Coal – Page 61 – Republic of Mining

Turkey launching smart coal strategy, energy minister says (Daily Sabah – December 1, 2017)

December 1, 2017

https://www.dailysabah.com/

Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak said the government’s basic principle has been to act with smart, rational strategies in all the processes of coal, indicating that they were launching a “smart coal strategy.”

Speaking at the opening of the 2nd Coal Action Plan Workshop Thursday, Minster Albayrak said that domestic coal is of great importance to reduce external dependence on energy.

Meanwhile, he also said that the domestic car is an important source to be evaluated with regard to employment and added value. “In all the processes of coal, our basic principle has been to act with smart and rational strategies,” the minister said with regards to the smart coal strategy.

‘Cobalt for cobalt’s sake’: Electric vehicle boom changing the equation for a mining byproduct – by Geoff Zochodne (Financial Post – November 30, 2017)

November 30, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

Investors have renewed their interest in an historic Canadian cobalt play amid a recent boom brought on by the adoption of electric vehicles.

Toronto-based First Cobalt Corp. has seen its stock price double in value since announcing last week that it had received shareholder backing for a three-way merger with fellow juniors Cobaltech Mining Inc. and Cobalt One Ltd. The deal includes past-producing mines near Cobalt, Ont., a town named after the metal and located approximately 500 kilometres north of Toronto.

With its acquisitions expected to close in the coming week or so, First Cobalt says it now controls 45 per cent of the land in the so-called “Cobalt Camp,” in addition to owning the only permitted cobalt refinery on the continent that can produce battery-grade materials. While the camp is still in its exploratory stage, shares of First Cobalt are up nearly 280 per cent for the year, closing at $1.47 Wednesday.

Coal mining executive who spent a year behind bars for intentionally violating worker safety standards will run for SENATE against endangered Democrat in West Virginia – by Geoff Earle (Daily Mail – November 29, 2017)

November 30, 2017

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

A mining company CEO who did time in prison for conspiring to violate mine safety in connection with a massive mine explosion is running against Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia.

Don Blankenship did a year-long stint in a California prison after getting convicted of willfully breaking safety standards. He got convicted after the Upper Big Branch disaster that resulted in the deaths of 29 miners in 2010.

Manchin won election in 2012 with 60 per cent of the vote, but is considered vulnerable because of the voting patterns in the state he represents. He voted through most of President Trump’s nominees, and votes with the president about two-thirds of the time.

U.S. repeal of carbon rule criticized in coal country – by Kara Van Pelt (Reuters U.S. – November 28, 2017)

November 29, 2017

https://www.reuters.com/

CHARLESTON, W. Va. (Reuters) – Health groups, environmentalists and a former coal miner criticized the Trump administration’s proposal to dismantle an Obama-era rule to slash carbon emissions from power plants at a public hearing held in the heart of coal country on Tuesday.

The hearing also heard from many coal supporters who said that the plan would cost utilities billion of dollars, which would likely result in mining job cuts.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hosted the two-day hearing in West Virginia on its proposal to axe the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the centerpiece of former President Barack Obama’s strategy on climate change. It was the only meeting scheduled on the rule, which President Donald Trump has said would devastate the coal industry.

Labor Set to Win Queensland Vote in Blow to Turnbull – by Adam Haigh and Jason Scott (Bloomberg News – November 26, 2017)

November 27, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Labor government is favored to return to power in the northeast Australian state, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and raising doubts about the future of a $12.6 billion coal mine.

Analysts projected her party would win the highest number of seats in Saturday’s vote, with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. predicting it may win enough to form a majority government in the 93-seat parliament. The ABC reported Labor had taken 43 and will likely gain at least another four, with the Liberal National Party set for as many as 41 seats. Vote counting may continue for days before the outcome is clear.

“As soon as every vote is counted, then I will be talking to my colleagues about the future ministry,” Palaszczuk, 48, said on Sunday. “We are confident of a Labor majority.”

German activists lose bid to halt Hambach mine expansion – by Patrick Grobe (Deutsche Welle – November 24, 2017)

November 24, 2017

http://www.dw.com/en/

Cries of protest erupted in the Cologne Administrative Court on Friday after the judge ruled that development plans for the Hambach open-pit mine did not breach environmental legislation and could go ahead as planned. Conservation organization BUND, which filed the lawsuit, vowed to appeal the decision.

“We will continue to pursue all legal and political avenues to stop this irresponsible open-pit mine and to save what remains of the Hambach forest,” BUND’s managing director in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) said.

The group argued that NRW authorities should never have approved mine operator BWE’s plans for the 2020-2030 period, saying the upcoming expansion would mean felling trees in the ancient Hambach forest.

From Out a Darker Sea review – elegiac tribute to Britain’s coal miners – by Dave Simpson (The Guardian – November 23, 2017)

November 23, 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/

“Our civilisation is founded on coal” wrote George Orwell in 1937; at its peak a century ago, Britain’s coal-mining industry employed more than a million people. Today the figure is under 700 and many of the former mining communities have never recovered.

That gargantuan decline forms the backdrop to this unusual audio-visual show: a haunting and often deeply moving requiem for an industry and its people.

Time spent in England’s mining areas has allowed Brooklyn-based quartet Sō Percussion to develop an understanding of industrial power and the lives of those who once helped build it. Performing in sacred spaces – cathedrals and churches – in these former coal-mining areas gives From Out a Darker Sea an elegiac air.

In shadow of OPEC’s noisy oil cuts, Asia’s miners quietly tightened coal supplies – by Henning Gloystein (Reuter U.S. – November 22, 2017)

November 23, 2017

https://www.reuters.com/

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Australian and Indonesian miners have quietly done in the last two years what OPEC has been shouting about: tighten coal markets and prop up prices.

The informal coal output reductions, unlike the official cuts in place since January led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), are culminating right as Asia enters the Northern Hemisphere winter when heating demand peaks in January. Additionally, there are warnings a La Nina pattern that typically brings colder-than-normal weather to the Northern Hemisphere might occur.

In 2015, at the peak of the coal glut, Glencore, the world’s biggest thermal coal exporting firm, said it would start cutting exports by scaling back some open pit mining and deferring investments in Australia in order to tackle oversupply. Indonesian mines were quick to follow.

Great Barrier Reef Pitted Against Coal Jobs in Australia Vote – by Jason Scott and Perry Williams (Bloomberg News – November 21, 2017)

November 22, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The fate of Adani Group’s A$16.5 billion ($12.4 billion) Australian coal mine hinges on weekend elections in Queensland state, as voters weigh the promise of new jobs against a potential environmental threat to the Great Barrier Reef.

The Labor government has vowed to reject A$900 million in federal funding for a new rail link, which is needed to carry coal to the coast for export. The opposition Liberal National Party, vying to win office in Saturday’s ballot, says that threatens the viability of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s project, and with it the economic future of the resource-rich state.

As the world grapples with the fossil fuel’s role in the future energy mix, the proposed Carmichael mine has become a defining issue in the election. Opinion polls indicate the result is too close to call.

INTERVIEW: A Troubling Look at the Human Toll of Mountaintop Removal Mining – by Richard Schiffman (Yale Environment 360.com – November 21, 2017)

November 21, 2017

http://e360.yale.edu/

For years, the coal industry has dismissed the idea that mountaintop mining adversely affects people living nearby. But research by Indiana University’s Michael Hendryx provides stark evidence that this widespread mining practice is leading to increases in disease and deaths in Appalachia.

The devastating environmental impacts of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia have long been well documented. But over the last decade, Indiana University researcher Michael Hendryx has been examining another consequence of this form of coal surface mining that had previously been overlooked: the health impacts on the people in the surrounding communities.

What he has found, Hendryx says, is a public health disaster, with more than a thousand extra deaths each year in areas of Appalachia where mountaintop removal (MTR) operations take place.

The air and water pollution caused by this mining practice, which involves deforesting and tearing off mountaintops to get at the coal, is leading to increases in cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, pulmonary disease, and birth defects, his research shows.

NEWS RELEASE: UK Researchers First to Produce High Grade Rare Earths From Coal (November 20, 2017)

November 21, 2017

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 20, 2017) — University of Kentucky researchers have produced nearly pure rare earth concentrates from Kentucky coal using an environmentally-conscious and cost-effective process, a groundbreaking accomplishment in the energy industry.

“As far as I know, our team is the first in the world to have provided a 98 percent pure rare earth concentrate from a coal source,” said Rick Honaker, professor of mining engineering.

From national defense to health care, rare earth elements or REEs are essential components of technologies like iPhones, computers, missiles and other applications. Interest in REEs is at an all-time high in the U.S. right now, with the Department of Energy investing millions in research. Honaker has received $7 million from the department to produce rare earths from Kentucky coal sources, a feat he has now accomplished, and $1 million for other REE projects.

Coal Back as Flashpoint in Climate-Change Fight – by Jess Shankleman (Bloomberg News – November 18, 2017)

November 20, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Coal emerged as the surprise winner from two weeks of international climate talks in Germany, with leaders of the host country and neighboring Poland joining Donald Trump in support of the dirtiest fossil fuel.

While more than 20 nations, led by Britain and Canada, pledged to stop burning coal, German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her country’s use of the fuel and the need to preserve jobs in the industry. Meanwhile Poland’s continued and extensive use of coal raised concerns that the next meeting, to be held in the nation’s mining heartland of Katowice, could thwart progress.

“People don’t have total confidence that Poland wants to increase ambition, to put it plainly,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. “They’re 80 percent dependent on coal, they’ve been pushing back against European Union proposals to increase ambition.”

Canada’s pathetic, empty-headed crusade against coal – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – November 15, 2017)

November 15, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

Of all the empty gestures in the pathetic history of global climate policy-making, few match the air-headedness of Canada’s intent — to be officially announced Thursday at the United Nations COP23 climate conference in Bonn — to lead a global campaign to rid the world of carbon-emitting coal.

By any measure, Canada is a nobody in the coal business, ranking near the bottom of all global measures of the industry, worth less than one per cent of global production and consumption. Canada is a non-player, a zero, an insignificant speck on the great world coal market.

But that isn’t stopping Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, donning her Climate Crusader Halloween outfit, from swooshing into COP23 to take on the world. “Canada is committed to phasing out coal,” she said.

At same time U.S. hosts Bonn event praising coal, Canada’s environment minister goes on Twitter to blast its use – by Mia Rabson (National Post – November 14, 2017)

November 15, 2017

http://nationalpost.com/

CANADIAN PRESS – OTTAWA — A U.S. effort to stoke the fires of coal-powered electricity didn’t escape the attention of Canada’s environment minister Monday as Catherine McKenna used her Twitter account to troll the carbon-based fuel just as American officials were extolling its virtues.

McKenna is in Bonn, Germany, for the 2017 United Nations climate change talks, where the rules for implementing the 2015 Paris accord are being hammered out — and where she and British counterpart Claire Perry hope to convince the world to abandon coal-fired power.

By contrast, the United States — with President Donald Trump at its helm — has famously promised to “end the war on coal.”

Canada, Britain to tout coal phase-out as U.S. champions fossil fuels – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – November 13, 2017)

November 13, 2017

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and her British counterpart, Claire Perry, will launch an international alliance to phase out coal-fired electricity at the Bonn climate summit this week, signalling a sharp contrast to U.S. President Donald Trump’s promotion of coal as an important global energy source.

Ms. McKenna will take the stage at the annual United Nations climate summit to showcase Canada’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including a national carbon pricing plan and federal-provincial moves to shut down traditional coal-fired power by 2030.

As the minister touts Canada’s record at the UN summit, some critics at home argue the Trudeau government is not living up its lofty rhetoric on climate change.