Trying to read through the many emails and stories on this issue this morning. I’ll be updating this post as I go along.

At first blush, it appears that servers at the Hadley CRU – NOTE: this Realclimate.org posting notes that the files and email came from the University of East Anglia mail servers, not the Hadley CRU – may have been hacked and over 1,000 emails and many associated files have been copied and released onto the Internet — they may also have been leaked by an insider.

The Democrat Herald has a good editorial describing just how badly the latest Sierra Club anti-coal push misses the mark. Hasso Hering, (the author) describes how simple things like the fact that there’s no coal at Oregon State University appear to have escaped the movement’s organizers.

Hering then notes that if they expect OSU to stop buying their electricity from utilities that have coal in their generation portfolio, they will essentially have to give up on electricity or create their own special utility for their energy. Furthermore, he notes that while coal does have environmental impacts associated with its use, so do all the alternatives.

Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coalnews/coalmar.html

Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coalnews/coalmar.html

A bid by a Foundation Coal affiliate was accepted by the BLM for a coal block adjacent to the western boundary of the Eagle Butte Mine in Wyoming. The new lease is for "255 million minable tons of +8400 BTU coal on approximately 1400 acres of federal land."

Read the rest of the Foundation Coal news release here.

Nidhi Nath Srinivas, of the Sunday Economic Times (India Times) elaborates on why you should have coal in your investment portfolio.

You are playing crude oil and natural gas futures. You love ethanol. But if you haven’t got a fix on coal, your energy sector portfolio sucks.

I can give five reasons why you should start taking coal seriously.

Read Srinivas’ reasons here

Brazilian group to build the southern hemisphere’s biggest coal …
Mining Weekly, South Africa - Jun 22, 2007
Moatize will be the biggest coal mine in the southern hemisphere. Earlier this year, in March, at the Goldman Sachs Basic Materials Conference, …

[Google - Utility Coal News]

CVRD clears final milestone for Moatize project …
Mining Weekly, South Africa - Jun 29, 2007
The mine would have life of 35 years. Earlier this year, the company also bought an Australian coal miner, AMCI, to boost its coal production. …
[Google - Utility Coal News]

Congratulations to Arch Coal for having a subsidiary named the nation’s safest underground mine two years in a row.

Here is the text of a recent Arch Coal news release.

News from Arch Coal, Inc.

____________________________________________________________________________

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Media – Kim Link 314/994-2936

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Arch Coal Announces Band Mill Mine Named Nation’s Safest Underground Coal Mine, Earns Sentinels of Safety Award

Second consecutive year an Arch subsidiary ranks as safest underground mine

I came across an interesting editorial while reading through the Sept. 10, 07 edition of eWeek magazine today. In this article Senior Analyst, Wayne Rash puts to bed the theories of some media pundits who opined that since we can put men on the moon, we should surely have developed a way to use wireless communications in underground mines by now.

For the most part, the answers were obvious. Wireless communication, as we know it, isn’t going to reach through even a few feet of rock, and 1,500 feet of bed-rock is simply impossible

The head of the University of Utah’s Seismograph Stations, has linked this morning’s cave in at the Genwall Mine near Huntington, Utah with a 4.0 magnitude earthquake, “based on (seismograph) wave lengths.”

Six miners are currently unaccounted for at the mine and are feared trapped.

Specific information is spotty. However, reports indicate that the collapse was reported at 3:50 a.m., just after the earthquake hit. The epicenter of the quake was approximately 20 miles from the mine. Rocky Mountain Power is reported to have sent equipment and rescue crews to the area.