Dirty little Coal secrets... shhh .... Talking Tr-Ash...

Sustainability eMagazine

If you have never done so, you want to visit the EarthJustice site about coal ash: http://earthjustice.org/our_work/campaigns/coal-ash-contaminates-our-lives

And what you want to do, is visit this site every time you see one of these sweet and pretty ads about "Clean Coal".

Admittedly, the EarthJustice takes the other side of this far, very far-from-clean, source of energy. However, coal produces half of the electric power in the US. Well, all right, now only about 34%. But that "cheap" energy has a lot to do with the high quality of life that we all enjoy. It also does not get credit for the hidden costs it presents to the environment and to personal health.

Back to the dirty little secret of Coal Ash. Remember the Ash trashing by TVA in 2008. The damage is into the billions of dollars and climbing. And it has not been cleaned up. All those heavy metals in the ash down a couple rivers. Sadly, that's a gift that keeps on giving.

Heavy metals include lead, mercury, arsenic and more. Sulfur, lots of sulfur. They can have traces of radiation. We, in the US, tend to want to clean most of these by-products from this soot from the smoke. Other countries like India and China, not so much so.

And we have these ash build-ups all over the world.... And the mountains are growing.

Here's just one source on the running costs and litigation at ABC News.

Of course is the worst fossil fuel, by far, in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

We don't need to burn that dirty coal, better simply to ship it to China and India and let them burn it there. No harm done in that.