This powerpoint goes into detail about the social/ecological and economic costs of using coal and tar sands It is heavily scripted with current data. It ends with a look at global warming, acidification and glacial loss.

1. • In a “Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers” that
appeared in 448 newspapers in 1954, the tobacco
industry laid out the themes of denial that it would use
into the 1990s: “Medical research...indicates many
possible causes of lung cancer. There is no agreement
among authorities regarding the cause.
• There is no proof that cigarette smoking is one of the
causes. The validity of the statistics is questioned by
numerous scientists.” But as cigarette smokers aged, the
connection between smoking and lung cancer became
impossible to deny. The WHO estimates that over the
20th Century, tobacco caused 100 million deaths. One
billion are estimated to die from tobacco during the 21st
century.

4. 2009….

6. What happened to coal
• : In the first quarter of 2012, coal made up just
36 percent of U.S. electricity generation –
down from nearly 45 percent from the same period in
. That's a 9 percent drop in U.S. coal use in just
one year.
• In a surprising turnaround, the amount of carbon
dioxide released into the atmosphere in the
United States has fallen dramatically to its
lowest level in 20 years -- and government
officials say the biggest reason is that cheap and
plentiful natural gas has led many power plant
operators to switch from dirtier-burning coal

9. Benefits of coal
• Coal is available in abundance around the globe, unlike
oil and natural gas, which are available in only certain
pockets of the world
• To use coal, you just mine it and use it.
•
The abundance of resource, easy accessibility and
cheaper mode of transportation makes coal a cheaper
form of energy.
• Yet another advantage of coal over its fossil counterparts
is the fact that it is relatively easy to transport from one
place to another
• Average electricity costs in Kentucky were 4.63 cents
per kilowatt-hour during 2004, the lowest in the United
States for the third consecutive year.

10. Coal types
• Anthracite is coal with the highest carbon content, between 86
and 98 percent, and a heat value of nearly 15,000 BTUs-per-
pound The principal use of anthracite today is for a domestic
fuel in either hand-fired stoves or automatic stoker furnaces
• The most plentiful form of coal in the United States,
bituminous coal is used primarily to generate electricity and
make coke for the steel industry. Bituminous coal has a carbon
content ranging from 45 to 86 percent carbon and a heat value
of 10,500 to 15,500 BTUs-per-pound
• Ranking below bituminous is subbituminous coal with 35-45
percent carbon content and a heat value between 8,300 and
13,000 BTUs-per-pound. Reserves are located mainly in a half-
dozen Western states and Alaska. Although its heat value is
lower, this coal generally has a lower sulfur content than other
types, which makes it attractive for use because it is cleaner
burning.

11. • U.S. coal production decreased 8.3 percent to
1,074.9 million short tons, 96.9 million short
tons below 2008's record level.
• Coal consumption decreased 11.0 percent,
mostly due to slumping economic conditions as
well as the milder winter and cooler summer
weather experienced in many parts of the U.S. in
2009.
• Coal stocks were at record levels, reaching
233.0 million short tons at the end of 2009.
• Coal mine employment was 87,755 in 2009, a
decrease of 1.0 percent from the 2008 level

14. • A typical (500 megawatt) coal plant burns 1.4
million tons of coal each year. There are
about 600 U.S. coal plants
• Coal fired power plants provide about 50%
of consumed electricity in the USA…
• Oregon had one coal-fired generating station
in 2005, the Boardman Plant, with 601 MW
of capacity - representing 4.7% of the state's
total electric generating capacity.[1] Oregon
ranks 42nd out of the 50 states in terms of
coal energy production. However, nearly
40% of Oregon's power comes from coal,
half of which is produced out of state,
primarily the Powder River Basin in Wyoming
and Montana

15. Where are the powerplants?
• Rank State # of Plants Total Capacity 2005 Power Prod.
1 Texas 20 21,238 MW 148,759 GWh
2 Ohio 35 23,823 MW 137,457 GWh
3 Indiana 31 21,551 MW 123,985 GWh
4 Pennsylvania 40 20,475 MW 122,093 GWh
5 Illinois 32 17,565 MW 92,772 GWh
6 Kentucky 21 16,510 MW 92,613 GWh
7 West Virginia 19 15,372 MW 91,601 GWh
8 Georgia 16 14,594 MW 87,624 GWh
9 North Carolina 25 13,279 MW 78,854 GWh
10 Missouri 24 11,810 MW 77,714 GWh

16. Electrical use
• In 2008, the average annual electricity
consumption for a U.S. residential utility
customer was 11,040 kWh, an average of
920 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month.
Tennessee had the highest annual
consumption at 15,624 kWh and Maine
the lowest at 6,252 kWh.

19. New Mexico plant

20. Coal ash
• The average yearly generation of coal ash is
about 61 million metric tons (MT)
• Typically 70 to 80 percent of coal ash is
disposed of in dry landfills.
• At issue is coal's content of uranium and
thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur
in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal
that they aren't a problem. But when coal is
burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are
concentrated at up to 10 times their original
levels.

21. • The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion
gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East
Tennessee was only one of more than 1,300 similar
dumps across the United States — most of them
unregulated and unmonitored — that contain billions
more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of
burning coal.
• Numerous studies have shown that the ash can leach
toxic substances that can cause cancer, birth defects
and other health problems in humans, and can
decimate fish, bird and frog populations in and around
ash dumps, causing developmental problems like
tadpoles born without teeth, or fish with severe spinal
deformities.

22. Kingston plant: Tennessee

23. • 525 million gallons of wet coal ash, enough
toxic slurry to flood more than 3,000 acres of
nearby land, spilled into the nearby Tennessee
River and surrounding areas when a retaining
wall at a power plant in the town of Harriman
gave way.
• The sludge destroyed 12 homes, though no
one was directly injured. However, an
unprecedented fish kill occurred in the
Tennessee River and area tributaries in the
aftermath of the spill.

29. Landfill in Brandywine, MD

30. Metals in coal ash
• Many of the heavy metals released in the
mining and burning of coal are
environmentally and biologically toxic
elements, such as lead, mercury, nickel,
tin, cadmium, antimony, and arsenic, as
well as
radio isotopes of thorium and strontium

31. Types of coal mining
• Surface mining (including mountain top
removal) is used to produce most of the coal in
the United States because it is less expensive
than underground mining. Surface mining can
be used when the coal is buried less than 200
feet underground.
• Underground mining, sometimes called deep
mining, is used when the coal is buried several
hundred feet below the surface. Some
underground mines are 1,000 feet deep.

34. • 1. Forests are clear-cut; often scraping away
topsoil, lumber, understory herbs such as
ginseng and goldenseal, and all other forms of
life that do not move out of the way quickly
enough. Wildlife habitat is destroyed and
vegetation loss often leads to floods and
landslides. Next, explosives up to 100 times as
strong as ones that tore open the Oklahoma City
Federal building blast up to 800 feet off
mountaintops. Explosions can cause damage to
home foundations and wells. “Fly rock,” more
aptly named fly boulder, can rain off mountains,
endangering resident’s lives and homes.

39. • 2. Huge Shovels dig into the soil and
trucks haul it away or push it into adjacent
valleys.
• 3. A dragline digs into the rock to expose
the coal. These machines can weigh up
to 8 million pounds with a base as big as a
gymnasium and as tall as a 20-story
building. These machines allow coal
companies to hire fewer workers. A small
crew can tear apart a mountain in less
than a year, working night and day. Coal
companies make big profits at the
expense of us all.

42. • 4. Giant machines then scoop out the
layers of coal, dumping millions of tons of
“overburden” – the former mountaintops –
into the narrow adjacent valleys, thereby
creating valley fills. Coal companies have
forever buried over 1,200 miles of
biologically crucial Appalachian
headwaters streams
• 5. Coal companies are supposed to
reclaim land, but all too often mine sites
are left stripped and bare. Even where
attempts to replant vegetation have been
made, the mountain is never again
returned to its healthy state

47. Twisted Gun Golf course

49. • Roughly 1.2 million acres, including at least 500
mountains, have been flattened by mountaintop
removal coal mining in the central Appalachian
region
• The report Reclamation FAIL -- confirms that
nearly 90 percent of mountaintop removal sites
have not been converted to economic uses.
• Mountaintop removal mining has buried nearly
2,000 miles of Appalachian streams,
contaminated drinking water, impaired water
quality for river recreation, increased water
treatment costs for industry, displaced some
communities and increased susceptibility to
flooding for others.

51. How about tar sands?
• Tar sands (also referred to as oil sands) are a
combination of clay, sand, water, and bitumen,
a heavy black viscous oil. Tar sands can be
mined and processed to extract the oil-rich
bitumen, which is then refined into oil. The
bitumen in tar sands cannot be pumped from the
ground in its natural state; instead tar sand
deposits are mined, usually using strip mining or
open pit techniques, or the oil is extracted by
underground heating with additional upgrading.

52. How much oil?
• Much of the world's oil (more than 2
trillion barrels) is in the form of tar sands,
although it is not all recoverable. While tar
sands are found in many places
worldwide, the largest deposits in the
world are found in Canada (Alberta) and
Venezuela, and much of the rest is found
in various countries in the Middle East.

53. Tradeoffs?
• About two tons of tar sands are required
to produce one barrel of oil. Roughly 75%
of the bitumen can be recovered from
sand. After oil extraction, the spent sand
and other materials are then returned to
the mine, which is eventually reclaimed.

59. Tailings ponds
• During the process of separating bitumen from
the tar sands, large amounts of water are mixed
in with the sand, and once the oil has been
removed, the leftover mixture of water, sand,
clay and residual bitumen - known as tailings -
has to be stored in a stable location so that the
solution can settle and separate. The storage
facilities are known as tailings ponds.
• The tar sands tailings ponds currently contain
around 190 billion gallons of waste water.

61. Forests?
• 4.3 million hectares of the Boreal Forest cover the tar
sands, and these are being clearcut so that oil
companies can access the tar underneath. The Boreal
Forest has been referred to as the lungs of our planet,
and tar sands operations threaten to destroy an area
the size of Florida.
• Canada's vast Boreal Forest — one of the largest
intact forest ecosystems on Earth — is gravely
threatened by logging and tar sands mining. Some 3
BILLION birds — 30% of all the land birds in North
America! — migrate to the Boreal each spring to feast
and breed. They include warblers, thrushes, raptors,
flycatchers and many, many more.

64. Athabasca oil sands
• The Athabasca deposit is the largest reservoir of
crude bitumen in the world and the largest of
three major oil sands deposits in Alberta, along
with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake
deposits. Together, these oil sand deposits lie
under 141,000 square kilometres (54,000 sq mi)
of sparsely populated boreal forest and muskeg
(peat bogs) and contain about 1.7 trillion barrels
(270×10^9 m3) of bitumen in-place, comparable
in magnitude to the world's total proven reserves
of conventional petroleum.

66. Keystone pipeline
• The Keystone Pipeline System is a pipeline
system to transport synthetic crude oil and
diluted bitumen ("dilbit") from the Athabasca oil
sands region in northeastern Alberta, Canada to
multiple destinations in the United States
• The oil would move to refineries in Illinois, the
Cushing oil distribution hub in Oklahoma, and
proposed connections to refineries[
along the Gulf
Coast of Texas

68. Oil…
• Currently, the United States consumes 19.6
million barrels per day, of oil, which is more
than 25% of the world's total.. As a result, the
U.S produces one fourth of the world's
carbon emissions.
• According to the EIA, the United States has 21
billion barrels of proved oil reserves as of
January 1, 2000. The U.S. uses about 6.6
billion barrels per year. That is only enough oil
to last the U.S. about three and a half years
without importing oil from other countries

69. Who has it?
• # 1 Saudi Arabia:262,700,000,000 barrels
• # 2 Canada:178,900,000,000 barrels
• # 3 Iran:133,300,000,000 barrels
• # 4 Iraq:112,500,000,000 barrels
• 5 United Arab Emirates:97,800,000,000
barrels
• # 14 United States:22,450,000,000 barrels
• # 15 China:18,260,000,000 barrels
• # 50 Germany:395,800,000 barrels

70. Oil to the USA!
• # 1…Canada reigns as the United States'
leading oil supplier, exporting some
707,316,000 barrels of oil per year
(1,938,000 barrels per day) — a whopping
99 percent of its annual oil exports,
according to the EIA.

71. • #2…Mexico sends more than 400 million barrels
of oil per year (or 1,096,000 barrels per day) to
the U.S., according to the EIA. In 2009, that flow
was worth over $22 billion.
• #3...Saudi Arabia sends 360,934,000 barrels of
oil per year (989,000 barrels per day), 20
percent of its total oil exports, to the United
States, according to the EIA. Holding about one-
third of the world's daily oil supply, Saudia
Arabia’s economy is fueled by oil. Oil accounts
for 90 percent of Saudi Arabia's export revenues
and 45 percent of its GDP, according to the CIA
World Factbook.

72. • # 4…Venezuela sends the United States
352,278,000 barrels of oil per year
(965,000 barrels per day), according to
the EIA. The Venezuelan economy is
heavily reliant on oil as it accounts for 90
percent of the country's export revenue
and 30 percent of the country's GDP,
according to the World Factbook
• # 5… Nigeria sells 40 percent of its huge
oil supply to the United States. Nigeria
exports 281,291,000 barrels per year
(771,000 barrels per day) to the United
States, according to the EIA.

76. Gulf of Mexico
• 6659 active and removed oil platforms and rigs, of
which 819 are still fully manned.
• The Gulf of Mexico normally pumps about 1.5 million
barrels per day (bpd) of US crude
• The Gulf of Mexico has a total of 7,664 pipelines. Total
pipeline miles are 25,176.48. Of the 30 companies
with the largest number of pipelines and longest
mileage in the Gulf of Mexico deepwater, the MMS
records Chevron as having the largest number.
Chevron has a total of 861. Energy Partners, Ltd. is
second with 517 pipelines. Murphy Exploration &
Production Company is third with 314 pipelines.

81. How much???
• Proved oil reserves at the end of 2008 are
estimated to have been 1258.0 thousand
million (billion) barrels. That represented
an increase of 17.7% over the 1997 figure
of 1068.5 billion barrels, despite estimated
cumulative production of 290 billion
barrels during the intervening ten years, ie
global reserves additions amounted to
around 480 billion barrels between end-
1998 and end-2008.

82. Still…much undiscovered?
• Well over 70% of the Earth's crust remains
to be explored for hydrocarbon (including
oil, coal, gas, kerogens, bitumens, peats,
clathrates, heavy oils). The truly giant oil
fields may not have been discovered yet.

84. Worst spills
• 1. Arabian Gulf/Kuwait
when: Jan. 19, 1991
• Where: Persian Gulf, Kuwait
Amount spilled: 380-520 million gallons
• Done on purpose!!!!

88. • 2. Gulf oil spill
• When: April 22, 2010
• Where: Gulf of Mexico
• Amount spilled: An estimated 206 million
gallons
• 3. Ixtoc 1 Oil Spill
When: June 3, 1979
• Where: Bay of Campeche off Ciudad del
Carmen, Mexico
Amount spilled: 140 million gallons

93. • 4. Atlantic Empress Oil Spill
When: July 19, 1979
• Where: Off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago
Amount spilled: 90 million gallons
• 5. Kolva River Oil Spill
When: Aug. 6, 1983
• Where: Kolva River, Russia
Amount spilled: 84 million gallons
• 13. The Torrey Canyon Oil Spill
• When: March 18, 1967
Where: Scilly Isles, UK
Amount spilled: 25-36 million gallons

98. Atlantic Empress

100. Exxon Valdez

102. Amoco Cadiz

105. China…wildcard???
• China:7,578,000 bbl/day
• The globe now has more than 1 billion
vehicles and is expected to hit the 2
billion mark within 20 years.
• Beijing alone now adds nearly 1,500 cars
to its roads every day.
Over the past decade, China has tripled its
vehicle fleet to 45 million while India’s has
doubled to 15 million.

106. USA?
• Only 246 million cars at the end of 2009.
• Every one gallon of gas…means 20
pounds of carbon dioxide
• What are the other social/environmental
issues???

112. Global warming
• But the catch-phrase global warming is
pretty recent. Or is it...? The first very
modern-sounding use of this term harks
back a surprisingly long time, to a First
Mention in this November 6, 1957
newspaper article. Hammond Times….

113. Climate/gases
• It is the strongest greenhouse gas, contributing
36% to 66% to the overall effect for vapor alone,
66% to 85% when you include clouds. It is
however, not considered a climate "forcing,"
because the amount of H2O in the air basically
varies as a function of temperature.
• If you artificially increase the level of H2O in the
air, it rains out immediately (in terms of climate
response times). Similarly, due to the
abundance of ocean on the earth's surface, if
you somehow removed all the water from the air,
it would quickly be replaced through
evaporation.

114. • Certain gases in the atmosphere have the
property of absorbing infrared radiation.
Oxygen and nitrogen the major gases in the
atmosphere do not have this property. The
infrared radiation strikes a molecule such as
carbon dioxide and causes the bonds to bend
and vibrate - this is called the absorption of IR
energy. The molecule gains kinetic energy by
this absorption of IR radiation.
• Carbon dioxide doesn't absorb the energy from
the sun, but it does absorb some of the heat
energy released from the earth. When a
molecule of carbon dioxide absorbs heat energy,
it goes into an excited unstable state. It can
become stable again by releasing the energy it
absorbed. Some of the released energy will go
back to the earth and some will go out into
space.

116. Carbon storage
• Of the three places where carbon is stored
—atmosphere, oceans, and land
biosphere—approximately 93 percent of
the CO 2 is found in the oceans.
• Forests dominate the terrestrial carbon
cycle, harboring 86% of the planet’s
above-ground carbon and 73% of the
planet’s soil carbon.

117. Since the Industrial Revolution,
humans have greatly increased
the quantity of carbon dioxide
found in the Earth's atmosphere
and oceans. Atmospheric levels
have increased by over 30%,
from about 275 parts per million
(ppm) in the early 1700s.
In early 2012….we crossed 400
parts per million!!!

118. Oceans/change
• increased air and sea surface
temperatures
• rises in sea level
• changes in weather patterns
• more frequent storms, droughts, floods
and other extreme weather in some places
• possible alteration of ocean circulation
patterns
• changes in seawater chemistry due to
increased carbon dioxide concentrations

119. Ocean pH
• Ocean pH (usually 8.3)
• Oceans absorb a vast amount of
carbon dioxide and incorporate into
their shells (especially Mollusks with
their calcium rich blood!)
• Is the ocean reaching a point of
carbon saturation?

120. Acidification
•
When CO2 levels in the atmosphere reach
about 500 parts per million, you put
calcification out of business in the ocean.
• Currently, atmospheric CO2 levels are
presently 391 ppm, rising from 305 in
1960.

121. Coral bleaching
• Warming ocean temperatures cause coral
bleaching by disrupting the relationship
between coral and zooxanthellae algae.
Coral bleaching decreases coral growth,
reduces fecundity and can kill coral.
Global warming is making bleaching
events more frequent. How fast the
oceans warm will largely determine
whether coral survive.

134. Extent of bleaching
• (UNEP-WCMC) provides a new global
estimate for coral reefs world-wide: 284
300 sq km, an area just half the size of
France
• Approximately 58% percent of the world's
reefs may already be threatened by
human activities such as coastal
development and overexploitation of
marine products.

135. How serious?
• Record warm ocean temperatures across
much of Earth’s tropical oceans during the
summer of 2010 created the second worst
year globally for coral-killing bleaching
episodes. The warm waters, fueled in part
by the El Ni±o phenomena, caused the
most coral bleaching since 1998, when 16
percent of the world’s reefs were killed off.

136. • If every American family planted just one tree, the
amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would be reduced by
one billion lbs annually. This is almost 5% of the amount
that human activity pumps into the atmosphere each
year
• Northern forests appear to absorb about 1.5 billion tons
of the 8 billion tons of carbon emitted each year. About
3.2 billion tons of this amount ends up in the
atmosphere, while another 2.4 billion is taken up by the
oceans.
• On average, one broad leaf tree will absorb in the region
of 1 tonne of carbon dioxide during its full life-time
(approximately 100 years).
• Forests in the United States absorb and store about 750
million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, an
amount equivalent to 10% of the country’s CO2
emissions. (50 pounds yearly/per tree?)

145. Arctic sea ice extent on 19 August 2012 (orange line shows
the 1979-2000 median)

146. Greenland
• Scientists said the "unprecedented"
melting took place over a larger area than
has been detected in three decades of
satellite observation.
• Melting even occurred at Greenland's
coldest and highest place, Summit station.
• The thawed ice area jumped from 40% of
the ice sheet to 97% in just four days from
8 July, 2012.

148. Ice loss
• The original GRACE-based estimates indicated as much
as 1,500 billion tonnes ice loss just from Greenland in
the period 2003-2009 - equivalent to a global sea-level
rise of over 4mm on its own.
• Antarctica is losing ice from its larger eastern side as
well as the western part, an indication the southernmost
continent may add “significantly more” to rising seas,
researchers in Texas said.
• The eastern sheet, 10 times the size of the western one,
lost about 57 billion metric tons of ice a year from 2002
to 2009, contributing to the continent’s total annual
average loss of about 190 billion tons, scientists at the
University of Texas at Austin said in the journal Nature
Geoscience.

149. Polar bears
• Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey tracked a
polar bear that swam an amazing 232 hours and 426
miles in the Beaufort Sea in North Alaska, searching for
sea ice. The scientists believe that the bear’s epic swim
is a result of climate change.
• In fact, if the ice melts one month earlier than in the
1990s, 40 to 73 per cent of pregnant female bears living
on the western side of the bay will not carry their
pregnancies to term, says the study led by University of
Alberta biostatistician Péter Molnár.

153. Amazon/drought/CO2
• The Amazon's vast rain forests typically pull
some 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the
air each year, storing the carbon in their wood
and offsetting CO2 emissions that come as
humans burn fossil fuels and clear forests for
farming.
• The team calculates that once that
decomposition process has kicked in
completely, the dead trees will release over time
some 5 billion tons of CO2.

160. 1,2,4,8 meter rise

161. Sea level rise?
• Records and research show that sea level
has been steadily rising at a rate of 1 to
2.5 millimeters (0.04 to 0.1 inches) per
year since 1900.
• This rate may be increasing. Since 1992,
new methods of satellite altimetry (the
measurement of elevation or altitude)
indicate a rate of rise of 3 millimeters (0.12
inches) per year.