If the coal industry’s ringtone didn’t kill the hopes and dreams of the renewable energy revolution, this certainly will.

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Nick Rahall Jumps From a Plane for Coal. Here’s Why.
Rep. Rahall to leap out of a plane on behalf of coal

Mean Joe Green Cartoon Archive

James Hansen is considered the top climate scientist in the United States. He first testified to Congress about the dangers of global warming as far back as 1988, and he has taken up the cause of ending the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia. On June 22 in Yale e360, he published a “Plea to President Obama” on the subject, and yesterday he took it a step further: he joined in an act of civil disobedience by attempting to trespass on the property of Massey Energy near Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, and was arrested along with other protesters including Darryl Hannah and former US Representative Ken Hechler (D-WV).

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The stimulus package approved in February contains items aimed at making everyone an environmentalist. Well, let’s say practical environmentalist. By offering tax incentives for a variety of home greening initiatives, Congress managed to both raise and lower my spirits around environmental issues: it’s great that people will have reason to save energy and live more efficiently, but I hate that the reason has to be money before anyone pays attention.

As reported in the New York Times, the green measures homeowners can take and get paid for it include home-shell improvements like better windows and insulation all the way up through solar cells on rooftops and buying a hybrid vehicle. Overall, individual tax payers can earn up to $1,500 in tax credits for these types of initiatives.

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Richmond, Va. based coal company Massey Energy has announced plans to commence blasting at the site tomorrow (10th September), in an operation that will reduce the height of the mountain by 500 feet and free up ten square miles for coal mining activities.

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Look at what’s happening at some of these schools:

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The choices we make now will make or break our collective environmental future. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than with the dispute over West Virginia’s Coal River Mountain, one of the last mountains still intact in the Coal River Valley.

But the future of the mountain is in jeopardy. A subsidiary of Massey Energy has recently applied for strip mine permits that would destroy 6600 acres of the Coal River Mountain, or almost 10 square miles. Not only would this plan destroy a beautiful area, but it would also dump waste into valleys that fill almost every neighboring headwater stream.

The 15 year mining plan would destroy almost all viable wind power potential on the mountain.

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The seemingly innocuous question comes with all sorts of ethical baggage these days: for many Americans, recycling is not just an initial step into a greener life, but also an activity suffused with moral weight. While many will argue about the significance of individuals and families recycling items they might otherwise throw away, there’s no doubt that creative and innovative reuse of materials is critical for the health of the planet… and the people who reside on it (along with all of those other species). Tonight, the Sundance Channel’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet goes beyond the blue bin many of us place on the curb, and looks at three organizations that are taking recycling in some interesting, and effective, directions.

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“Quartz rocks placed in electric-arc furnaces exude oxygen as superheated gas, leaving molten silicon. Just venting all that heat without setting something afire is a concern.” — Jon Van, Chicago Tribune

Now a company has found a way to make money capturing and using that heat, to make steam to run electrical generators. Illinois company Recycled Energy Development LLC, or RED, announced it has closed a deal with West Virginia Alloys, a silicon making subsidiary of Globe Metallurgical, Inc. The deal allows West Virginia Alloys to lock in a price for its electricity for 25 years; since that’s their largest cost of doing business, they’re happy. And since West Virginia’s electricity comes from burning coal, the state is pretty happy about having a way to help offset the millions of tons of greenhouse gases produced there. RED is getting big money from a deal made with Denham Capital Management, a private equity firm fueled by $1.5Billion from Bill Gates and Harvard University.