January 2nd, 2009
Why "cheap" energy is really costly in the long run
The TVA coal sludge mess is like most disaster stories. In the first days estimates get continually worse until something close to realistic appraisal is reached. Then the lawsuits and finger-pointing begin. We’ve just hit that stage. TVA is now facing lawsuits.
Map Courtesy of TVA.
Four hundred acres of sludge cover is the current estimate. Heavy metals like arsenic, lead, thallium and mercury are contained in the sludge. That means those metals are in the soil and the streams carrying that soil. Arsenic alone is a bit of a worry. Local drinking water is…? Well, nobody seems certain. Here’s TVA’s official summary of the situation. Long-term effects? There was a similar though smaller spill in Kentucky eight years ago. Anybody doing a follow-up study of environmental and health issues? Probably not. Coal ash is not officially considered a toxic waste. That saves the industry and lot of money and ensures a friendly coal industry for many in Washington. I blogged about our phoney energy calculus when this sludge spill first happened.
Loading ...Here’s a very pointed editorial take from a Kentucky publication that witnessed the earlier sludge spill there. It’s all about maximizing the profits and curtailing the regulations. Nieghbors of the coal ash piles endure high risk and have little recourse because the ash is not “toxic.”
“The risk they endure is part of the price of cheap electricity. The reason that coal waste is not classified as hazardous is simple: Utilities and the mining industry (and ultimately energy consumers) would have to pay more to store and dispose of it.
“The Tennessee Valley Authority had piled up a small mountain of ash, 55 feet tall, with nothing but an earthen dike separating it from the Emory River. Why such a reckless practice was allowed is something for which Tennessee and U.S. regulators will have to answer.”
Frankly we all know why the reckless practice continues. Coal lobbyists and apologists oppose any tight regs on their business, promising and delivering cheap electricity based on American coal mining. It would be foolhardy and anti-American of any pol to suggest that the coal industry has an obligation to keep its waste and filth out of our air and water. Pollute on, baby, just keep that electricity flowing. Once again political and corporate interest trumps public interest. You buys your home, you takes your chances.
A LESSON WE CANNOT REMEMBER
As a longtime Californian, now moved to volcanoland in Oregon, I thought we all knew one of nature’s immutable laws. If nature is capable of causing something to happen, it eventually will. The 1906 earthquake, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, any number of hurricanes from Miami to Nawrleans to Galveston, pick any killer tornado, or Portland, Oregon, under 16 inches of December snow. If nature can do it, nature WILL do it eventually. Did anybody realistically think nature could never bring a fifty foot high hill of mushy ash down through an earthen barrier?
Now that the inevitable has happened, the cost in dollars and human suffering may well be higher than any honest accounting of what it would have cost to safely store or dispose of this ash in the first place. Of course safe ash disposal or storage, that might have taken a couple cents off the TVA quarterly revenue. Not polite or politic to fool around with our current phoney energy calculus which largely ignores health and pollution issues and costs.
The final bitter irony, the Kentucky ash spill was from a commercial operation. But TVA is the largest publicly-owned utility in the U.S. and even it will not safeguard the public unless forced to.
Speaking of the inveitable: new research says a swarm of comets hit the earth about 13,000 years ago. Result: global cooling. Could this happen and cancel out some of the effects of greenhouse gases? Is there an astronomer in the house?
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Subscribe to GreenTech Pastures via Email alerts or RSS.
