It Was the Worst Industrial Disaster In US History, and We Learned Nothing 290
superboj writes "Forget Deepwater Horizon or Three Mile Island: The biggest industrial disaster in American history actually happened in 2008, when more than a billion gallons of coal sludge ran through the small town of Kingston, Tennessee. This story details how, five years later, nothing has been done to stop it happening again, thanks to energy industry lobbying, federal inaction, and secrecy imposed on Congress. 'It estimated that 140,000 pounds of arsenic had spilled into the Emory River, as well as huge quantities of mercury, aluminum and selenium. In fact, the single spill in Kingston released more chromium, lead, manganese, and nickel into the environment than the entire U.S. power industry spilled in 2007. ... Kingston, though, is by far the worst coal ash disaster that the industry has ever seen: 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash, containing at least 10 known toxins, were spilled. In fact, the event ... was even bigger than the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010, which spewed approximately 1 million cubic yards of oil into the Gulf of Mexico."
Not even close to the worst. (Score:5, Insightful)
There real reason ... (Score:0, Insightful)
Is that the media decided not to cover it because it was not on either coast and they didn't have a clear way to blame it on the Bush administration.
Re:There real reason ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not even close to the worst. (Score:5, Insightful)
And I work in the energy industry...
Re:Not even close to the worst. (Score:3, Insightful)
bullshit, more lives saved and extended and given modern life of luxury through the use of fossil fuels than any other technological action of man
Re:We've learned nothing? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a matter of "how much" it's a matter of "Who lives down river"
I'm going to hazard a guess that in this case it was poor people.
Re:Not even close to the worst. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but the point you guys need to come to terms with is that fossil fuels aren't the only source of energy production and transport, and it's becoming apparent that the harm outweighs the minor increases in fiscal cost of many other technologies.
We do indeed have those that think that somehow things were better before industry, but those aren't the people you should be discussing the future with. Just like I shouldn't be discussing energy plans with people who think oil is a divinely provided renewable resource.
Re:Not even close to the worst. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing that nuclear power can't fix with a much lower impact.
Re:There real reason ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've read a number of different estimates for deaths related to coal pollution, 10-15K annually in the US, 150-300K globally. Even if those estimates are 10 time actual, it is hard to beat coal pollution as the top killer for industrial activity. Disasters like collapses of mines, dams, coal ash pond get a lot more attention.
Turning off every coal plant today would be a much bigger disaster -- people freezing, starving, diseases, etc. would be far worse, but hey, I am all for replacing coal with safer nukes, etc. All major systems will results in accidents and deaths, it is kind of the way it is. Even today, $/kwh from coal is generally cheaper than the viable alternatives. Arguably, a new generation of nuclear power could be cheaper than coal (fuel costs on the order of 15-25% of coal), but this is certainly not guaranteed.
You still need transportation fuels (hard to replace jet planes with battery operated or nuclear).,
Re:Not even close to the worst. (Score:4, Insightful)
i agree, however we're not smart enough like other nations to be researching or building the reactors that can't melt down, make no long -term waste (as in decay in decades rather than millenia), and that can even burn our enormous cache of cooling pond and cask "spent fuel"
Oh shuit up you just hate frreedom (Score:5, Insightful)
You just hate freedom. You want to take away my right to pollute the atmosphere so badly that it causes massive socio-political upheaval s around the world completely re-ordering the geopolitical landscape , uniting our enemies and making new ones under a unified belief that THIS is what America did to us, unleashing waves of suicide terrorism both abroad and domestically, all fueled by the deaths of hundreds of millions of innocent people, and unified by the theme that "this (desertification, devastating ocean rise unsurvivable heat waves, crop failures and finally, the death of large ocean life as the acidification takes out the lowest levels of the oceanic food pyramid, causing all above to collapse - THIS is what America did to us".
You just hate America and you're against freedom. That's all.
Re:Not even close to the worst. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not even close to the worst. (Score:4, Insightful)
hyperbole that equates controlled use of energy resources to industrial accidents
Melting the north pole may not an accident but it is certainly an environmental disaster of unprecedented proportions.