Ambre Energy’s Coal Mine Expansion Confidential

By Anne Hedges

Commenting on Ambre’s Decker coal mine expansion is shooting in the dark ... and that’s the way Ambre likes it.

Ambre Energy's Coal Mine Expansion Confidential (Photo: Coal mine in Montana)

When the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) asked for “feedback” on a proposal to lease 500 acres of coal-bearing land to the Decker West mine, the first question that came to mind was –what is the proposal exactly? The Decker Coal Company is owned by Australian coal giant Ambre Energy, a company leading the industry blitz to build West Coast coal export terminals so coal companies can make a killing selling undervalued U.S. coal to Asian markets. But if you want to find out more about Ambre’s proposal…fat chance!

BLM sent out a notice requesting public “feedback relevant to the issues that may influence the scope of the environmental analysis, including alternatives.” I also got a letter from BLM saying the most useful public comments are those that are “specific.”
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Montana Global Warming Emissions Continue to Increase

Pennsylvania Power's Colstrip Power Plant

By Derf Johnson

Last week brought some terrible news for those of us in Montana that care about reducing global warming emissions and stabilizing our climate. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that Montana’s energy related C02 emissions rate increased from 2000-2010 by 11.4%. Rather than recognizing and making efforts to address the very serious problem with continuing to emit heat-trapping gases, Montana has increased the amount of emissions that we spill out into our Big Sky every single year. In 2010 alone, Montana emitted over 34.9 million metric tons of C02 emissions.

Montana ranks low (41^st) in the total emissions we released, when compared to other states. But when you look at the emissions that each individual was responsible for, per capita emissions, Montana moved up to 6^th in the nation, only lagging behind Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska, West Virginia, and Louisiana. The common theme being that all of these states are relatively rural, fossil fuel energy producing states. But the reason for Montana’s incredibly high ranking deserves some serious extra scrutiny (details on this later).

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Signal Peak Energy Violates Safety Standards and Disputes Fines

by Derf Johnson

Signal Peak mine. Photo by Larry Mayer / Billings Gazette.

Coal mining, especially underground coal mining, is a dangerous occupation that puts workers and citizens at risk, causes fatalities, and brings about life-long injuries. This holds true at Montana’s lone underground coal mine, the Signal Peak mine in the Bull Mountains, whose short but checkered history, epitomizes an industry that more closely guards its profits than its workers well-being.

The flagrant disregard the mining industry showed for its workers and miners ultimately prompted the U.S. Congress in 1977 to pass the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act (FMSHA), to enforce compliance with mandatory safety and health standards to make coal mines safer for workers and to improve conditions at mines. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is the federal agency that is charged with enforcing the FMSHA, including coal mining in Montana.

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New Montana Coal Export Report is Pure Fiction

by Anne Hedges

The truth lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction

Otter Creek Montana. New Montana Coal Export Report is Pure Fiction. Photo by Kestrel Aerial Services, Inc.

The Otter Creek coal mine in southeast Montana will mine twice as much coal each year as the Montana DEQ says. Proposed expansions at Montana’s Spring Creek and Signal Peak coal mines will pay each new worker $523,257 and $483,740 respectively, while each existing worker at those mines only receive $88,857 and $75,763 respectively. All infrastructure needs from increased rail traffic for trains shipping coal to Asian markets can be paid for with state bonding and grant programs.

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Renewable Energy in Montana Threatened by 2013 Legislative Session

By Kyla Maki

Renewable Energy in Montana Threatened by 2013 Legislative Session. Picture of Judith Gap Wind Project.

This Tuesday the Senate Energy committee heard SB 31 (Sen. Debbie Barrett, R-Dillon). This bill would allow existing non-federally-owned dams to qualify as a renewable resource under Montana’s renewable energy standard.

MEIC views SB 31 as one of the biggest threats to new renewable energy development in the 2013 Montana Legislative Session. Under Sen. Barrett’s bill, over 1,100 megawatts (MW) of hydropower from century-old dams would suddenly qualify as an eligible renewable resource. Hydropower is a renewable resource—so why oppose this bill?

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Protecting Air Quality from the Two Largest Polluters in Montana

Pennsylvania Power's Colstrip Power Plant

by Anne Hedges

Last October, two and a half years late, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality finally renewed the air quality permits for the state’s biggest two polluters, the Colstrip and Corette power plants. MEIC and its members had urged the DEQ to comply with the clean air act and make sure both facilities comply with air pollution standards. Unfortunately DEQ refused to do so. As a result MEIC was forced to appeal both pollution permits to ensure that public health is protected.

How can DEQ guarantee that the massive Colstrip power complex is complying with an hourly particulate emission limit when the company is only required to measure particulate emissions once a each year for three hours? How can DEQ guarantee compliance with a particulate standard when it only requires the company to monitor a fraction of the particulate emissions instead of the all of the particulate emissions. The answer? It cannot.

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Montana Land Board and keystone XL

by Jim Jensen

Today during the meeting of the State Board of Land Commissioners, Gov. Brian Schweitzer did exactly what he has always done when it comes to global warming: he said one thing and did another. (See Webster’s New Collegiate dictionary: Hypocrisy – |hi?päkris?|noun ( pl. -sies) the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense).

What he said was that Montana could be a major part of the “solution to climate change” by storing C02 beneath eastern Montana in huge geologic features called salt domes. Of course, the agenda item before the board was the storage of natural gas, not C02.

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Corette’s Closing – Who’s REALLY to blame?

By Anne Hedges

Why is a Montana coal plant announcing a plan to shut its doors three years from now? The answer to that question is easy. It’s not wind. It’s not EPA. And it’s not Senator Jon Tester.

The only “blame” for Corette’s closure lies with Pennsylvania Power and Light. When Pennsylvania Power announced the eventual closure of the Corette coal-fired power plant in Billings it played bait and switch. It blamed the wind industry. It pointed the finger at the Environmental Protection Agency – a common scapegoat this election cycle. It was no surprise that the announcement came 6 weeks before a hotly contested election. Within what seemed like minutes of the announcement, Rep. Rehberg had television and newspaper ads blaming Senator Tester for the closure.

The Truth? It’s the Market

The 153-megawatt coal plant was built when gas cost 34¢/gallon and 8-track tapes were all the rage, and eventually must upgrade equipment or stand aside and let modern technology take its place. Any owner of a 44-year old piece of equipment would expect to invest in some upgrades over time.

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Doing good feels good

By Molly Severtson

MEIC's Director of Major Gifts, Molly Severtson

It’s a fact: giving to a cause we care about makes us feel good! Many recent studies, including those conducted at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, the National Institutes of Health, Emory University, and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, have said the same thing: there is such a thing as the “helper’s high!”

“A lot of times we think that happiness comes about because you get things for yourself,” said Richard Ryan, a psychologist at the University of Rochester. “But it turns out that in a paradoxical way, giving gets you more, and I think that’s an important message in a culture that’s pretty often getting messages to the opposite effect.”

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Montana Coal is Costly and Getting More Expensive

By Derf Johnson

Everyone knows that coal is an incredibly dirty way to produce energy. The degradation associated with mining, transporting, and burning coal is immense. There are very real costs to Montanans and Americans that will last for generations. The economic and environmental impacts of coal read like a dirty laundry list: coal energy fouls our water, pollutes our air, displaces wildlife, negatively impacts or eliminates agricultural economies, is a public health threat, reduces economic productivity, and drives us further down the path of irreversible climate change.

These are costs that we are already paying for, and generations of our children will almost certainly have to pick up our tab. But there’s one pillar that the coal PR folks love to stand on: coal is cheap. If you ignore the very real external costs associated with coal energy outlined above, coal certainly has been cheap in the past. But all signs are pointing in a much different direction for the upfront, consumer cost of coal - that Montana coal is costly and getting more expensive.

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