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<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><i>Mining News</i> February 24
2016</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b>Amid Struggles coal market, Less
Fuel Worth Mining U.S.</b></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b><br></b></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">Posted by admin | On 24 February,2016
(16 hours ago) | In Mining News<br>
<u
>http://www.todayminingnews.com/2016/02/24/amid-struggles-coal-market</u
>-less-fuel-worth-mining-u-s/<br>
<br>
Vast coal deposits hundreds of feet thick below the rolling hills of
the northern plains once appeared almost limitless, fueling boasts
that domestic reserves were sufficient to American power for
centuries.<br>
<br>
But an exhaustive analysis government says that at current prices and
mining land rates the largest coal reserves, located along the
Montana-Wyoming border, will be tapped in just a few decades.<br>
<br>
The adoption by the US Geological Survey upends conventional wisdom on
life for top-coal producing region of the nation, the Powder River
Basin. It also reflects the changing economic realities for companies
that extract affect the profits of the fuel rising commodities fall
coal prices and political pressure grows over coal's contribution to
climate change.<br>
<br>
"You look at a forty-year life span, maximum, for Powder River
coal," said USGS geologist Jon Haacke, one of the authors of the
analysis.<br>
<br>
Claims that the US had reserves sufficient to last as long as 250
years came from "vastly inflated" estimates how much coal
could be mined, added Haacke. They are based on data put by the Energy
Department United States, which for decades has made little
distinction between coal reserves that could reasonably be won and
which could not.<br>
<br>
The perception of abundant coal began to shift in 2008, when the USGS
team released the first data that cast doubt on the life of US
stocks.<br>
<br>
Nevertheless claims that America was held the "Saudi Arabia of
coal" in 2010 by President Barack Obama and continued in recent
months by industry supporters. The Department of Energy states on its
website that based on current mining rates, "estimated
recoverable coal reserves would last about 261 years."<br>
<br>
Belies the prospects both the USGS assessment and industry, recent
changes in fortune. Mine production has fallen after many utilities
switched from coal to cheaper natural gas. Two of the top three
domestic coal companies, Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources,
declared bankruptcy in the past 18 months.<br>
<br>
Leslie Glustrom, an environmental activist from Boulder, Colorado, who
has urged the Department of Energy to change how the line up untapped
resources of the nation, said she believes the end of the Powder River
Basin is even faster than the USGS study suggests come. And she said
it has little to do with a "war on coal" that Republicans
often accuse the Obama administration of conducting.<br>
<br>
"This is not a political problem. It is a geological problem,"
Glustrom said.<br>
<br>
In Wyoming, which produces about 40 percent of the coal in the nation,
State Lands Director Bridget Hill said she had no reason to dispute
the USGS findings, but found no cause for alarm. Highlighting global
demand could rebound, she said. Proposed coal ports now come to a halt
on the West Coast could get built. And could make coal competitive
again an increase in oil and gas prices.<br>
<br>
"The economy may be different from what we know now," Hill
said.<br>
<br>
It's been four decades since the low sulfur content was first Powder
River Basin coal the fuel of choice among electricity companies needed
to cut their sulfur dioxide pollution. Sprawling strip mines in the
region have been removed more than 11 billion tons of coal, the
equivalent of 95 million loaded rail cars.<br>
<br>
To gauge how much coal remains the USGS researchers since 2004 have
removed deep drilled 30,000 holes analyzed in the earth's geology
minerals. The data showed bury almost 1.1 billion tons of coal over
the 20,000 square mile Powder River Basin. Of that, only 162 billion
tons in coal seams considered thick enough and close enough to the
surface to make them extract worthwhile.<br>
<br>
The amount even more drastically decreases when the quality of the
coal is calculated and compared with the current prices. When the USGS
data before it was written first, in 2013, Powder River Basin coal was
selling for $ 10.90 per tonne, resulting in approximately 23 billion
tons is designated as economically-recoverable.</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
With coal prices down to $ 9.55 per ton, the estimated reserve has
dropped to only 16 billion tons, said Haacke. That's equivalent to 40
years at the current production rate of 400 million tonnes annually in
the basin of 16 mines in Wyoming and Montana.<br>
<br>
source:<u>
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2016/02/23/amid-coal-market-struggles-less</u
>-fuel-worth-mining-in-u-s/</font><br>
<font face="Lucida Grande"></font></div>
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" Š organisms have a physiological response to temperature,
and these responses have important consequences Š. biological rates
and times (e.g. metabolic rate, growth, reproduction, mortality and
activity) vary with temperature.<br>
<br>
Anthony I. Dell, Samraat Pawar and Van M. Savage. Temperature
dependence of trophic interactions are driven by asymmetry of species
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2013<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
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>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000">"All
organisms live within a limited range of body temperatures, due to
optimized structural and kinetic coordination of molecular, cellular,
and systemic processes. Functional constraints result at temperature
extremes. Increasing complexity causes narrower thermal windows for
whole-organism functions than for cells and molecules, and for animals
and plants than for unicellular organisms (8). Direct effects of
climatic warming can be understood through fatal decrements in an
organism's performance in growth, reproduction, foraging, immune
competence, behaviors and competitiveness. Performance in animals is
supported by aerobic scope, the increase in oxygen consumption rate
from resting to maximal (9). Performance falls below its optimum
during cooling and warming. At both upper and lower pejus
temperatures, performance decrements result as the limiting capacity
for oxygen supply causes hypoxemia (4, 8) (see the figure, left).
Beyond low and high critical temperatures, only a passive, anaerobic
existence is possible."<br>
<br>
Hans O. Pörtner and Anthony P. Farrell. Physiology and Climate
Change.<i> SCIENCE</i> 31 OCTOBER 2008<x-tab> </x-tab>VOL 322<br>
===============================================================<br>
"Between 1C and 2C increases in global mean temperatures most
species, ecosystems and landscapes will be impacted and adaptive
capacity will become limited. With the already ongoing high rate of
climate change, the decline in biodiversity will therefore accelerate
and simultaneously many ecosystem services will become less
abundant."<br>
<br>
Rik Leemans and Bas Eickhout. Another reason for concern: regional and
global impacts on ecosystems for different levels of climate
change.<i> Global Environmental Change</i> 14 (2004)
219-228</font></div>
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