A fossil fuel power station is a thermal power station which burns a fossil fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to produce electricity. Fossil fuel power stations have machinery to convert the heat energy of combustion into mechanical energy, which then operates an electrical generator. The prime mover may be a steam turbine, a gas turbine or, in small plants, a reciprocating gas engine. All plants use the energy extracted from the expansion of a hot gas, either steam or combustion gases. Although different energy conversion methods exist, all thermal power station conversion methods have their efficiency limited by the Carnot efficiency and therefore produce waste heat.
Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining at the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. This process is considered to be safer compared to underground mining because the coal seams are accessed from above instead of underground. In the United States, this method of coal mining is conducted in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States. Explosives are used to remove up to 400 vertical feet of mountain to expose underlying coal seams. Excess rock and soil is dumped into nearby valleys, in what are called "holler fills" or "valley fills".
Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which the overlying rock is left in place, and the mineral is removed through shafts or tunnels.
Coal pollution mitigation, sometimes labeled as clean coal, is a series of systems and technologies that seek to mitigate health and environmental impact of burning coal for energy. Burning coal releases harmful substances, including mercury, lead, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and carbon dioxide (CO2), contributing to air pollution, acid rain, and greenhouse gas emissions. Methods include flue-gas desulfurization, selective catalytic reduction, electrostatic precipitators, and fly ash reduction focusing on reducing the emissions of these harmful substances. These measures aim to reduce coal's impact on human health and the environment.
Dominion Energy, Inc., commonly referred to as Dominion, is an American energy company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia that supplies electricity in parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina and supplies natural gas to parts of Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Dominion also has generation facilities in Indiana, Illinois, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
Julia "Judy" Belle Thompson Bonds was an organizer and activist from the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, United States. Raised in a family of coal miners, she worked from an early age at minimum wage jobs. Bonds was the director of Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW). She has been called "the godmother of the anti-mountaintop removal movement."
Arch Resources, previously known as Arch Coal, is an American coal mining and processing company. The company mines, processes, and markets bituminous and sub-bituminous coal with low sulfur content in the United States. Arch Resources is the second-largest supplier of coal in the United States, behind Peabody Energy. As of 2011 the company supplied 15% of the domestic market. Demand comes mainly from generators of electricity.
The health and environmental impact of the coal industry includes issues such as land use, waste management, water and air pollution, caused by the coal mining, processing and the use of its products. In addition to atmospheric pollution, coal burning produces hundreds of millions of tons of solid waste products annually, including fly ash, bottom ash, and flue-gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals. Coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere.
Burning the Future: Coal in America is a 2008 documentary film produced and directed by David Novack. The film focuses on the impacts of mountaintop mining in the Appalachians, where mountain ridges are scraped away by heavy machinery to access coal seams below, a process that is cheaper and faster than traditional mining methods but is damaging to the environment. Some environmental problems discussed in the film include disfigured mountain ranges, extinct plant and animal species, toxic groundwater, and increased flooding. The film's run time is 89 minutes. In 2012, it was rereleased in a shorter, updated version, that was created for public broadcast on PBS. This new version of the film's run time is 56 minutes.
Maria Gunnoe is a native West Virginian who opposes mountaintop removal mining, and is a winner of the Goldman Prize and Wallenberg Medal.
Climate Ground Zero (CGZ), founded in February 2009, is a non-violent civil disobedience campaign against mountaintop removal mining based in the southern coalfields of West Virginia. According to their website, Climate Ground Zero believes “that the irrevocable destruction of the mountains of Appalachia and its accompanying toll on the air, water, and lives of Appalachians necessitates continued and direct action". The organization seeks to end mountaintop removal mining by drawing attention to the issue through protests involving trespass on the property of mining companies. By locking down to machinery on mine sites, occupying trees in the blast zone, or blockading haul roads to mine sites, protesters associated with Climate Ground Zero directly interfere with mining practices. Other protests draw attention to the alleged negligence of regulatory agencies such as the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) or the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by occupying the offices of these governmental organizations. Climate Ground Zero has been referenced in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Democracy Now, and the Associated Press.
Prairie State Energy Campus is a 1,600 megawatt base load, coal-fired, electrical power station and coal mine near Marissa, Illinois, southeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Prairie State Energy Campus (PSEC) features low levels of regulated emissions compared to other coal-fired power stations, capturing sulfur from high-sulfur coal mined nearby instead of transporting low-sulfur coal from elsewhere.
Coal was discovered in Kentucky in 1750. Since the first commercial coal mine opened in 1820 coal has gained both economic importance and controversy regarding its environmental consequences. As of 2010 there were 442 operating coal mines in the state, and as of 2017 there were fewer than 4,000 underground coalminers.
The Last Mountain is a feature-length documentary film directed by Bill Haney and produced by Haney, Clara Bingham and Eric Grunebaum. The film premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and went into general release on June 3, 2011. The film explores the consequences of mining and burning coal, with a particular focus on the use of a method for coal strip-mining in Appalachia commonly known as mountaintop removal mining.
Mountain Justice is a grassroots movement established in 2005 to raise worldwide awareness of mountaintop removal mining and its effects on the environment and peoples of Appalachia. The group seeks to encourage conservation, efficiency, solar and wind energy as alternatives to all forms of surface mining. It self-describes as "a regional Appalachian network committed to ending mountaintop removal". It seeks justice because the mountaintop removal (MTR) it opposes is a form of coal mining known as mountaintop removal mining which produces coal sludge toxic waste which is stored in a dam on the mountain and leaches into the groundwater, which poisons the environment, which defaces the top of the mountain, and which is not stopped due to political corruption.
The Hobet 21 Coal Mine in West Virginia was operational between 1974 and 2015. Straddling the border of Boone County and Lincoln County in the Appalachian Mountains, the Hobet 21 mine was one of the largest mountaintop-removal coal mining operations in West Virginia. Originally owned by Fil Nutter, the mine used both underground mining and strip mining techniques, and later even more intensive surface mining using a dragline. Increasing productivity and profitability encouraged workers to successfully strike for their health plan in 1993, which resulted in unusually thorough coverage for mine workers at this time. The Hobet mine was incorporated into Arch Coal in 1997, along with several other mines, following booming coal demand. The mine was sold two more times: to Magnum Coal in 2005 and to Patriot Coal in 2008. Patriot Coal subsequently went bankrupt in 2015, and the Hobet site was passed into a Virginia-based conservation firm who continued to mine the land while reclaiming and planting trees to offset carbon emissions for other companies.
Environmental justice and coal mining in Appalachia is the study of environmental justice – the interdisciplinary body of social science literature studying theories of the environment and justice; environmental laws, policies, and their implementations and enforcement; development and sustainability; and political ecology – in relation to coal mining in Appalachia.
Environmental issues in Appalachia, a cultural region in the Eastern United States, include long term and ongoing environmental impact from human activity, and specific incidents of environmental harm such as environmental disasters related to mining. A mountainous area with significant coal deposits, many environmental issues in the region are related to coal and gas extraction. Some extraction practices, particularly surface mining, have met significant resistance locally and at times have received international attention.
The Frasure Creek lawsuit was a legal action by environmental organizations Waterkeeper Alliance and Appalachian Voices against Frasure Creek Mining and International Coal Group (ICG) on grounds of falsifying pollution discharge in their reports. This violated many key components of the Clean Water Act (CWA), which controls and regulates many types of pollution entering into waterway. Individual citizens joined the environmental organizations to sue the coal mining companies under the CWA. The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet attempted to settle in Franklin Circuit Court in December, 2010 but was denied. The case moved forward to the Kentucky Supreme Court in April, 2012 who agreed with lower court rulings that Appalachian Voices and others were legally supported by the CWA to intervene in the lawsuit against Frasure Creek Mining and ICG.
The Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center (VCHEC) is a power station located in St. Paul, in Wise County, Virginia. It is operated by Dominion Virginia Power, Dominion Resources Inc.'s electric distribution company in Virginia. The 600 MW plant began power generation in July 2012 after four years of construction. The plant deploys circulating fluidized bed boiler technology (CFB) to use a variety of fuel sources including bituminous coal, coal gob, and bio-fuels. VCHEC is placed under stringent environmental regulations by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
