cross-posted from the CCAN Blog Virginians are no stranger to coal. A state that currently generates 42% of its electricity from the old-school fossil fuel, we are used to living in a political culture that accepts – and endorses – the adherence to a fuel as old as the dinosaurs, and equally archaic. Major players [...]

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Cross posted from Appalachian Voices’ Front Porch Blog Polluting Industries Caught Forging Support When you are a small non-profit working to reform billion dollar industries, you can take some solace when the other side is damaging their own case far more seriously than regular citizens ever could. The last few days have been a highlight [...]

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Thanks in part to your efforts, Big Coal suffered a setback in Virginia this week! Members of the Dendron Town Council, backed by local supporters cooling themselves with hand-held fans reading “No Coal Plant,” voted to decide for themselves if a coal plant will be built in their town. The vote means this important decision [...]

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Cross-posted from the CCAN Blog. Dendron, Virginia, has more than its share of challenges. The community of around 300, located in the southern corner of Surry County, struggles with an outdated municipal water system, crumbling sidewalks and no major businesses within the town. Prior to the Great Depression, Dendron had been a company town of [...]

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cross-posted from the CCAN blog Yesterday, the EPA performed a turn-around on its protection of the locations of 44 “high risk” coal ash impoundment sites, signaling a desire to make the regulatory body more transparent. Formerly protected under the auspices of national security, the ash impoundments, located in Ohio, Arizona, and throughout the southeast, have [...]

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The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 cleared its first of many hurdles to passage yesterday, passing the Energy and Commerce Committee by a vote of 33-25. The vote was mostly party line, with three conservative Democrats defecting (Mike Ross (AR-04), Jim Mathson (UT-02), and Charlie Melancon (LA-03)) and one Republican voting with [...]

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Several opinion pieces have been submitted and printes by newspapers in the Hampton Roads area concerning ODEC’s proposed 1,500 megawatt power plant for the region. Eileen over at Articlexi.com, Virginia’s environmentally focused blog, has collected a few of them and posted them as a blog, and others have since been posted in the comments. Check [...]

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This past Saturday I joined a dozen other hybrid owners on a gorgeous spring day to… Circle the Capitol in Richmond! Yes, you read that correctly, I woke up early and covered my friend’s Toyota Prius in streamers and balloons and battled downtown Richmond traffic and construction on Broad Street. I did this to send [...]

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The “Economist” looks at the difficult future of carbon capture and storage technology. The folks at the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a PR front group for the coal industry, are working hard to get us to believe that coal can be clean. Their funders want us to believe it so badly that [...]

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Click here to see original article. Excerpt: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 RICHMOND, Va. — A state law authorizing construction of a power station in southwestern Virginia is unconstitutional because it requires the plant to burn Virginia coal, a lawyer for environmentalists challenging the project told the Virginia Supreme Court on Wednesday. “Explicit preferences such as [...]

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February 23, 2009 As always, there’s plenty going on in the mountains this week. We’re very excited about the introduction of the Appalachian Mountains Preservation Act in Georgia (the number one consumer of MTR coal in the nation!) and Maryland in the last two weeks, to be followed with the introduction of the bill in [...]

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Crossposted from Appalachian Voices’ Front Porch Blog and iLovemountains.org Operation Endangers Community, Destroys Wind Energy Potential Residents of the Coal River Valley, accompanied by supporters from across Appalachia, took a stand this morning against the impending destruction of their mountain in the name of coal. Five activists with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice chained [...]

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Virginia, like the nation, is at a critical juncture. The economy is declining and the climate is warming with potentially catastrophic consequences. Right now, Virginia has an enormous opportunity to secure a clean energy future that will reinvigorate the economy and curb emissions of harmful greenhouse gases. Will you join us in seizing this enormous [...]

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As Trout Unlimited recently reported, “Forget about record temperatures and shrinking icebergs – the real stories of global warming’s effects in the wild and on the water are told by hunters and anglers.” While predictions of global warming are serious for all freshwater fish, they are dire for trout. “It doesn’t take a big jump [...]

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