New research is looking at the ability of sapphires (yes, the gemstone) to be used in heat resistant sensors. The improved sensors could help to make coal gasification even cleaner and more efficient.

Thinking that natural gas can replace coal? Some quick facts to consider.

Coal is at least twice as plentiful and only one-third the cost of natural gas.

Plus, coal’s price is expected to DECREASE by 2% between now and 2030. The EIA predicts that natural gas prices will INCREASE by 78% over the same period.

Coal is the fuel of our future. It is domestically-sourced, affordable, abundant/secure, and increasingly clean. It’s our rock!

Read the Behind the Plug blog post for more information.

Via the “Behind the Plug” Blog

Construction workers are an indispensable part of the coal industry. Why? Because without their skilled labor and craftsmanship, who would build new power plants or retrofit existing ones with the latest clean coal technologies?
That’s why President Obama’s call for “five to 10 commercial [clean coal] demonstration projects to be up and running by 2016” last month is great for the construction industry.

Read the rest of the post at Behind the Plug

Fox13Now cameras recorded an interesting debate outside of the Utah Legislature this past Wednesday. The discussion was between UT State Rep. Mike Noel (who is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee) and former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. Anderson was aided in the debate by a few of the more opinionated and boisterous members of the gathered crowd.

The debate is about 8 minutes long and goes through a few less-than-comfortable moments. However, it generally gets to the heart of the entire debate over how to proceed in the face of a rapidly changing scientific “consensus” over the issue of climate change.

Via the LA Times – California’s nonpartisan legislative analyst’s office report states that pending global warming law could have negative impacts on the state’s already lagging economy. “Short-term job losses can be expected.”

From Americaspower.org we get the story of Wendy Hutchinson, an environmentalist whose “proud to work for a coal company.”

ACC members!

We’ve posted the top 5 rated presentations from the 2010 Spring Coal Forum to the Conference Presentations page (in the Member’s Section).

Be sure to check them out!

ACC CEO, Janet Gellici, quoted in the Citizens for Recycling First blog.

“Use of CCPs has been increasing for the past four decades, evolving into a multi-billion dollar industry here in the U.S.,” said Janet Gellici, American Coal Council CEO. “Our ability to continue increasing the amount of CCPs used beneficially, however, may be in jeopardy. Technologically, the coal ash universe is expanding and we’re finding more and better ways to use CCPs. But EPA’s pending regulations that may classify coal ash as a hazardous waste could seriously harm continued utilization.”

Read the remainder of the post here.

Senator Inhofe, ranking minority member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has just released a damning Senate report, titled “Consensus‟ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” The just-released report reviews the leaked emails and documents from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit (and the associated “Climategate” issues). The report claims that,

CRU EMAILS SHOW SCIENTISTS

• Obstructing release of damaging data and information;
• Manipulating data to reach preconceived conclusions;
• Colluding to pressure journal editors who published work questioning the climate science ―consensus; and
• Assuming activist roles to influence the political process.

There’s an interesting post on Business Insider, titled “Facebook Runs on Coal.”

As you read through the post, and the associated TreeHugger.com blog posting, you see that Facebook’s power choices are supposed to be a problem. Truthfully, however, I’m struggling to find a reason to criticize Facebook’s choices.

We all know that coal is a domestically-sourced, abundant, affordable, and secure fuel source. And, as we continue to use new, more efficient technologies to produce energy with coal, it keeps getting cleaner.