By Ivy Brashear
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

The scholar who has done the most to connect mountaintop removal coal mining with public health issues explained and defended his work last week during a lecture at Morehead State University.

The studies by Michael Hendryx and his colleagues at West Virginia University have become controversial because they show correlations between coal mining and public health, not that mining causes health problems. Showing the relationship between two separate things is correlation; showing that one thing causes another is causation.

United States Patent: 4838898

Since we have been, and will more extensively be, making report of the rather vast body of knowledge and established commercial technology that exists for the productive recycling and reuse of Coal Combustion Products, "CCP's", or, as we prefer, Coal Utilization Byproducts, "CUB's", as, for one recent example, in:

Coal Ash Can Reduce Construction Costs | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 5,624,491 - Compressive Strength of Concrete and Mortar Containing Fly Ash; 1997; Assignee: New Jersey Institute of Technology; Abstract: The present invention relates to concrete, mortar and other hardenable mixtures comprising cement and fly ash for use in construction ... , concrete and mortar containing about 15% to 25% fly ash as a replacement for cement, which are capable of meeting design specifications required for building and highway construction, are provided. Such materials can thus significantly reduce construction costs. Government Interests: The research leading to the present invention was conducted with Government support under Contract No. DE-FG22-90PC90299 awarded by the Department of Energy. The Government has certain rights in this invention";

Fluid bed coal gasification - Gulf Oil Corporation

As we've previously reported and commented, there exists in the technical literature, especially in the records of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, an immense body of demonstrated knowledge clearly establishing the fact that Coal, and just about any other Carbon-based substance, including all sorts of Carbon Dioxide-recycling organic or botanical materials, and even Carbon Dioxide itself, can be transformed into what is known as synthesis gas, more simply just "syngas", a blend of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen, which can then be transformed through a variety of well-known and, within the petroleum industry, widely-used catalytic reaction processes into both liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons,

That knowledge base concerning the catalytic transformation of Carbon Monoxide with Hydrogen, and even of Carbon Dioxide with Hydrogen, into various hydrocarbons, is, in fact, almost vast; but, such chemical transactions, as we've pointed out in many of our reports, is often "lumped" under the generic label of  Fischer-Tropsch" synthesis, named after the German scientists who, as seen in our report of:

FACES of Coal and the West Virginia Coal Association joined to host Senator Joe Manchin, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and other state and local political and business leaders for a roundtable discussion about the Obama Administration’s “War on Coal” and the EPA’s multiple front assault through air rules and the uncertainty of the NPDES situation.

The discussion took place at Walker Machinery in Belle. The group discussed the specifics of the EPA’s rules, policies and efforts to kill Appalachian coal both, mining and burning.  Follow-up strategies are being developed.

When the EPA published their new GHG rules they claimed they would be subject to review before implementation, but this was a ruse. It is now obvious that the new rules go into effect as soon as they are published in the federal register and the damage done by these rules may be felt much sooner than even previously thought.

“This EPA is apparently willing to conceal the truth, to fabricate fact, if it serves their goals. They continue to claim these GHG standards are not final but it is now clear that they consider them final upon publication and they are moving forward to implementation. The damage is already being felt. Have you looked at your electric bill recently? Unfortunately, the EPA continues to ignore the real impact their rules will have on American families and businesses by driving up energy prices and destroying jobs.”

EPA regulations are responsible for the announced closure of more than 140 electricity generating units in 19 states.

“How can this not impact the grid?” Raney said. “This threat isn’t one, two or 10 years in the future. This threat is now. It is here. They are imposing their agenda by regulation when they couldn’t get it passed by legislation.”