Workers allegedly denied safety gear, told coal ash ‘safe enough to eat’

Strongly elevated risk of cancer? What is the source of that statement?

The time has
come to tax coal ash so coal burners are incentivized to harness
technology to eliminate coal ash entirely. Let’s say a tax of $10 per ton of
coal ash is levied on every coal-fired plant in the US. With 140,000,000 tons
of coal ash per year being produced, about 90,000,000 million tons is being
buried and stored for later disposal (fill), while the rest (about 45,000,000
tons) is being used in concrete and other products.

Do the math. That 90 million tons/year generates 900 million dollars of tax
that can be used to clean up the mess that’s being made by current coal ash
disposal methods. Coal fired plants can use plasma-arc vitrification systems –
the same being used on the newest US Aircraft carriers – to vitrify the ash so
it is reduced by 95% or more into an inert glass. And if technology to gasify
the coal ash is adopted, it may be possible to recover some of the wasted
energy for steam, which in turn generates electricity. That process could
negate the “Coal Ash Tax” because it could provide electricity to
consumers, keep our environment clean, and generate revenue for the coal-fired
plants – – all at a much lower cost than hauling and storing the ash as being
done now.

Here’s the plan. All coal ash produced by US coal-burning energy plants will be
taxed at a rate of $10 per ton. At the rate of 140,000,000 tons per year
generated in the US, the coal ash tax potentially generates $1.4 billion per
year that would be held in an environment cleanup trust fund, controlled by
publicly elected representatives living in communities near coal ash disposal
sites, much like your mayors and sheriffs – – make it local and not from some
fantasy land in DC. And to spice up the motivation, when coal ash disposal
sites are located within a flood plain or near a waterway, the coal tax would
be doubled to a rate of $20 per ton.

Qualified waiver incentives to escape the coal ash tax are simple.
First, the coal ash tax is waived on ash that is recycled for building
materials, which currently averages 40% at typical US coal-fired plants. Of the
140,000,000 tons currently produced each year in the US, about 56,000,000 tons
are reused in building materials. That brings the Coal Ash Tax Trust Fund
(let’s call it the CATT Fund) down to an annual potential of $840,000,000 for
the coal ash that’s being disposed in landfills. But if a landfill or holding
area (e.g., pond) is on a flood plain or within 500 yards of a waterway, an
additional tax of $10 per ton is levied on ash disposed in those sites. For
round numbers, let’s assume the CATT Fund will collect $1 billion in taxes
annually for the mix of disposal sites being used today.

At a $1 billion in new taxes, one would think energy companies will be
motivated to eliminate coal ash altogether. Their second option is to apply a
technology that was developed, tested and is being implemented by the US
Department of Defense. A very-high-temperature process known as plasma-arc
waste destruction is currently being installed on the next-generation of US
Navy aircraft carriers. These plasma-arc systems can be optimized for a variety
of waste streams. For coal ash, a plasma-arc system can be packaged to vitrify
and gasify about 98% of the coal ash currently being buried in landfills.
That’s roughly 82,000,000 tons of coal ash that can be kept out of your
waterways and nearby landfills using a very affordable alternative to
landfills.

So what do you do with the remaining 2,000,000 tons that’s left each year from
plasma-arc vitrification? This glassy-like residual material is an inert binder
of minerals that traps traces of formerly toxic residuals, which can also be
used for building materials beyond the current concrete and gypsum use. But
there are dozens of other potential and high-value uses, particularly if you
are a ceramics engineer who can add certain ingredients to the molten glass as
it pours out of the plasma-arc vitrification system. How about amorphous
photovoltaic cells? It’s possible to produce an 18% efficient photovoltaic cell
from vitrified coal ash (as long as Solyndra isn’t working on it).

The third motivator for energy companies using coal-fired plants is to set
aside a research and development fund derived from a 10% portion of the CATT
Fund. Qualified companies would be able to propose R&D projects and receive
matching funds to achieve greater efficiencies in coal ash elimination or
improve processes, such as using a plasma-arc vitrification system to generate
synthetic gas that can drive a turbine generator. If a company’s coal ash
elimination R&D project is successfully demonstrated and implemented, the
company would be reimbursed from the CATT Fund’s R&D portion.

In summary, neither energy companies nor their electricity customers would have
to pay a cent of coal ash tax if all of the coal ash is reused for building
materials, eliminated with technology such as a plasma-arc system or converted
to energy by yet-discovered processes via CATT Fund.

How do we as citizens put the Coal Ash Tax on our November ballots? It’s
probably too late in most towns. But if you’re serious about a Coal Ash Tax
that would inspire energy companies to keep your water and land clean, there’s
a way to make it happen. Vote for candidates like Thom Tillis who have pledged
to support using new technologies to eliminate coal ash – – but make them draft
the legislation before the elections so you can read it and you know they’re
serious about starting the effort on their first day in office.

Beware of candidates (like Kay Hagen) who tell you a coal ash tax is not the
solution; this means they don’t have a plan to stop coal ash from being buried
in your backyards, and it means they don’t have a clue about harnessing
existing technology to eliminate coal ash. The incumbent politicians have had
years to solve the problem, and it keeps getting worse, so vote against every
incumbent in the upcoming elections. For example, Thom Tillis is already pressing
clean-up of coal ash landfills through recent legislation; Kay Hagen doesn’t
have a plan or a clue, just a false story to self-promote her reelection for
doing absolutely nothing to end the coal ash dilemma. Tom Tillis is already investigating plasma arc vitrification of coal ash for his plan to eliminate coal ash entirely; Kay Hagen doesn’t know how to spell vitrification. Your vote for the right
candidate could begin to eliminate all the coal ash in your community during
that candidate’s term. In a few years, coal ash could be something we had to
live with before American voters got involved.