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When will people learn that coal can never be clean? From extraction to disposal, it is one of the most environmentally devastating energy sources in existence. On December 22, 2008, the residents of Roane County, TN received an early Christmas gift from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). It seems they were quite naughty this past year. However, instead of the simple lump of coal I always dreaded as a child, they got a coal ash slurry. An estimated 400 acres of it. The nearby Kingston Fossil Plant had been storing coal ash, the solid byproduct of burning coal, since it began operating in 1955. According to the TVA website, the plant burns 14,000 tons of coal a day. That's a total of 271 millions tons of coal. All of the ash from all of that coal is mixed with water and stored in an above ground reservoir. On the Monday before Christmas, one of the 20ft earthen retaining walls encasing the dump site failed sending forth a gray tidal wave removing houses from their foundations and covering over 400 acres in a toxic quagmire. Volume estimates range from 350 to over 500 million gallons. But that is just the beginning. There are roughly 600 coal fired power plants in the US alone. Clean Energy Rally in Salem Tuesday Jan 13th
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