and Energy
NY Times Calls On EPA To Do 'Honest' Ethanol Study
11/18/2008
The New York Times Tuesday asked the Environmental Protection Agency for an "unbiased, accurate accounting" of the environmental costs of ethanol production. Congress mandated increased use of ethanol in the '07 energy bill, thinking then that ethanol ran cleaner than gasoline, was carbon neutral and decreased the country's dependence on foreign oil. Then studies questioned that assumption, saying earlier comparisons failed to "account for the emissions caused when land is cleared and tilled, releasing large quantities of stored carbon."

Congress said ethanol had to be cleaner than gasoline and now it's up to the EPA to determine whether that is the case. And so the Times is asking for a good study. "The issue here is the fate of the planet, not the fate of a particular industry," the paper editorialized.

Meanwhile, ethanol producers are arguing that any bailout of the auto industry ought to require auto makers to boost production of cars that can run on higher blends of corn-based ethanol, according to the Des Moines Register.
BioFuels and Energy | Cool Places | People to Know
Farming Windpower where the Antelope Play
11/17/2008
wind turbine thumbJulianne Couch gets a lesson in wind farming from a Wyoming operations chief, about wildlife, turbines, and the future of electric power.
BioFuels and Energy | Racing For '08/Archive
How Will Obama or McCain Power the Nation?
11/03/2008
nuclear plant thumbBeth Wellington compares the presidential candidates' energy policies, focusing on power issues with most impacts in the rural U.S.
BioFuels and Energy
Coal Makes A Campaign Comeback
11/03/2008
In the last two days of the presidential campaign, coal has made a comeback. Republican Sarah Palin toured southeast Ohio saying Democratic candidate Barack Obama wants to "bankrupt" the coal industry.   Palin's charges stem from statements Obama made to the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle in January.

Obama was talking about his energy plan and his support of an "aggressive" cap-and-trade policy aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Obama said: "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them, because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted," he said. In the same interview, the senator said that "if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it."

Palin contended a tape of the interview had been kept secret by the newspaper. The tape had actually been on the newspaper's website since January. "The point Obama is making is that we need to transition from coal-burning power plants built with old technology to plants built with advanced technologies -- and that is exactly the action that will be incentivized under a cap-and-trade program," the campaign said in a statement.
BioFuels and Energy | Growth and Development
The Problem In West Texas Is Too Many Jobs
10/30/2008
The problem in rural West Texas is too many jobs and not enough workers. The oil boom in the Permian Basin has dropped unemployment rates, according to the Austin American-Statesman's Laylan Copelin . One oilfield worker told the paper that one recent 18-hour day netted him $10,800 in pay.

The oil fields have always been boom and bust territory. Now they're booming. "The region, for now, remains as bright as derrick lights in a dimming global economy," Copelin writes. "It boasts the nation's lowest unemployment rate and an expanding economy."

People are moving in, from small towns in Kansas to Midland, Texas. From Dallas to the small town of Monahans. The trouble is, there are few places to live. Rents have gone up 40% in the last few years. And restaurants are closing because they can't find help.
BioFuels and Energy | Environment
Mr. Future-President: Your Praises from the Moutaintops
10/22/2008

bullpush mountain thumbA West Virginian rests easier. Whoever wins the presidency, the days of mountaintop-removal coal mining are numbered.

 

BioFuels and Energy
Boom Turns To Bust In Biofuels Country
10/10/2008
The distance between boom and bust has gotten pretty short. Just last year, rural towns across the country were looking at an ethanol construction and production boom. Now, bust.

AP reporter Chris Blank reports on a shuttered biofuels plant in Lilbourn, Missouri. The Great River Soy biodiesel plant produced just 94,000 gallons of fuel in two weeks before it ran out of money and closed. "It's a scene that has been repeated throughout the United States: Clovis, N.M. Nevada, Mo. Hartsburg, Ill. Lamoni, Iowa. Evansville, Wis. Greybull, Wyo. Rock Port, Mo. Belle Fourche, S.D.," Blank wrote. "All were supposed to have biofuels plants operating or under construction by now. None do."

"It was a perfect storm of opportunity for the ethanol industry, and a perfect combination of every single element that they have counted on turning against them," said David Swenson, a researcher at Iowa State University. "The infrastructure isn't there and wholesale patriotic demand for ethanol didn't materialize."
BioFuels and Energy
Which Candidate Has The Best Stance On Coal? Neither
10/08/2008
Which candidate has the best position on coal and coal mining? Neither, says Jeff Biggers, in a CNN commentary. "Both candidates are on the wrong side," writes Biggers, author of The United States of Appalachia. "In one of the sorriest panders for votes, invoking a 20th century pound-on-the-chest lie that coal means jobs, neither candidate is brave enough to come clean and offer himself as the messenger for a 21st century vision for the coalfields of central Appalachia."

Yes, Biggers says, both McCain and Obama have hinted they oppose mountaintop removal mining (where mountains in the east are flat-topped in order to remove the coal). Both have set up "clean coal" coalitions or task forces to push greater use of the mineral. Biggers said promises for "clean coal" are a "a cruel ruse. Neither candidate, if asked, could honestly tell the American public about the feasibility or implementation date for a carbon capture and storage plan for coal-fired plants on a nationwide utility scale, the projected cost (most likely in the trillions), or the actual safety ramifications. Because no one knows."
Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural
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