Today's newspapers had three important stories about coal, each touching on one of the three main aspects that make it controversial: health and safety in underground mines; environmental damage from surface mines and old deep mines; and the technical obstacles that face carbon capture and sequestration, which could be key to cutting coal's contributions to climate change.
Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette and Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity teamed up with NPR News to explain how the main disease of underground mining, black lung, has again become prevalent and why efforts against it have stalled. Today's stories are the start of a package that will continue Monday in the Gazette and on NPR. (Links updated) The stories are part part of "Hard Labor," an occasional series on health, safety and economic threats to U.S. workers.
Ronnie Ellis of Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. reports on the murder of a creek near Hueysville, Ky., where retired state police dispatcher Rick Handshoe, left, had hoped to turn over his home to his daughter. He says blowouts from a reclaimed strip mine and an old underground mine have ruined the creek and put him in fear of a landslide that could kill him and his family. For the story in The Independent of Ashland, a CNHI paper, click here. In a sidebar, state officials say they're taking the complaints seriously but don't have enough evidence to issue citations. (Photo by John Flavell)
James Bruggers of The Courier-Journal in Louisville reports that the idea of stripping carbon dioxide from power-plant emissions and storing it forever in deep rock formations may not be as feasible as experts had thought, because the National Academy of Sciences "suggests that the process could build up enough pressure to cause minor to moderate earthquakes," and a Stanford University geophysics professor has told a Senate committee "that large-scale carbon capture and storage is a risky strategy that will likely fail," Bruggers writes. And he seems to be on to something: James Cobb, director of the Kentucky Geological Survey, told him, “I was convinced we’d be doing some amount of carbon capture and storage in Kentucky. Now, I’m not so sure.”
Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette and Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity teamed up with NPR News to explain how the main disease of underground mining, black lung, has again become prevalent and why efforts against it have stalled. Today's stories are the start of a package that will continue Monday in the Gazette and on NPR. (Links updated) The stories are part part of "Hard Labor," an occasional series on health, safety and economic threats to U.S. workers.
James Bruggers of The Courier-Journal in Louisville reports that the idea of stripping carbon dioxide from power-plant emissions and storing it forever in deep rock formations may not be as feasible as experts had thought, because the National Academy of Sciences "suggests that the process could build up enough pressure to cause minor to moderate earthquakes," and a Stanford University geophysics professor has told a Senate committee "that large-scale carbon capture and storage is a risky strategy that will likely fail," Bruggers writes. And he seems to be on to something: James Cobb, director of the Kentucky Geological Survey, told him, “I was convinced we’d be doing some amount of carbon capture and storage in Kentucky. Now, I’m not so sure.”
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