Today the EPA issued new regulations on the much debated coal
combustion particles [0], better known as Coal Ash or Fly Ash. And while we linger
over the EPA’s decision not to classify coal ash as hazardous waste, regulated
by the feds, but leave significant decisions on enforcement and implementation to states themselves, we should take a
second to remember a few less known facts about this toxic sludge – and think
about the alternatives.
The 286 billion pounds of coal ash comes from burning over 2.4
trillion (with a ‘t’!) pounds of coal. And while other forms of energy have
ways to travel by sea, pipeline, and wind or through our atmosphere from the
sun, coal needs to be hauled. And hauled it is.
A conservative estimate puts the amount of miles driven by heavy-weight
coal-hauling locomotives burning polluting diesel fuels in the US, at over 1.5
trillion miles. Stopping the transport of coal alone would cut fuel consumption
in the US with the equivalent of over 1.7 million cars. And that’s diesel, not
your average “green”, high-octane gasoline. And that’s just if we weren’t
transporting it. If we stopped burning it all together, it would reduce carbon
dioxide emissions – also soon to be regulated by the EPA - by the equivalent of
715 million cars – three times the entire US car fleet.
Getting back to our lead character, coal ash: Coal ash was
named the “second-largest industrial waste stream in the U.S., after mining
wastes” by the American Physicians for Social Responsibility, who also note
that coal ash “commonly contains some of the world’s deadliest toxic metals:
arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and selenium [which] can cause cancer
and neurological damage in humans”[1].
This is not your average backyard compost.
So what can we do? With the new EPA ruling, it will be up to
States to implement and enforce these rules. Two ways remain to deal with it then:
One, we keep on keeping on burning coal, emitting toxic
particles and storing the waste under golf-courses, in concrete walls or under
children’s playgrounds [2] at over 1400 dump sites in the US. [3],
or two, we make a concerted effort to get rid of coal ash altogether.
Renewable energy production would completely remove the need
for burning fuels like coal, and in fact, if we replaced the entire US
electricity production from coal, with solar energy, we could cut waste production
from energy by 99.8%(!) using our rooftops and unused lands for producing clean,
coal-ash- free, solar power.
You think it’s impossible? In fact, just a small
fraction of surface area would be needed - 1% of the California desert would do.
Here’s to clearing the air, by looking to the sun.
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Picture: In 2008, an earthen wall holding back a huge coal ash disposal pond failed at the coal-fired power plant in Kingston, Tennessee. The 40-acre pond spilled more than 1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry into the adjacent river valley, covering some 300 acres with thick, toxic sludge and destroying three homes.
