Coal Ash Regulation

Imagine a world where the air is always clean, free of pollution. A place where children with asthma need not to worry of the air quality in the inner cities. A world where the energy produced to heat a home, turn on a light bulb, and charge your cellphone is always abundant and affordable. Doesn’t this world sound like a wonderful place? Turns out this world isn’t just a figment of the imagination. In fact, we are on the verge of a technological breakthrough that can take steps towards making this fantasy a reality. What is this innovation? It is Clean Coal Technology.

Fossil Fuels are extremely harmful to the environment, especially in the ways the fuel is obtained, such as mining or hydraulic fracturing. Coal, a commonly used fossil fuel, can be obtained by strip mining, mountaintop mining, or underground mining (“Coal Explained”). Strip mining has disastrous effects on the environment because of the destructive nature of the process, which removes all soil, rock, trees, and plants above coal deposits. The runoff from this pollutes streams and rivers nearby, which can harm aquatic life and disfigure the body of water,

The pile provide dirty energy and wreck the environment. It is most problematic to the people living across from the river and the piles since it is where the air blows the dust. Where they are located and what business and homes are being affected. The hopes for renovating that area will quickly become into a past dream than a reality. The only cause of this problem is the existence of these piles and the demand to keep them for the use of energy. Also the council of Green Bay is partly at fault for allowing such an environmental hazard lurk in the downtown riverfront area for so long. The council's contribution to helping residents needs to step up. Something they While the existence of the coal piles is the obvious problem, looking to patch or solve this issue has become an ongoing fight for many groups, councils, and

Coal ash is a byproduct of burning coal in power plants and is composed mainly of aluminum and silicon oxides. This ash is commonly stored away in dump sites, only to leach out solutions of concentrated toxic heavy metals. Such issues are detrimental to the health of water systems, posing both a human and environmental health risk. However, there are solutions to this problem. Coal ash possesses unique chemical properties that allow for the remediation of other environmental concerns, such as the treatment of soil polluted with heavy metals, the removal of nutrients from wastewater, and the remediation of acid mine drainage in streams.

Coal is a fossil fuel that is heavily relied upon around the world as a source of electricity generation. Coal, a substance consisting of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur, is created through a natural process consisting of decayed plants that compress under moist conditions for millions of years to become the coal used today. The use of coal as an energy source was responsible for the success of the industrial revolution and was thrust to the forefront of energy generation becoming a dominant fossil fuel. Coal is burned to create steam which in turn spins a turbine to produce the electricity that powers large percentages of multiple nations. Coal has had a long history in the United States as well as globally due to coal’s abundance in the America’s as well as places such as China and India. In comparison to other fossil fuels, coal is the most widely available fuel source and the cheapest available energy source to produce electricity. Coal is mined through two methods: strip and underground mines. Both types of mines cause various environmental issues in the land surrounding mines as well as altering the atmosphere and influencing global warming. The extraction phase of coal mining has the ability to potentially cause soil erosion, alter animal and plant life, pollute groundwater, destroy farmable land, and block streams and rivers. The production phase of coal creates a harmful toxic waste slurry and can cause coal fires in storage areas

I would have to say that from the reading that it can be very harmful for the coal mining chemicals to seep into the ground into our drinking water.

Coal ash also contains selenium which is already needed in our body, but excess amounts can lead to impaired vision, paralysis, and even death. The ash contains a lot of lead, exposure to lead can cause numerous issues in your brain affecting your nervous system and can cause brain swelling. Arsenic which is found in the ash can be harmful, if ingested it can lead to nervous system damage and cardiovascular issues. If arsenic that is found in the ash is absorbed through the skin can cause skin cancer. Coal ash contain boron also can cause damage to the intestines and even death. The EPA is responsible for protecting the environment from these types of spills, but in the case of properly disposing the ash the EPA ruled that coal ash was classified as a non-hazardous material leaving it up to the companies to dispose of it as they want

Water contamination is the next major concern of environmental groups. The Environmental Protection Agency, the governmental regulatory agency created in 1970 to manage the enforcement of environmental policy, states its concerns in a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2009 (United). Specifically addressing mines in West Virginia and Kentucky, the EPA expressed serious concerns over water pollution from strip mining (“EPA”). The rupture of an ash dike at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, TN on December 22, 2008 granted credibility to the EPA’s concerns. In an article published by in Environmental Health Perspectives, Rhitu Chatterjee comments on the poisonous substances contained in ash produced from processing coal, listing

Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a response update to assess potential impacts to human and aquatic life (2014). The method the EPA employed was to analyze surface water and sediments for contaminants and compare those results to its screening levels. To assess impact to human health, the EPA compared the sediment data to health risk screening levels and compared drinking water samples to Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) as well as to other indicators. Overall, the EPA found those levels found in sediment data and water samples to not exceed human health screening levels and thus determined that there wasn’t significant risk to human health, although the EPA did recommend that people do not come in direct contact with coal ash as it could still pose health risks. These findings were consistent with that of Dr. Shea.

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 has proved to be one of the most important environmental protection programs of all time. Also known as Superfund, this act spawned dramatic changes to the environment of the United States. Superfund aimed to cleanup hazardous waste sites in America and protect the health and safety of the general public. Over the years, the Superfund legislation has authorized the government to aid in the cleanup of toxic waste in a variety of effective ways that have ensured the welfare of its citizens. On the whole, CERCLA has transformed hazardous waste sites, changed the outdated disposal methods that companies utilized, and ignited environmental awareness.

Coal power is the cheapest fuel to power the ever growing population with Australian mining industry still putting in billions of dollars into a vast amount of coal projects never the less coal power is a fossil fuel, a fuel which takes hundreds of year to form so the future of coal is undetermined. Coal is a reliable power source but one of the many concern with coal is the mining process used to remove it from the ground. Ecological effects are developing worries for the industry, with the carbon emissions possibly contributing to global warming.

The third largest coal ash spill in United States history has left some citizens in North Carolina fearing their water is not safe to drink. This fear is a result of anywhere between 50,000 and 82,000 tons of coal ash and up to twenty-seven million gallons of contaminated water being dumped into the Dan River in Eden, North Carolina on February 2, 2014. The spill was caused by a busted storm drain pipe that ran under an unlined coal ash pond at Duke Energy’s Dan River Combined Cycle Station (“Duke Energy’s Grievous”). Coal ash is a byproduct of burning coal for energy and contains substances such as arsenic, lead, and mercury. These toxic chemicals are not only harmful to the environment but to the human population as well (Christian).

The Coal Ash Rule restricts when new impoundments can be placed and used. For example, if there is a wetland and there are animals that are already endangered, then you aren't allowed to place a coal generated power plant there. Coal ash pollution causes damage to our nervous system and creates cardiovascular issues. Also, coal ash can trigger/worsen urinary tract, lung, and skin cancer. On December 22nd, 2008, the biggest toxic waste spill in U.S. history happened in Kingston, Tennessee. The Kingston Fossil Plant was a coal ash dam that burst and leaked 1,100,000,000 toxic waste across 300 acres. 40 nearby homes were damaged or destroyed and rivers were polluted. To clean up all of the damages and rivers cost three million dollars. After this

CO2 is the most significant greenhouse gas, which mainly comes from the use of fossil fuels. Many people feel that content of CO2 in the atmosphere is the main reason for manmade global warming. The main sources of CO2 emissions involve electricity generation, industrial processes, fumes from transportation and commercial buildings and use. Emissions of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, to the atmosphere are expected to cause even more of a significant change in global climate (Davison, 2007). The main focus to try to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to reduce the amount that is released from coal-fired power plants. Greenhouse gas emissions that involve the productions of electricity come from natural gas production and coal-fired power plant operations. Natural gas production accounts for twenty-four percent and coal-fired power plant operations accounts for seventy-five percent, while the other one percent is caused by other electricity generation operations. The main reason why coal-fired power plants have a higher percentage of emissions is because the sulfur content of coal is much higher than that of other fossil fuels (Jarmaillo et al., 2007). This proves that there is a great need to find an alternative fossil fuel to use instead of coal. Although coal is easy to mine, transport and process for the electricity generation process, it is also the

According to researchers Armstrong & Menon (1998), coal is a major energy source, constituting 25% of energy consumption worldwide (21% in the United States) and 40% of electricity generation worldwide (45% in the United States). Coal accounts for 40% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and is therefore a major contributor to climate change (Armstrong & Menon, 1998). Coal can be produced through surface or underground mining both dangerous operations for workers. Injuries occur from falling rocks, falls into mine shafts, misuse of machinery, gas inhalation, explosions, floods, and cave ins. Respiratory exposures to silica dust and coal dust place miners at risk of silicosis and coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. Miners also suffer an excess risk of lung cancer.