Thursday, January 31, 2008
parliament says it's safe, so why not bury it there?:
My TWI colleague Suemedha Sood has an amazing story about a rare form of bone marrow cancer that's sprung up in areas near coal-ash dumping sites -- an unfortunate by-product (in both senses) of the environmental movement's advocacy of clean-coal technologies:
The solid waste side of coal is being overlooked as environmentalists focus their attention on air pollution and as government agencies and coal companies push "clean" coal technologies. "Cleaner" coal technologies actually produce more toxic coal ash in the resulting solid wase than "dirty" coal technologies, says Jeff Stant of the Clean Air Task Force. These technologies pulverize low-grade fuels in a way that releases fewer pollutants into the air. But those pollutants have to go somewhere, and they end up as ash.
I told you TWI was for real.
--Spencer Ackerman