{"id":169,"date":"2008-12-26T08:52:36","date_gmt":"2008-12-26T08:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/tennessee-coal-mine-disaster.html"},"modified":"2008-12-26T08:52:36","modified_gmt":"2008-12-26T08:52:36","slug":"tennessee-coal-mine-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/tennessee-coal-mine-disaster.html","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee coal mine disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talk about a lump of coal in your stocking<\/a> for Christmas:<\/p>\n

A disaster that occurred early Monday morning has ruined the holidays
\nfor some residents of Knoxville, Tennessee. A retaining wall at the
\nTennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal-fired power plant collapsed,
\nspewing 2.6 million cubic yards of fly ash across Tennessee.<\/p>\n

According to the TVA, 400 acres of land are submerged 6-feet deep in
\nthe toxic substance<\/b>. The sludge that burst out of the holding pond for
\npower plant waste ripped an entire home from its foundations and
\nflooded 11 other homes in the area.
…
Fortunately,
\nno injuries related to the disaster have been reported so far. However,
\nthe situation is expected to worsen. Fly ash is a highly toxic
\nsubstance that contains mercury, lead, and arsenic. A report from last year<\/a> also states that fly ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s shocking just how dangerous coal mining really is. Not just for the miners but also for the public at large. Compared to nuclear energy, coal is worse in every<\/i> respect. The design of modern nuclear reactors is nothing like the old style Three Mile Island or Chernobyl type. Modern pebble-bed reactors are physically incapable of melting down, and produce useful energy byproducts like pure hydrogen as well, There’s a great article in Wired about how the Chinese are aggressively pushing small-scale pebble bed reactor technology<\/a>, which if deployed on a large enough scale could make coal mines obsolete. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Talk about a lump of coal in your stocking for Christmas: A disaster that occurred early Monday morning has ruined the holidays for some residents of Knoxville, Tennessee. A retaining wall at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal-fired power plant collapsed, spewing 2.6 million cubic yards of fly ash across Tennessee. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}