Coal power supplies most of the electricity that we use here in America. It’s been that way for a long time. Because of coal’s popularity as a source of power, mines, both active and abandoned, lay scattered across the nation. And now, with coal’s popularity waning, the number of abandoned mines could increase. Since 2001 alone, 100 coal-fired plants have taken their turn in front of the firing squad.

And it doesn’t seem as though it’s over. If the trend of extinguishing coal-fired plants continues, more and more mines will be shut down, not to mention mines that simply up and quit. But what is to be done with the abandoned mines? It isn’t as though we can just dispose of them at some hi-tech facility. These mines will become useless scars.

Two engineers from the University of Oviedo have an idea, though. In their research, which is being published in the journal Renewable Energy, Rafael Rodríguez and his colleague María Belarmina Díaz claim that mine shafts on the point of being closed down could be used to provide geothermal energy to local towns.

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I can see clearly now, the smoke is gone. Or prevented. Thanks to the Sierra Club, who celebrated a landmark in the fight against coal today. Thanks to advocacy in favor of ending coal, Intermountain Power decided to pull the plug on a coal plant in Delta, Utah, making the 100th plant to be either abandoned or prevented since the beginning of the 2001 coal rush.

The Delta plant “would have burdened Utah with more coal-burning pollution,” said Wayne Hoskinson, chairman of the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club. “This opens the door for additional renewable projects, like the Milford wind development, allowing the state to still be an exporter of energy without the cost of worsened air quality and more mercury pollution.” It is exactly this shift from coal to renewables that the Sierra Club has been advocating since it began its Beyond Coal Campaign.

The abandonment of the Delta plant comes in the wake of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s announcement last week that Los Angeles would be coal free by 2020 and is reason to celebrate. “Stopping one hundred coal plants is a huge milestone in our fight to end global warming,” said Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign.

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Today, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid released a letter asking the Capitol Architect to switch the Capitol Power Plant from coal to 100 percent natural gas by the end of 2009.

The switch to natural gas will allow the CPP to dramatically reduce carbon and criteria pollutant emissions, eliminating more than 95 percent of sulfur oxides and at least 50 percent of carbon monoxide.

Pelosi and Reid’s letter comes just three days before more than 2,500 people from across the country will converge at the power plant for the biggest civil disobedience on climate issues in U.S. history.

Noting that the Capitol Power Plant continues to be the number one source of air pollution and carbon emissions in the District of Columbia, the Congressional leaders thanked the Capitol Architect for the work they had done on increasing efficiency at CPP but that, “more must be done to dramatically reduce plant emissions and the CPP’s impact.”

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The economic downturn, widely credited for December’s sluggish demand, suggests that 2009 import levels will not surpass those of 2008. Indeed, 2009 figures may even fall short of last year’s, due to the unique conditions that spurred LNG imports in 2008. Precautionary preparation for the Beijing Olympics was a major driver of surging LNG demand in the summer of 2008. Plagued with domestic shortages of natural gas, the Chinese shored up their stockpiles of gas and oil in the lead up to the Olympics.

How could 4,000 LNG-powered buses and cabs Beijing installed on the road and the conversion of burners in several power plants from coal-fired to gas-fired require such an influx, you ask?  It did not, which is why China, having made excessive preparations for the Olympics, relaxed in October as the falling numbers suggest.

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A Superior Court Judge in Fulton County, Georgia has ruled that construction of Dynegy’s Longleaf plant be halted until it is assured the plant will limit the amount of carbon dioxide it releases.

The original permit would have allowed the plant to emit 9 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, something the court said was unreasonable.

The court cited the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling recognizing that carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.  It’s the first time any court has applied the ruling to an industrial source.

Commenting on the ruling, Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign said:

“Coal-fired power plants emit more than 30% of our nation’s global warming pollution.  Thanks to this decision, coal plants across the country will be forced to live up to their clean coal rhetoric.”

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A Navajo Nation enterprise has filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday for dragging its feet on an air permit for a proposed coal-fired power plant. Dine Power Authority of the Navajo Nation and Houston-based Sithe Global Power have partnered to build the $3 billion, 1500 megawatt Desert Rock plant. The group filed for a permit back in 2004 and is still awaiting a final decision. “Time is money,” said Steven Begay, the general manager of DPA. Begay added, “Sithe is spending money, and we’re spending money. The longer we wait, the more money we spend … and we don’t want to do that. We want to move forward.”

Sithe has alredy invested about $20 million in the project and the lawsuit claims the tribe is losing $5 million per month in tax revenue for each month the permit is delayed. The investor group announced in January that they would be suing the agency, and that they would be represented by friend of ‘big energy,’ Giuliani and Bracewell. Apparently Rudy Giuliani will find ways to assert his political will, even if he can’t be President.

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