This news from the US.

HARRIMAN, Tenn. — Millions of yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA’s Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation and putting environmentalists on edge about toxic chemicals that may be seeping into the ground and flowing downriver.

One neighboring family said the disaster was no surprise because they have watched the 1960s-era ash pond’s mini-blowouts off and on for years.
Advertisement

About 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry — enough to fill 798 Olympic-size swimming pools — rolled out of the pond Monday, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Cleanup will take at least several weeks, or, in a worst-case scenario, years.

More via itsgettinghotinhere.

This is “Clean Coal”: Massive Coal Sludge Spill Dwarfs Exxon Valdez Disaster.

Let’s see how the “clean coal” PR hucksters at the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity try to spin this tragic news: a retention pond holding toxic coal ash slurry burst Monday in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing over half a billion gallons of potentially toxic sludge that swept into the nearby town of Harriman and contaminated tributaries of the Tennessee River. The resulting flood damaged 15 homes, injured one man as it knocked his house off its foundations, and has left over 400 acres of land covered by several feet of coal ash, mud and contaminated water (see video below).

Coal ash and slurry is the normal byproduct of coal-fired electricity generating, and is usually stored in giant retaining ponds near coal plants. The resulting coal slurry is frequently contaminated by heavy metals, mercury and arsenic.

Yesterday’s tragedy struck at the coal ash impoundment associated with the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal-fired steam plant and released about 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry, the Tennessean reports. That’s enough to fill nearly 800 Olympic-sized swimming pools, and is over 40 times more contaminated sludge than the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The video bellow shows how big this really is. Check out this post for great coverage.

[Update 1: Now front page of the New York Times!]
[Update2 : bloomberg has followed up the question of the true cost of coal power]

The CBI’s position is set out in a new policy paper, “The future of coal: securing electricity supply and clean coal technology.” New coal stations should be retrofitted with carbon capture and storage technology when it becomes available, which would cut carbon emissions, while ensuring that the country still meets its carbon targets, the CBI said.

Reference:

• Platts

The Department received over three quarters of a million claims from former miners, their widows, or their estates for COPD (592,000) and VWF (170,000). By the time all the claims have been settled, the Department estimates that it will have paid some £4.1 billion in compensation.

The schemes posed a formidable challenge. Many claimants were elderly, ill and anxious to receive their compensation. The number of claims greatly exceeded the Department’s initial forecasts of 173,000 COPD and 45,000 VWF claims. It was ill prepared for the number, and in some cases complexity, of claims made. Consequently some claimants have had to wait as long as ten years or more. In 2005, to address significant backlogs the Department, in negotiation with solicitors, introduced a fast track arrangement to process COPD claims. By September 2007, there were around 116,000 COPD claims and 12,000 VWF claims remaining to be settled. The Department is seeking to process most of the remaining VWF claims by March 2008 and COPD claims by February 2009.

The schemes were costly to administer. By completion, administration costs, including contractor and medical costs, are expected to total almost £2.3 billion. Claimants’ solicitors and other representatives’ fees account for just under £1.3 billion of this total. The Department’s negotiation of the fees with solicitors was weak, with the result that it paid fees significantly in excess of costs. Some solicitors have also levied additional fees on successful claimants.

And then there is the cost to peoples livelyhoods caused by climate change, and the loss of millions of species, and the threat to global peace and security. In fact you could say coal is cheap for eon but costly for society. Perhaps we should ban it and save our money, our planet and our health?

The attorney General – the duly appointed, cabinet-ranking, partisan politician Baroness Scotland – is making plans to withdraw the protection of legal precedent from climate protestors who break the law in their stirling efforts to avert catastrophe. Suggestions that this is motivated by the Government’s need to pretend it’s all hunky-dory untill after the election are, of course, cynical in the extreme. Nothing to do with Heathrow and Gatwick and Kingsnorth etc etc. No ambitions were engaged in the making of these decisions.

Meanwhile… Ugmug’s methane jaccuzi goes into overdrive.

Sea levels will be rising faster than previous calculations predicted

The outgoing President’s place in infamy is secure, whilst the incoming one has his team assembled