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There and back again – Kayford Mountain

Posted by Denny Tyler on 11 March 2010, 12:01 am

A couple of days ago I was back on Kayford Mountain with my friend Chuck Nelson. He went there to discuss MTR with a group of college students and I just kind of tagged along.

It has been a few months since I last visited Kayford and I was curious how much the site had changed. Besides another section of the mountain being gone the only other thing I noticed was the attempt at reclamation in the area where a high-wall was the last time I was there. That area is in the foreground of the next photo.

In the spring this area will turn green but it will still be without topsoil, unable to support any kind of habitat, and the water will run off of it unimpeded almost like water running off of a metal roof.

Since I was on Kayford last I actually had someone post a comment to one of my videos of the Kayford mine site asking me what I thought of it now that that one area had been reclaimed. I still get sick to my stomach seeing it. I still can’t believe there are those of us that think this is somehow better than it was before the mining. This is camouflage nothing more and nothing less. It is grass sprayed from the back of a truck and engineered to grow wherever it lands. By the time the mountains get to where they need engineered grass to turn them green again everything they were or will ever be is firmly buried in the past. Reclamation? Give me a break.

Actually the last time I saw Kayford Mountain was from an airplane where I took the next photo of the mine site facing one of the largest valley fills I have personally seen.

This valley fill is located in the vicinity of Dorothy, West Virginia. It is hard to get a handle on it’s size until you see it from the ground.

In my mind there is still no justification for the sheer amount of destruction brought on our mountains and valleys by way of mountaintop removal.

If you want to impress me with your ingenuity go back to less destructive methods of coal mining or better yet make a move that will take us beyond the point where we feel we have to justify this amount of destruction to keep the lights burning. No matter what you do – stop mountaintop removal coal mining, quit trying to justify it with lame excuses and I will be rightfully impressed. Until then, the battle rages on.

Kayford Mountain Kayford Mountain Jupiter Coal, Bob White, West Virginia Mountaintop Removal Hazy, West Virginia
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Boycott the Logan Banner!!

Posted by Denny Tyler on 4 March 2010, 7:02 pm

In the past, more than a few times, I have voiced my disgust and outrage with the local media in regards to their obvious bias towards the coal industry.

Bias definition – Bias is a term used to describe a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective, ideology or result, when the tendency interferes with the ability to be impartial, unprejudiced, or objective.

The following article is proudly redistributed without permission from the Logan Banner.

Boycott Kathy Mattea, Patti Loveless and Dave Matthews by Michael Browning, Managing Editor of the Logan Banner

West Virginia native Kathy Mattea, who was once a country music star, is trying to get back into the limelight by waging war on coal mining.(1)

And she’s enlisted the help of several other rock, pop and country stars, including one from nearby Pike County, Ky., in her war on coal.(1)

Mattea, in an exclusive interview with The Logan Banner recently, said she wasn’t against mountaintop removal mining, after she’d taken an anti-surface mining stance months earlier.

She said in the interview that she had seen the situation from both sides — she flew over a reclamation project and cried over the loss of the mountain, but then spent some time at a coal mine and understood the plight of the miners.

Now, however, she has turned back to her anti-mountaintop removal stance and will perform at a Nashville fundraising concert featuring Dave Matthews and others, that is being sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council to fight mountaintop mining in Appalachia.

The May 19 concert at the Ryman Auditorium, called Music Saves Mountains, will also include performances by Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, Patty Loveless and Kathy Mattea.

A news release Friday announcing the concert and lineup said net proceeds will go to pass laws to end the practice.

Tickets cost $45, $75 and $95.

Hopefully, no one will show up for the show, but there will be plenty of the great-unwashed environmentalists (or, as Staff Writer J.D. Charles calls them, “environmentalcases”)(2) there to cheer the anti-coal traitors (3) on.

What’s really ironic is that the concert is being held in Nashville, far away from any mountaintop removal mining. Why not hold the concert here, Kathy? Because she knows they would be run out of the state for taking part in such an event.

Shame on you, Kathy Mattea and Patti Loveless,(4) who comes from Elkhorn City, Ky., just across the river in Pike County, Ky. (Loveless is no stranger to being ashamed of where she’s from: She graduated from Elkhorn City High School in the tiny town, but claimed the more famous and politically-correct city of Pikeville as her hometown)

Both Mattea and Loveless are from coal-producing states and look at what moving a mountain — or a river, as they did in Pikeville to build roads and provided flat land for a cinema complex, the Hall of Justice (Pike County’s courthouse and jail) and other businesses and facilities — has done for their states.

We, here in southern West Virginia, wouldn’t have a wood products park on Holden Mountain, nor the Fountain Place Mall if it weren’t for post-mine reclamation. As anyone who lives here can see, we don’t have an abundance of flat lands, (5) like there are in Mattea’s native Putnam County.

And that’s not even counting the jobs that mountaintop mining has provided (6) for our people here in Coal Country.

Williamson, in Mingo County, is called the Heart of the Billion Dollar Coalfields, (7) and a lot of that is due to surface mining.

We’re sure that a lot of those coal miners probably have spent coal mining dollars and cents on Mattea’s and Loveless’s CDs and concert tickets.

But, instead of thanking the coal miner for those hard-earned dollars, they are biting the hand that has fed them for so many years. (8)

Maybe it’s time the coal miners and their families and friends spoke with their wallets by boycotting these musicians and singers, like Mattea, Loveless, Dave Matthews, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller and others who take up the environmentalists’ war on coal. (1)

They site atop their ivory towers and tell the world how bad coal mining is when most of them don’t know anything at all about surface mining and its benefits.(9) All they see if one or two mountains gone and flat land in their place. (10) Hey, if you want to see plenty more mountains, make a trip into West Virginia and visit with the people here in Coal Country, where coal is the lifeblood of our people and our economy.

We see plenty of singers and actors going to foreign countries for their various causes. But, we hardly ever see any come to West Virginia to see the struggles of coal miners and their families and communities in which they live.

All of these so-called-stars need to come to West Virginia and spend a day in a coal town like Logan or Williamson and see just how wrong they are to attack coal.

Coal is vital to our economy here in West Virginia. And surface mining is a big part of that.

I, for one, will never buy any CDs or songs by Mattea, Loveless nor any of the others who have taken an anti-coal stance and I hope more and more people do the same.

Kathy Mattea lied when she said in the recent interview that she isn’t against coal mining.

Now, her true colors are showing bright and clear and everyone whose lives are affected by coal mining needs to take a stand against her, the same way she’s taking a stand against coal mining and its many employees.

Boycott their music!

Speak with your wallets!

Take away their cashflow and see how quickly they change their minds and turn and embrace coal mining. (11)

The bold highlighting in this article is mine. The numbers following the bold highlighting are also mine and are used as reference in my response to this fine editorial.

  1. For once can we possibly at least get this one little piece of information correct – this is a war on mountaintop removal coal mining. This is a war to save our mountains, our homes, from the massive destruction brought on them by the coal industry by way of mountain removal coal mining.
  2. Environmentalcases?? What does that even mean? Is that what we call folks now who are trying to protect our homes? It makes me wonder what derogatory term the Logan Banner uses to describe soldiers in Iraq who are trying to protect our homes. Is there a difference other than scale? If there is I would be obliged if someone would point it out to me. If we are considered environmentalcases by Michael Browning and others at the Logan Banner I would have to strongly suggest they look up nutcase in the dictionary, get friends of coal to help if needed, and after reading the definition rush to the nearest mirror… hopefully with even a small amount of intelligence, as displayed in the article, they will be able to make the connection.
  3. Anti-coal traitors… that’s just funny.
  4. Shame on you, Kathy Mattea and Patti Loveless. Yeah shame on you for protecting the mountains that gave birth to country music and some country singers.
  5. I still can’t believe after all the time I have been fighting mountaintop removal coal mining that the lack of flat land in the Mountain State still weighs so heavily on the minds of those who try to justify mountaintop removal coal mining with the lack of flat land angle of which only about 3% has been developed economically. I would have to say it is a safe bet that most of us who live in the mountains do so because we love our home. I know there are folks like Michael Browning and others at the Logan Banner who are simply to ignorant to realize the connection folks have with the mountains. A connection well worth fighting for, a connection we will continue to fight for until the battle is won. And just a little foresight – this battle will be won for the mountains, our culture, and our heritage one way or another.
  6. And that’s not even counting the jobs that mountaintop mining has provided… it is definitely not counting the jobs lost to mountaintop removal. — (From Mountaintop removal mining: EPA says yes, scientists say no Not only that, mountaintop removal actually costs jobs; since 1979 the number of miners in West Virginia has declined from more than 60,000 to just 22,000, according to the state’s Sen. Robert Byrd. “In recent years, West Virginia has seen record high coal production and record low coal employment,” he wrote in an opinion piece this past December. “The increased use of mountaintop removal mining means that fewer miners are needed to meet company production goals.”)
  7. If Williamson is truly the heart of the  billion dollar coalfields… I have to wonder where all that money goes? Maybe we should ask Manchin, Rockefeller, Capito, Green, Hamilton, Maynard and Rahall… to name a few.
  8. One would think by reading the statement referenced by the number 8, the world according to Michael Browning revolves entirely around the coal industry. What a fool he is.
  9. Surface mining and its benefits – Someone please refresh my memory, mountaintop removal coal mining benefits?
  10. All they see if [is] one or two mountains gone and flat land in their place – One or two mountains? Reference my last post or this website photo gallery.
  11. Take away their cashflow and see how quickly they change their minds and turn and embrace coal mining. Once again Michael Browning as much as I hate to inform you the world does not revolve around the coal industry. I know it would pain some of you to admit it but the bottom line is those are the cold hard facts.

There are times I get thoroughly disgusted with West Virginia. Crooked politicians, coal industry biased reporting… the sheer amount of idiocy is at times overwhelming.

I titled this post Boycott the Logan Banner but after further consideration I think the Logan Banner would have tremendous value for someone like me that loves the mountains and can’t always remember to take along toilet paper. Other than that, well, I’m at a loss to its usefulness.

All that being said, Michael Browning you are a fools fool.

Jupiter Coal, Bob White, West Virginia Edwight, West Virginia Edwight, West Virginia Valley Fill Jupiter Coal, Bob White, West Virginia
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NASA Earth Observatory – time lapse Hobet MTR, 1984-2009

Posted by Denny Tyler on 3 March 2010, 10:06 pm


(Images credit, NASA – Years represented – 1984, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009)

Below the densely forested slopes of southern West Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains is a layer cake of thin coal seams. To uncover this coal profitably, mining companies engineer large—sometimes very large—surface mines. This time-series of images of a surface mine in Boone County, West Virginia, illustrates why this controversial mining method is also called “mountaintop removal.”

Based on data from NASA’s Landsat 5 satellite, these natural-color (photo-like) images document the growth of the Hobet mine as it moves from ridge to ridge between 1984 to 2009. The natural landscape of the area is dark green forested mountains, creased by streams and indented by hollows. The active mining areas appear off-white, while areas being reclaimed with vegetation appear light green. A pipeline roughly bisects the images from north to south. The town of Madison, lower right, lies along the banks of the Coal River.

In 1984, the mining operation is limited to a relatively small area west of the Coal River. The mine first expands along mountaintops to the southwest, tracing an oak-leaf-shaped outline around the hollows of Big Horse Creek and continuing in an unbroken line across the ridges to the southwest. Between 1991 and 1992, the mine moves north, and the impact of one of the most controversial aspects of mountaintop mining—rock and earth dams called valley fills—becomes evident.

Read the full article here…

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And still I wonder… How many decapitated mountains much flat land do we need in the… uh… Mountain State?

Hobet makes a good case for a name change, mountaintop removal doesn’t quite convey the amount of destruction. Mountain range removal would be a bit more accurate and even just plain ole mountain removal better describes the devastation that is actually taking place. We are not just losing the tops of the mountains, we lose everything associated with a mountain… everything.

Jupiter Coal, Bob White, West Virginia Kayford Mountain Hobet Edwight, West Virginia Jupiter Coal, Bob White, West Virginia
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Clean Coal

Posted by Denny Tyler on 24 February 2010, 3:06 pm

‘Clean’ Coal? Don’t Try to Shovel That.

Clean coal: Never was there an oxymoron more insidious, or more dangerous to our public health. Invoked as often by the Democratic presidential candidates as by the Republicans and by liberals and conservatives alike, this slogan has blindsided any meaningful progress toward a sustainable energy policy.

The Myth of Clean Coal

“Clean” is not a word that normally leaps to mind for a commodity some spoilsports associate with unsafe mines, mountaintop removal, acid rain, black lung, lung cancer, asthma, mercury contamination, and, of course, global warming. And yet the phrase “clean coal” now routinely turns up in political discourse, almost as if it were a reality.

Obama Pushing Clean Coal, Green Jobs

In his meeting with the governors, Obama also announced a new task force to study ways to increase the use of coal in meeting the nation’s energy needs without increasing the pollution that contributes to global warming.

“It’s been said that the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and that’s because … it’s one of our most abundant energy resources,” Obama said. “If we can develop the technology to capture the carbon pollution released by coal, it can create jobs and provide energy well into the future.”

Exposing the Myth of Clean Coal Power

In reality, we can’t really talk about clean coal — it doesn’t exist. Though the coal industry is right to point out that it has improved filters on coal plants, sending less traditional pollutants like sulfur dioxide and mercury into the air, the toxic waste that remains behind is only growing. The biggest advantage of coal power has been cost — in most cases, it remains much cheaper than cleaner alternatives like wind, solar or natural gas. But the cheapness of coal depends on the fact that external costs — climate change, or the health impacts of air and water pollution from coal — remain external, paid for not by utilities or coal companies but society as a whole.

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In my opinion an argument for clean coal simply cannot be made without considering the entire process. I continually hear about cleaning up coal plants by CCS, burying the carbon dioxide, and all of the sudden coal is clean? What about blowing up the mountains to get the coal in the first process? Or the huge sludge impoundments or injections from the second process?

I don’t give a damn what they say… you cannot clear-cut a mountain of all the trees and vegetation, blow the top off that mountain dumping the debris/over-burden into nearby valleys and streams, take the product from that endeavor, run it through a processing plant to clean it pumping everything that was causing the product to be considered dirty back into what is left of the mountains via massive ponds or abandoned underground mine works without including all of this, and some, into an honest conversation about the cleanliness of coal. I have to wonder, does the end justify the means when we talk about clean coal?

Coal will never be clean as long as we have mountaintop removal, coal sludge ponds and injections, and coal ash ponds unaccounted for in the process.

I think in the long run folks are going to come to realize by personal experience or knowledge that coal is as clean as it is ever going to get when it is left undisturbed in the ground.

(In this photo – clean coal, clean coal technology)

Kayford Mountain Hazy, West Virginia Kayford Mountain Mountaintop Removal Kayford Mountain
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Mountaintop Removal Good For The Environment??

Posted by Denny Tyler on 18 February 2010, 6:57 pm

Just when I think I have heard every ridiculous statement the coal industry and their puppets have to say about the so-called benefits of mountaintop removal I open an email alert and read this little gem from Congressman Zach Wamp of Tennessee -

Coal Companies Help Environment by Blowing Up Mountains, Wamp Says

“The way it’s done today is very responsible. We need an all-of-the-above energy strategy in our country, and we need all the economic opportunities that we can bring to our state. This is done in a responsible way. I sat around a campfire in Campbell County with all the experts–biologists, geologists, fish and wildlife–and it’s actually good for the birds, and good for the environment, good for our natural environment in this state to actually mine coal in a responsible way. It’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. We need the energy.”

I’ve been trying especially hard on this blog lately to keep my posts toned down but after reading this I’m afraid I have lost a little ground in that regard. Congressman Zach Wamp you are the definition of an idiot. There is absolutely nothing about coal, no matter the form of mining or the context, that comes anywhere near good for the environment. If good for the environment were the Yin coal would be the Yang, a complete and total opposite.

I’ve never seen Congressman Wamp but for some odd reason I picture him as an ostrich with its head up the coal industries a**.

In all of my trips to mountaintop removal sites, both active and reclaimed, one thing that is very noticeably absent is the sound of birds. Maybe I am misunderstanding Wamp. Maybe he means the mountaintop removal sites give the birds a good place to fly over and take a crap which would result in a cleaner environment for the birds in their natural habitat.

It’s no wonder the US Government is in such a sad state, we are being governed by educated idiots with their pockets full of coal dust.

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POST UPDATED -

The spelling for Congressman Zach Wamp has been corrected. My apologies for the misspelling, I was using the spelling provided by the quoted article.

I’m also updating this post with some links.

Zach Wamp caught up in national controversy

Rep. Zach Wamp, C Street and Their Secret Cult-Like “The Family” All the While Feigning “Huh?”

C Street Band

As the Republican Party implodes the public is becoming aware of a secretive Christian society known as the Family or the Fellowship.  The group was founded in 1935 in opposition to FDR’s New Deal and its adherents subscribe to a far right Christian fundamentalist and free market ideology.  A minister named Abraham Vereide founded the Family after having a vision in which God visited him in the person of the head of the United States Steel Corporation (no, I’m not making this up).  The Family has a connection to house on C Street in Washington, D.C., known simply as C Street.  Officially registered as a church, the building serves as a meeting place and residence for conservative politicians.

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I hope folks in Tennessee are paying particular attention. Rep. Wamp caught my attention simply because of his uneducated, self-imposed blindness to the truth about mountaintop removal and the environment.

As I said previously in this post – there is nothing about coal good for the environment unless, of course, it is left buried in the ground. I feel pretty confident that point is unarguable.

In this country today we continue to see our democracy falling by the wayside in favor of corporate politics. We began our country as We the People and ever since then we have spiraled at times seemingly out of control towards the inevitable… We the Corporations. Isn’t it about time We the People stand up and say enough is enough. Secret pacts and power politics be damned… WE WANT OUR VOICE BACK!!!

There is only one certainty here, I can’t do it alone.

Edwight, West Virginia Edwight, West Virginia Jupiter Coal, Bob White, West Virginia Lindytown, West Virginia Hazy, West Virginia
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Rainforest Action Network – JP Morgan Chase Social Media Day of Action

Posted by Denny Tyler on 14 February 2010, 11:32 am

Join Rainforest Action Network and thousands of friends on the internet as we send a message to JP Morgan Chase to stop financing mountaintop removal!

JP Morgan Chase is the largest financier of mountaintop removal coal mining, investing hundreds of millions of dollars into a real American tragedy.

Mountaintop removal is the highly destructive mining practice that literally explodes the tops off of mountains.  It harms homes and habitats.  It’s destroyed nearly 1.2 million acres of Appalachian forest and mountains.  It has buried over 2000 miles of rivers and streams with debris and pollution.

Instead of bankrolling this brutal, toxic and irreversibly destructive practice of destroying mountains for climate-killing coal, Chase should put their money on the right side of history.

It’s time for Chase to stop making millions from destroying Appalachia’s mountains.

Please join us for a social media day of action.  On Feb. 18, we’ll use our Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and blogs to hold JP Morgan Chase accountable for financing this despicable practice.

Join us as we work to make a difference.

Participate in the Social Media Day of Action

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30 Days in the News

Posted by Denny Tyler on 5 February 2010, 1:40 pm

This post obviously does not account for all of the news over the last 30 days, it is just the news I have been paying particular attention to.

First of all I was glad to see Senator Brown from Massachusetts get elected. I didn’t like how the Senate was trying to push a 2008 page health reform bill through the Senate with only one side of the aisle voting for it and some of those votes being bought and paid for. That tells me there is something seriously wrong with the bill and/or something seriously wrong with the process. I think in the case of health reform it was both. Senator Brown changed the process now they will probably have to change the bill.

On the eve of that seemingly minor victory for democracy the U.S. Supreme Court blocks a ban on corporate spending in candidate elections. I’m really surprised this bit of news is not getting more attention… people marching in the street kind of attention. In West Virginia it means that all of those politicians I perceive as being bought and paid for by the coal industry can now be bought and paid for by the coal industry. If there is a battle going on in Washington, there should be, where the peoples voice is fighting for survival from the onslaught of corporate politics then the peoples voice took a major hit with this Supreme Court decision.

There oughta be a revolution.

You can’t talk about congress and corporate spending without mentioning Spike Maynard running against Rep. Rahall for the house seat in November. Former Supreme Court Justice Spike Maynard Files for U.S. Congress

We do remember Spike… don’t we?

The ‘Spike’ Maynard case: Justice undermined

If the disturbing allegations about an appalling lack of judgment are accurate, Elliott “Spike” Maynard, chief justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court, should have resigned on Friday instead of recusing himself.

Justice Maynard and Don L. Blankenship, a powerful coal company executive, had met in Monte Carlo in the summer of 2006. They shared several meals even as Mr. Blankenship’s companies were appealing a multimillion-dollar jury verdict against them to the state Supreme Court, according to The New York Times.

Spike is running on basically a coal platform. I think Elliot “Spike” Maynard getting elected into Congress as an obvious friend to big coal would be another slap to the face of democracy especially here in West Virginia.

With the US Supreme Court decision I mentioned earlier I expect to see plenty of ads for Spike in the coming months. I would also venture to guess the ads will be heavily supported by the Friends of Coal. Just remember… resistance is not futile.

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With the current state of the economy I think Big Coal is really going to start trying to justify mountaintop removal with jobs. I can totally understand the need for more jobs in this country and a better economy but for the life of me I just can’t see blowing up the mountains as any part of the solution. We can come up with a better way.

I think folks really need to be paying attention right now. Less to what is going on with Tiger Woods and more to what is going on in the Government and our own back yards.

Manchin defends coal to Obama

More than once, he complained to Obama and the others that coal had been “vilified” by some around the country, including public leaders.

Manchin voiced concerns that if the administration makes it harder to mine coal the entire country will suffer.

Massey outlines plans to up coal production

Massey Energy plans to increase metallurgical coal production as much as 62 percent to meet demand from rapidly recovering Asian economies.

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Much of the increased production is going overseas, including approximately 2 million tons to India, Blankenship said.

Kayford Mountain Edwight, West Virginia Edwight, West Virginia Jupiter Coal, Bob White, West Virginia Hazy, West Virginia
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Mountaintop Mining Consequences

Posted by Denny Tyler on 8 January 2010, 6:20 pm

Palmer MTR Science 2010

palmer_mtr_science2010 –

Download the pdf file here – http://endmtr.com/palmer_mtr_science2010.pdf

Valley Fill Jupiter Coal, Bob White, West Virginia Edwight, West Virginia Edwight, West Virginia Hobet
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Exporting Appalachia

Posted by Denny Tyler on 28 December 2009, 5:27 pm

U.S. Coal Supply and Demand: 2008 Review – (pdf)

Appalachian Region

Coal production in the Appalachian Region reversed a two-year declining trend and ended 2008 at 389.8 million short tons, an increase of 3.2 percent, or 12.0 million short tons. The growth in 2008 in coal production in the Appalachian Region was primarily driven by the large increase in U.S. coal exports, which are predominantly produced in this region.

Coal miner Massey Energy sees chance to boost exports

U.S. coal miner Massey Energy Co (MEE.N) sees opportunities to export more coal to Europe and Asia as global steel production and power generation are starting to pick up, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

“We are obviously encouraged by the positive news we are hearing out of the Asian markets,” Don Blankenship told Wall Street analysts. “China reported economic growth of 7.9 percent in the second quarter.

“We have seen some estimates recently that China may be a net inporter of as much as 50 million tons of met (steel-making metallurgical) coal for the year. This news has helped solidify and improve met coal prices,” he said on a conference call to discuss Massey’s second-quarter earnings.

Blankenship noted Indian steel production was up 9 percent in May from a year earlier and total production for the first five months this year exceeded the same period last year.

“As a result, we are seeing increased demand for our met coal products in this important market,” he said.

Asked how much of the roughly 40 million tons a year Massey produces would be exported, Blankenship said: “I would say we’re going to get close to 50 percent moving to Asia as opposed to sometimes there wasn’t anything going to Asia.”

——

“As China and India consume more coal, we believe our opportunity may be greater to sell our coal directly into these markets or to displace Australian and South African coal in the market,” he said.

Coal demand, price, boosts Powder River Basin sales potential

Global demand for coal has increased largely due to the rise of developing markets like China and India, heightening interest in U.S. coal — previously deemed too expensive — especially coal from the Appalachian Mountains in the east.

As a result, Appalachian coal prices have soared. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, on June 6 Central Appalachian coal sold for an average $108.25 per short ton, and Northern Appalachian coal at $105.00, more than double the price from a year ago. Much of the increase has been fueled by the overseas demand.

Coal mining in Appalachia

Currently, direct and indirect coal mining jobs make up about five per cent of the labour force of West Virginia, which produces 15 per cent of coal in the US, and makes up 50 per cent of the US’ coal exports.

With the amount of devastation brought on Central Appalachia by mountaintop removal both environmentally and culturally can the practice be justified to satisfy coal exports? I think the obvious answer to that would be a resounding NO.

The largest practitioner of mountaintop removal coal mining in Central Appalachia is Massey Energy. Nearly 50% of Massey’s coal reserves are metallurgical.

http://www.masseyenergyco.com/company/sales.shtml

Massey Metallurgical Coal is the largest supplier of high volatile coking coals in the U.S. and Canadian metallurgical markets. The company also serves the export metallurgical market.

Massey Acquires Coal Reserve

Massey Energy is the fourth largest coal company in the US and the largest in Central Appalachia. The company is continuously making acquisitions of coal mining assets and reserves. The Dante Coal acquisition has raised the company’s current total coal reserves to 2.3 billion tons. Of the total current reserves, 1.0 billion ton is metallurgical coal.

Metallurgical coal (definition) — Coking coal and pulverized coal consumed in making steel.

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As we move forward in the mountaintop removal debate I respectfully request that you ask yourself – why are we really destroying vast areas of the Appalachian Mountains? Is it for energy security (coal keeps the lights on) or something else entirely?

Kayford Mountain Hazy, West Virginia Valley Fill Edwight, West Virginia Mountaintop Removal
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The fact is…

Posted by Denny Tyler on 26 December 2009, 2:16 am

This excerpt from an editorial in the Huntington Dispatch –

Extremes won’t carry the day in coal fight

The fact is that coal is an important resource, fueling nearly half of the nation’s electricity. The fact is that mountaintop removal mining does change the contour of the land and poses threats to residents in the vicinity. Both factors should be taken into account as policymakers weigh the issue.

The fact is not all of the coal fueling the nation’s electricity comes from mountaintop removal. The fact is mountaintop removal is not the only form of coal mining. The fact is to say we should weigh the issue of coal-fired electricity versus threats to residents via mountaintop removal is totally asinine.There is no doubt the author of that article is not one of the threatened residents.

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Something I really get tired of hearing is when friends of coal turn the battle against mountaintop removal into a battle for the survival of coal which happens every single time. It would only be true if mountaintop removal were the only form of coal mining conducted in the coalfields. It is not, that is a fact.

The basis for many arguments, mine included, is that mountaintop removal is way to destructive and simply not necessary.

We have been doing underground mining since the beginning of coal mining. Why do we need mountaintop removal now? Because it is the only way to get the thin seams near the top? Why do we need the thin seams near the top? To keep up with demand? If we are going to make this an argument about coal and electricity for this nation then instead of blowing up the mountains why don’t we take some of the coal we are shipping abroad and reroute that to our needs? You simply cannot say we have to do mountaintop removal to feed our growing energy demand when we ship to and continue to look for markets overseas. This is the point where patriotism and energy security for the nation leaves the fight against mountaintop removal and greed combined with corporate profits an political corruption shows up. I simply can’t understand why more folks don’t see it.

I have no doubt the tons of coal we are shipping to overseas markets outweighs the tons of coal from mountaintop removal used for electrical generation in this country. The only way to turn this fight against mountaintop removal into a fight against coal for energy would be to eliminate shipping coal abroad.

The fact is mountaintop removal is not necessary. The fact is this is not a battle against coal for electricity, it is a battle for our home against corporate and political interests. It is nothing more complicated than that and that’s a fact.

Kayford Mountain Valley Fill Kayford Mountain Edwight, West Virginia Jupiter Coal, Bob White, West Virginia
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