US EPA Confirms Environmental Benefits of Coal Ash Utilization

http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/tools/cpg/pdf/rtc/report4-08.pdf

The United States Environmental Protection Agency Report we enclose via the above link clearly and definitively identifies Coal Ash, in it's several various forms, for what it truly is:

A readily available raw material resource that can serve as an energy-conserving and pollution-preventing substitute for conventional raw materials in the making of Portland-type cement and Portland-type cement concrete, and in a number of other construction and structural applications.

And, right up front, we want to reproduce one conclusion reached by the EPA, "the Agency", as excerpted from deep within the full document:

"(In) the Agency’s May 2000 Regulatory Determination for fossil fuel combustion wastes, EPA’s risk evaluation of the beneficial use of CCPs in cement and concrete concluded that national regulation under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) is not warranted."

USDOE Converts Coal and CO2 into Hydrocarbon Syngas

United States Patent Application: 0090235587

We alert you that there is, in this dispatch, a rather satisfying "twist" to the Carbon Dioxide recycling technology disclosed herein; one that can and does relate directly to the indirect conversion of Coal, and of Carbon-recycling Biomass and wastes, into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.

We recently reported that a United States Patent had been awarded to a USDOE contractor, for the invention of a device that enables the conversion of a mixture of Water and Carbon Dioxide into a blend of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen; that is, a synthesis gas, or "syngas", suitable for catalytic chemical condensation into hydrocarbons.

US Gov Hires Penn State Bugs to Convert CO2 to Methane

United States Patent Application: 0090317882

First, we remind you of an earlier dispatch, now accessible on the West Virginia Coal Association's web site via the link:

West Virginia Coal Association | Penn State CO2 to CH4 | Research & Development; concerning: "Direct Biological Conversion of Electrical Current into Methane by Electromethanogenesis; Shaoan Cheng, Defeng Xing, Douglas F. Call and Bruce E. Logan; The Pennsylvania State University; 2009; Here we demonstrate that methane can directly be produced ... by a process called electromethanogenesis. At a set potential of less than −0.7 V (vs Ag/AgCl), carbon dioxide was reduced to methane using a two-chamber electrochemical reactor containing an abiotic anode, a biocathode, and no precious metal catalysts";

U.S. Coal Emits Less Than 1% of World Mercury

DOE - Fossil Energy: Mercury Emission Control R&D

We start to readdress herein a topic that has begun to take on a little more importance lately, since, according to some recent news reports, as, for instance:

West Virginia Coal Association | Associations Petitioning for Review of the EPA's | Latest; concerning:

"(Coal) Associations Petitioning for Review of EPA's (Rules on Mercury Emissions); The West Virginia Coal Association has joined an alliance of state coal, manufacturing and energy associations, as well as state chambers of commerce in petitioning for a judicial review of recent actions by the EPA related to mercury standards at steam electrical generation facilities. The petition challenges the rule filed by the EPA on February 16 (2012)";

Coal Ash Conserves Energy, Reduces CO2 and Saves Trees

USGS Fact Sheet 076-01: Coal Combustion Products

Herein, we see that the United States Geological Survey, the USGS:

Welcome to the USGS - U.S. Geological Survey;

a bureau within the United States Department of the Interior, has studied the issue of Coal Utilization Byproducts, "CUBS"; performing more of a survey than anything else, and documented a number of current productive uses for what they, and others, refer to as Coal Combustion Products, "CCPS", a label which some prefer and which might, in fact, have more positive connotations.