Burning the future…
December 30th, 2007
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Issue-driven documentaries often tend to stretch the truth a bit and paint a rather unbalanced picture of things, but this one is really spot on when it comes to an important issue: Coal and coal mining. As I’ve mentioned before, coal is pretty filthy, and when burned it creates a tremendous amount of nasty byproducts as well as considerably more CO2 than could ever be reasonably captured and stored anywhere. Coal is basically carbon and thus creates mostly CO2, but it also contains a hodgepodge of sulfur, mercury, lead, other heavy metals organic compounds and so forth.
There’s another side to it too: Mining of coal is absolutely devastating to the local environment. One needs to remember that coal mining is nearly always on a massive scale. Unlike other mining operations, coal reserves are physically vast and cover large areas. And massive amounts of coal are needed just to keep the power flowing. A single power plant needs many thousands of tons of coal each day. The result is a mining operation which is not only dirty, but so large that there’s no reasonable way of containing or managing the effects it has on the area.
He’s a preview from the film “Burning The Future: Coal in America.” What they mention here is not a “worst case generic” but rather it is the standard issue effects of coal mining. This is just how it is when you go around digging out coal and burning millions of tons a day. Coal seems do not tend to be clean places in general and coal is prone to soaking in a lot of nasty minerals.
This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 9:37 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, History, Politics, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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December 30th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Can’t wait to see the whole thing.
Coal looks cheap at the moment because we charge it nothing for its environmental damage, I would love to see it made to toe the same line as nuclear. I am dead sure that clean coal when and if it ever comes on-line will be just as expensive as nuclear, and will have an even bigger solid waste problem than traditional coal plants.
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December 31st, 2007 at 8:28 am
Thank you for your early look at the Burning the Future trailer. I worked very hard not to stetch the truth and to continually remind the viewer that coal is currently the supplier of our energy – by necessity. But that necessity is rapidly changing as alternatives become less and less expensive, and the mandate to curb carbon emissions becomes a priority.
Burning The Future will premiere on The Sundance Channel in May and DVD’s of the film, with expanded content and action-oriented toolkits, will be available also in the spring.
Please visit http://www.burningthefuture.com to sign up for updates, screenings, etc.
David Novack, Filmmaker
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December 31st, 2007 at 8:53 am
This just shows West Virginia. That is a good example, but remember this happens in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Colorado, and also in western Canada, China, Australia, Russia, Germany, Poland, Africa, much of eastern Europe, South America, India. So take this community and multiply it by all the places where coal is mined in the US and in the world. It is so huge you almost can’t imagine it.
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December 31st, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Wow, the filmmaker! Thanks so much for commenting. I’ve written more than a few times on this blog about the realities of what coal does to the environment from mine to train to power plant. Based on what I have read and seen your film looks fantastic and really drives home an important message.
I’ll look very forward to continuing to follow your progress in promoting this film. Also if you have any promotional banners I’d love to add something like that to this site. Is there any chance we will see the film in theaters? I realize that independent films like this are not always easy to get carried in the major venues, but there are some alternative/independent theaters which I’d love to see carry the film.
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December 31st, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Wow. Just wow. They really completely take the top off of a mountain. Not even a hill or a part of a mountain, but literally cut down a mountain. That’s such a massive effort it’s amazing to me that it’s humanly possible to do such work. It’s just too bad that it’s being done to destroy mountains. When you think of how all the effort could be put to repairing enviornmental damage or creating something useful that is not so fleeting and unsustainable as coal. Just wow.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I would love to sponsor screenings in theaters, even if there is no official theatrical release. There are mechanisms by which I can do this if I can build an audience in advance. Please visit my website or shoot me an email and we can discuss offline. Thank you all for caring about this very important issue – critical not only to the folks living in the coalfields, but to all of as as coal accounts for a full 1/3 of the US contribution to global warming. And please, I encourage you all to visit my website and register for updates.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 8:38 pm
hmm. The Angelika Film Center: http://angelikafilmcenter.com/ comes to mind. A wonderful alternative movie theater in New York City. Actually it’s just north of Soho, so it might get some exposure going to the area perhaps for the upcoming Tribecca Film Festival, which is not far at all.
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January 4th, 2008 at 8:44 am
I think most people know coal is not good for the environment but the issue does not really get as much attention as it should and I’m not sure people know just how bad it is for the environment. Oil seems to get a lot more attention. Maybe this is because it’s more of a national security issue. Coal is something that at least does not need to be imported.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 8:47 am
poke to the world of coal!
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June 2nd, 2008 at 8:53 am
i see what THE GIRL WITH NO NAME means! wow… go you!
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June 2nd, 2008 at 9:54 am
Clean Coal is nonsense. It means Carbon Sequestration. The NY Times finall had an article last week that exposes the truth behind Sequestration – 1) it will be incredibly expensive, 2) it will be a very long time before there is any data that shows if it works on the scale necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 3) by that time it will be too late. Carbon Sequestration is a smoke screen that, unfortunately, some in the scientific community (funded by big energy) are buying into at the expense of rapid renewable energy development. Just look at all the ads on TV now. It a campaign to make the public believe that coal is clean. And all this talk of clean coal completely ignores that problem of coal extraction (as shown in my film, Burning the Future: Coal in America) – mountaintop removal mining, the destruction of the appalachian water table, and terrorism brought onto the good people and wonderful, uniquely American culture of appalahcia.
DVD’s for Burning the Future; Coal in America are now available at http://www.burningthefuture.com. They also contain a “Coal Impact Guide” where you can learn of all the ill effects of coal extraction and burning, from mercury to ozone, from autism to asthma and heart disease – and where you can take action in your home, your community, your country. Please dig deeper.
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