major disaster from collapse of man-make object...and NOT on River Road

[acroyear]

I'm all for being impressed when local DC news (that's not political) makes the nationals...but this is MUCH bigger and more important...and therefore doesn't seem to be noticed by anybody...

Pharyngula: Let's talk about clean coal:

When power plants burn coal to produce energy, the coal doesn't just vanish into the atmosphere to cause global warming. No, there's a substantial amount of left-over sludge called coal ash, a nasty mess that is enriched for toxic heavy metals. It is seriously nasty stuff. This glop has to be stored, somewhere, usually piled up and walled-off, because it's not healthy for anything.

[youtube video]

This is happening right now, here in the United States. Yesterday, a retaining wall failed, and 500 million gallons of coal ash — the vile grey slime in the video — poured down into the tributaries of the Tennessee River, the water supply for Chattannooga and environs.

We're looking at a major environmental catastrophe, bigger than any oil spill, and most of the news media are silent about it. I checked CNN, MS-NBC, even Fox News…not a word

Comments

[eiredrake.livejournal.com]

Yay clean coal!

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty unprofessional video. How do we know it's really a coal spill?

I know I'm skeptical but it makes me question the accuracy of the video when a local water main break that didn't kill anyone and only affected a few cars makes CNN for hours this AM because it's that much of a slow news day and there's not even local news coverage on a supposedly deadly coal ash spill.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

The video is the "raw footage", it is, in fact, EXTREMELY professional, shot by a local network. It just hasn't been edited or color-corrected (don't think that's distortion: ALL footage has to do that, just like no matter who the hell they pull off the street to give a spontaneous interview, there still someone there to apply make-up to them).

The Tennessean certainly thinks its real.

Flood of sludge breaks TVA dike | www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean
Update today on coal ash disaster in Harriman | www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean
Toxic Ash Pond Collapses in Tennessee: Scientific American
Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) - REPORT OF INVESTIGATION - Surface Impoundment Facility Underground Coal Mine Noninjury Impoundment Failure/Mine Inundation Accident - October 11, 2000 - Martin County, Kentucky
TVA Coal Ash Spill in River near Harriman, Tennessee, Estimated at 500 Million Gallons - Associated Content
The Associated Press: TVA dike bursts in Tenn., damaging a dozen homes

The fact that the big networks are dodging it IS MY WHOLE POINT!

If something isn't a direct "human interest" story (trapped commuters in freezing cold waters is a DC thing since Air Florida Flight 90, in 1982), or is something that can be used against "the usual targets" (Big Oil!), then it finds itself ignored and at the bottom of the stack. The fact that there isn't a science-team within, say, CNN to advise them as to the seriousness of this to MAKE it a story has been the biggest non-story of the media this decade.

Thanks to the constant "fairness" and "he said she said" crap, along with very active anti-science efforts by the extreme Right wing (environment and climate change, along with the extreme religious and their attack against evolution) and the extreme Left (anti-Pharmacy nuts preaching anti-vaccination), the media (themselves utterly uneducated on these matters) has ceased to give a shit anymore.

Maybe it'll make the news better when the obligatory lawsuits go flying around...maybe.

Hell, I don't even think the average high school graduate even remembers what the hell the TVA is...

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

So what's your solution to using coal as an energy source?

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Didn't say I had one. I was just one of those trying to "keep real" about coal, and that NO energy source is without consequences. The fact that we're only getting about 35% thermal efficiency out of it (65% burned coal is going to waste) should already be a clue that it's not the future and never should be seen as such. There's no such thing as "clean coal" - it's a right-wing invented term of spin used to deflect criticism of the abuses against the environment that the coal industry preys on.

For myself, I really want to see two "great inventions":

1) artificial photosynthesis - solar power that converts CO2 to O2. If we're making it too damn hard for the plants to do it all (and are killing the algae in the oceans that used to do it for us), then we'll have to do it ourselves.

2) *direct* energy. Heat, or something else (Nuke) that takes the excited electrons and released chemical energy and directly puts it into the grid rather than relying on magnetic turbines to do it. Even Nuclear power is really just a giant steam-producer for a large magnet array (at a 45% efficiency, mind you - better than coal). There's got to be some better way of tapping heat into electricity besides this.