News and Events

A Kentucky mine may be turned into a giant, water-powered battery

The Lewis Ridge Pumped Storage Project is undergoing a long federal permitting process to store electricity from the grid in the form of water.

Rye Development wants to dig two water reservoirs — one high and one low — on a former mine in Bell County. They call it the Lewis Ridge Pumped Storage Project.​

When water is released downhill, it would run through a turbine which sends enough hydroelectric power to the grid to power a little less than 70,000 homes for up to eight hours. When demand is low, the turbine would use energy from the grid, which operates on a mix of renewable energy and fossil fuels. The system would be reversed to pump water back uphill for later. Essentially, it’s a gargantuan rechargeable battery for power grids.

The reservoirs would be a “closed-loop” system full of clean water, which the company says will have minimal impact on the environment.​

Louisville Public Media

A quarter of the UK's homes sit above abandoned coal mines, long since flooded with water. Now, the mines are being put to a new, zero-carbon use.

Coal mines were the beating heart of Britain's industrial revolution. Their sooty, energy-dense output gave life to new-fangled factories and shipyards, fuelling the nation's march towards modernity. They helped shape a carbon-intensive economy, one that took little notice of the natural world around it. The mines paved the way for a global dependence on fossil fuels, and in doing so, fired the starting pistol on the climate crisis that today confronts us all. 

But what if, in a serendipitous circle of history, our extractive past could be repurposed for a greener, cleaner future? What if the vast maze of coal mines beneath our feet, now filled with naturally warm water, could help decarbonise the UK's – and the world's – herculean heating needs?​

BBC - Future Planet

IRVINE, Ky. (FOX 56) — Prior to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) of 1977, there was no oversight of coal operators or what happened to mines after mining stopped. Today, millions of Americans live less than a mile from an abandoned coal mine.

The OSMRE Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Reclamation Program strives to supply the legacy coal mine’s new purpose to protect the land and the community it serves.

The Kentucky Steam Heritage Corporation has been awarded a $1.9 million Abandoned Mine Lands Economic Revitalization (AMLER) grant as part of this initiative. Kentucky Steam is one of 14 Kentucky-based nonprofits slated to be funded by the program in 2023.​

“This 2023 AMLER award is a game changer for our project and is proof positive that the Commonwealth is committed both to our project and to real investment in Appalachia and coal country,” Chris Campbell, Kentucky Steam president, said.

FOX 56

The surprising biodiversity of abandoned coal mines​

Stripping coal from a mountain demands a wholesale rearrangement of its summit and the transformation of the surrounding forest into a moonscape. Enormous machines rip out the vegetation first, followed by the topsoil, and finally a layer or two of rock. It all becomes waste, dumped into a valley below the site. The federal Surface Mining Reclamation Act of 1977 requires coal companies to leave the denuded land in roughly the shape they found it or restore it to “higher and better use” at their expense, though many of them find ways to slip out of the obligation. 

It’s hard to know how much unreclaimed and partially reclaimed mine land exists, though some place the figure at 633,000 acres across Appalachia. As many as 100,000 of them may lie in Virginia alone. Much of this land is a quagmire of erosion, water pollution, and other problems, yet some of it is slowly being taken back by the forest. It may be ill, but it certainly is not dead, and is in many cases surprisingly alive, as scientists have found over decades of studying the reforestation and recovery of mined lands.

Grist

Recycling Holds The Key To Making Mining Companies More Competitive​​

There's a familiar saying in farming: "If you eat, you're involved in agriculture." Similarly, in mining, the adage goes, "If it's not grown, it's mined." From the house that you live in to the car that you drive, metals and minerals are intertwined with virtually every aspect of our lives.

Along this line of thinking, decarbonization and net-zero initiatives have one thing in common: the need for metals and minerals. Projections from OEMs and government-funded research point to a huge increase in the need for metals such as copper and nickel over the next decade (according to recent publications from ICMM and McKinsey & Company). However, the supply is not even close to catching up to the demand.​

Forbes

Facing increasing pressure from customers, some miners are switching to renewable energy​

SOROWAKO, Indonesia (AP) — Red hot sparks fly through the air as a worker in a heat-resistant suit pokes a long metal rod into a nickel smelter, coaxing the molten metal from a crucible at a processing facility on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

The smelter run by global mining firm Vale and powered by electricity from three dams churns out 75,000 tons of nickel a year for use in batteries, electric vehicles, appliances and many other products.

While the smelting creates heavy emissions of greenhouse gases, the power used is relatively clean. Such possible reductions in emissions come as demand for critical minerals like nickel and cobalt is surging as climate change hastens a transition to renewable energy.​

Kentucky Today

Coal makes a quiet resurgence in the clean energy era​

As momentum shifts toward clean energy, coal has had some unexpected staying power.

What’s happening: Big banks like Goldman Sachs have pledged to divest from the dirty energy source, but reports that coal power is dying appear to be premature.

Smaller funds like Javelin Global Commodities (created by two ex-Goldman traders) have popped up to fill the opening in coal investing. In the eight years since its founding, the fund has soared in value to over $1 billion and become the leading US coal exporter.​

The firm benefited handsomely, bringing in record profits last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Europe scrambled to find energy that was sourced elsewhere, according to a recent Bloomberg report.

CNN

Advocates hail effort to curb black lung surge but say more needs to be done.
No hearings scheduled in Appalachia.

Gary Harriston, 69, compares what it feels like to have coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, known commonly as black lung, to running out of air or not being able to “catch my wind.” ​

He remembers working as a coal miner decades ago and dashing to a bathhouse to get out of a rain — and knowing. “I started running up there. At the steps when I got into the bathhouse, I’m standing there, can’t breathe. And I’m thinking, ‘Oh, you’re getting ready to die,’” Harriston said. “That’s when I really realized that I had it. It was kind of a scary situation.”

Liam Niemeyer
Kentucky Lantern​

From coal to kayaking: West Virginia’s miners turn to tourism to pay the bills​

Increasing number of workers in once profitable mining industry now employed in tourism in a stunning corner of Appalachia. Rick Johnson’s introduction to the world of coal began as a teenager more than 40 years ago in rural western Virginia. For a decade and a half, he worked for extraction and chemical production companies across Appalachia. “I was fed on coal,” he said recently.​

But his work kept him away from home for long periods. And by the mid-1990s he and his wife, Heather, saw another major resource staring them in the face: the region’s natural beauty. As the once-profitable local mining and extraction industry suffered a downturn, leading company after company to board up, the Johnsons decided to buy a rafting business in Oak Hill, West Virginia.

Stephen Starr
The Guardian

Federal mine safety agency proposes long-awaited rule to combat black lung pandemic

After decades of waiting, advocates for miners with black lung disease secured a victory on Friday. The Mine Safety and Health Administration finally released a proposal to limit the legal limit for the amount of silica dust mine workers are exposed to. ​

Silica dust exposure has been linked to a surge in black lung cases in Appalachian coal mines where workers now have to cut through more rock to get at what little coal is left. Currently, the silica dust limit for coal miners is 100 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The new rule seeks to set it at 50 micrograms – the longstanding limit for workers in every single other job in the country.

Kentucky Coal counties to receive nearly double in coal severance tax funds​​

Counties will receive more than $74 million dollars from the state. This is the most money allocated to these communities in 10 years. During a press conference on Thursday, Governor Beshear said this money will go a long way for these communities.​

“These dollars help local governments pay off debts, improve critical infrastructure, expand parks and trails and improve projects that make Kentucky a better place for everyone to live. These funds will go to fiscal courts and municipalities in 29 coal producing counties.”

Stan Ingold
WEKU

​Surface mine near Ky./Va. border undergoing reclamation​​

On Jan. 19, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, Appalachian Voices and the Sierra Club reached an agreement in a lawsuit the groups filed against A & G Coal Corporation. The company is owned by the family of West Virginia Governor Jim Justice.

The Herald Leader reports the company stopped mining there in 2013. The report said reclamation did not happen shortly after.

“It’s more profitable in the long run to reclaim as you mine, as opposed to just mining, and then having to come back and have a pure expense of reclamation,” he said.