Category: News

One major advantage of the @BBGeeks Twitter feed is that we hear so much feedback. My favorites are content suggestions. We try to provide as much useful BlackBerry information as possible, and what better way to gauge usefulness than by listening to our audience? One request we received frequently was of various options for Bible viewing and study on your BlackBerry. So, with Christmas just a few days away, what more appropriate time than to share some of our favorite links? There are dozens of options, but we’ve gone through our own store, App World, and some choice third-party sites to deliver some of the best Bible content available for your BlackBerry.

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Atlus Japan has a new game in development. It hasn’t been officially announced, but they are recruiting a lot of debuggers for it. A new Weekly Famitsu scan seems to have narrowed it down a bit. Reportedly,

The total passenger transport volume of 300,000 person-times per day, the Taiwan¡¦s largest transport transit center which consist of 6 levels above ground and 4 levels under ground and has pedestrian underpass connected with Taipei Intercity Bus Terminal, Taipei Main Station is the junction station for Taiwan Railway System, Taipei Metropolitan Rapid Transit System and Taiwan High speed Railway System.

¡§The Railway Shop¡¨ is a convenient store located in the main building of the Taipei Main Station and offers snack foods, bottled beverage, take-away and souvenirs to passengers who are rushing for their trains or buses.

For handling almost 100 or more transactions per hours and zero margin of error is allowed, The Railway Shop needs a robust, reliable and low MRT POS system to handle such high-loaded operation requirement, and the EBN SolidPOS 615 is the chosen one.
In the space limited retailing shops like The Railway Shop, to increase the value on every selling floor is the vital consideration. Thanks to the Solid POS 615 with small footprint, The Railway Shop can maximum every inch of space to offer service to customers and earn the revenue.
Highest reliability design, using proven technology from The Railway Shop, EBN is the best POS solution partner of The Railway Shop to offer fast and high quality service to customers, and also yours.

SolidPOS 60 Series Features
-Built-in with Intel ULV Celeron M 1GHz low power consumption and high performance technology being the fanless terminal.
-Integrated with 8.4¡¨ / 12.1¡¨ / 15¡¨;5-wire resistive touch screen for interactive interface.
-Stylish touch POS terminal with remarkable visibility
-Compact size designed for space-crucial applications
-Tool-free and modular design – easy upgrade and assembly/disassembly
-Optional Programmable Keyboard, Customer Display, MSR

The series is used for many applications; it can be fitted under charts and trolleys of any kind, with light and standard carrying capacity. It can be used also for outdoor applications.
Typical usage: trolleys for indoor and outdoor industrial handling, bin containers.

Technical features
LOAD CAPACITY: 65-390 daN
WHEEL TREAD: standard rubber tread; hardness 83 Shore A.
CENTRE: made of two riveted galvanizec pressed steel discs

Usage conditions
Suitable for humid environments and outdoors; not suitable for applications where organic solvents, chlorinated substances, hydrocarbons and mineral oils.

Aerotech’s new PRO165LM linear stages are built for high throughput high precision, industrial positioning

• Low cost stage builds on well proven hard top & side sealed design
• Linear motion guide bearings, direct-drive linear motors and high resolution linear encoders make for exceptionally high reliability and long life time positioning systems

Aerotech has launched a new range of high precision linear positioning stages for high throughput industrial production and test applications. The low-cost PRO165LM series features and improves upon Aerotech’s time-tested hard-top and side sealed stage design with a powerful direct-drive brushless linear motor, micron level linear encoder feedback and long-life linear motion guide bearings for extremely smooth motion and exceptional servo system sensitivity.

With a nominal width of 165 mm and ten travel range options from 100 mm to 1 metre, the new stages can handle payloads up to 45 kg, speeds to 2 m/sec and acceleration to 3g with sub-micron level repeatability. Available in standard accuracy grade to ± 4 microns or with Aerotech’s certified HALAR option to ± 1.5 microns, the PRO165LM series is aimed at challenging applications such as laser processing and MEMS micromachining where superior manufacturing quality, rapid production throughput, long service life and low maintenance are of primary importance.

A choice of standard linear encoders includes 0.1 micron line driver or amplified sine output alternatives to provide a practical system resolution down to 250 nanometres. Aerotech’s cog-free brushless servomotors provide exceptionally high force output combined with very smooth motion and excellent in-position stability. Matched performance servo drives with ±320 VDC bus voltages are available across Aerotech’s range of motion controllers.

Sealed linear motion guide bearings and a high stiffness base plate system help to guarantee the load handling capability, the rigidity and the long service life capability of the PRO165LM series. MTBF life is specified at 20 000 hours across the range.
The rugged Teflon® impregnated tabletop and hard top way cover provides full protection from hot sparks and machining debris, and tensioned side straps effectively seal the internal bearing system, motor and encoder. The hard top sealing system has been used extensively across Aerotech’s range of linear positioning stages and has proven to be much more effective that bellows type stage sealing.

The PRO165LM series can be supplied in X-Y, XZ or YZ configurations with orthogonality certified to 5 arc-secs. The versatility built into the stage design includes a selection of tabletop plates that include mounting patterns with steel inserts for Aerotech ADRS and AGR series rotary stages as well as standard metric (or inch) plates. All stage travel and mounting configurations have a chain type cable management option for ease of installation into the customers’ system.

To complement the performance of the PRO165LM series stages, Aerotech manufactures a wide range of advanced motion controls and servo amplifiers. The A3200 Digital Automation Platform is a Windows™ based software-only controller for up to 32 axes of Firewire® interfaced high performance motion and machine control and includes optional HMI, PLC and vision control modules. It is programmable in a choice of languages including powerful .NET, RS-274 G-code, high level AeroBASIC™ or optional LabVIEW™.

The A3200’s distributed control architecture delivers fully deterministic motion updates to Aerotech’s Ndrive® servo drives that process motion and I/O commands at bandwidths up to 20 KHz. Additional Ethernet 10/100 Base T interfaced third party I/O and PLC’s may be added to Ndrives for further system expansion.
The PRO165LM is also available for use with Aerotech’s multi axis Ensemble™ Epaq – a desktop or 19 inch rack mounted system with integral linear or PWM stage amplifiers, or stepper drives and a full complement of machine I/O. It is capable of controlling up to 6 axes of motion and machine control internally with the possibility of adding a further three external drives. For single axis applications, Aerotech’s Soloist™ can provide high performance motion control with integrated servo drive and the possibility for Ethernet based multi-axis control.

Aerotech motion systems are delivered fully tested with all motor power and encoder cables plus performance and calibration related documents. For straightforward commissioning, a delivery pack with interconnection drawings and all motor parameter set-up data for the system is provided along with product training and comprehensive on-line technical support.

The latest generation of hydraulic tie rod cylinders from Parker Hannifin, the global leader in motion and control technologies, incorporate a number of innovative features designed to minimise machine assembly and maintenance times, resulting in considerably increased productivity levels. In particular, Parker’s HMI hydraulic cylinders are now available with four-face spanner flats for simplified maintenance in confined spaces, while specially designed thrust keys can be specified to ensure secure mounting and make machine assembly easier, faster and safer than ever before.

The option of four-face spanner flats on each piston rod end, rather than the standard two, for both ISO and DIN versions of the HMI cylinders, makes each piston rod easier to hold and rotate in confined spaces. As a result, both installation and maintenance are quicker, while the risk of damage to equipment is significantly reduced; just as importantly, this latest development to the proven HMI tie rod cylinders helps to reduce downtime and operating costs.

Similarly, the design of the thrust key mechanism has been enhanced for use with Parker’s foot-mounted HMI cylinders, and helps to eliminate the problems caused by rotational forces applied to the cylinder body during cylinder operation. Engineers now have the option of an integrated thrust key, formed as part of the front retainer plate, or a separate key that locates within keyways machined in the foot mounting at the head end of each cylinder and the machine bed. The integrated key is supplied as standard on HMI cylinders between 25mm and 32mm, while the separate unit is intended for use with cylinders of 40mm bore or greater; this version complies with the most recent version of the ISO 6020/2 standard.

Additionally, all bore sizes of Parker foot mounted cylinders now feature slotted mounting holes in the cap end feet. The mounting holes allow for the dimensional variations that result from tolerance build-up that can occur during cylinder construction, making assembly to the machine simple and fast, and helping to reduce installation time and costs still further.

The latest Parker range of ISO and DIN tie rod cylinders have been developed for applications of up to 210 bar, in bore sizes from 25 to 200mm, with piston rod diameters of 12 to 140mm. Both single and double rod designs are available, with an almost unlimited choice of stroke lengths and a wide variety of options, including cushions and seal materials.

Full details of the latest Parker cylinders can be found in the new version of the HMI/HMD catalogue, HY07-1150, which is currently available in English and German, with French and Italian versions to be released shortly.

Japan, Asia | Watery Wonders

An invention of the Japanese sex industry ‘Soaplands’ are descended from Turkish water brothels, places where the hard-working Japanese salaryman can go to get himself soaped down by a young and nimble nymph. Originally known as toruko-buro, or Turkish baths, after protestations from the Russian Embassy the name was changed to Soapland.

Soaplands became popular after outright prostitution was made illegal in Japan, as here the service is being bathed not explicitly sex. The legality of these places is much in question, with a wider range of deeds considered legal than you might expect. Due to this semi-legality, the places are often run by ‘yakuza’- Japanese gangsters, situated in red-light districts.

The Queen Chateau Soapland Haikyo (Haikyo is a Japanese term meaning ruins) in Ibaraki is at once a grand but squalid folly. A bath-based brothel rising 5 fairy-tale stories into the sky, cornered with towers and capped with bright red tile, it represents an era gone mad with indulgence, audacity, and hopefulness.

Today the Queen Chateau Soapland lies in crippled ruin, its bright colors fading, its halycon days of glamor and glitz supplanted by ghost-like hangings in its dim and dusty bars. Its grand playing-card Queen still stands aloft emblazoned across the front of the building, but her stare is now more that of a toothless Ozymandius than a haughty mademoiselle.

Written by Japanese Haikyo expert and explorer Michael John Grist. More about this place and other Haikyo can be found on his site here.

Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Europe, Aston Martin, Luxury

Move over Jaguar XJ220. At 217 mph, your top end is just too slow. Hell, move over Batmobile. Why? The Aston Martin One-77, Britain’s most expensive car ever, is now nearly its fastest. If not for the pesky, eternal problem of the McLaren F1 and its 241 mph top end, the One-77 would be the fastest production car in the history of Old Blighty. As it stands, or in this case flies, a One-77 has just crested 220 mph.

Can the latest and no question greatest from Aston Martin go even faster? Probably, as AM was quick to point out, that the 220 mph velocity was achieved in “dry, but windy conditions.” Never forget the amount of power this 7.3-liter V12 beastie makes – between 700 and 740 horsepower, and around 553 lb-ft of torque. For the sake of national pride, the McLaren F1 produced “just” 627 hp and 480 lb-ft of torque. Obviously, the 2,514 pound F1 is much lighter than the 3,308 pound One-77, however, which actually makes 220 mph run all the more impressive.

0-60 mph? Quarter mile? Lateral acceleration? We don’t know yet, but we do know that Aston Martin will keep us up to date as soon as all that information gets logged. For its part, the matte gray beauty you see above is at a “top secret proving ground in southern Europe” where its being flogged about in anticipation of the One-77’s mid-2010 release. If not for the £1.25 million price tag (just shy of $2M Yankee bucks), we’d be losing sleep. Full press release after the jump.

[Source: Aston Martin]

Continue reading Aston Martin One-77 closes in on being fastest car in marque’s history, breaks 220 mph

Aston Martin One-77 closes in on being fastest car in marque’s history, breaks 220 mph originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drhawass.com

Press release (with photo):

On Thursday, the Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, and the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Dr. Zahi Hawass, witnessed the extraction of a red granite tower, originally part of a pylon, from the Mediterranean seabed at the archaeological site of Alexandria’s eastern harbor.

Hosni described the pylon’s tower as unique among Alexandria’s antiquities. The Minister explained that it was discovered in 1998, along with 400 other artifacts, by a Greek archaeological mission in collaboration with divers from the Underwater Archaeology Department in Alexandria while conducting a comprehensive archaeological survey along the coastal area of Qaitbey. Hosni added that the tower is 2,25 meters tall, weighs 9 tones, and is cut from a single piece of red granite.

Hawass announced that although the SCA has prohibited the removal of submerged artifacts since 2002, the tower is considered an exception – it is intended as the centerpiece for the future Underwater Museum to be constructed in the Stanley area of Alexandria. The museum will exhibit over 200 objects taken from the seabed of Alexandria’s eastern harbor and from Abu Qir.

Hawass explained that the SCA has prohibited the extraction of submerged pieces because on the one hand, the SCA is conducting an extensive archaeological and cultural project with UNESCO, studying all the procedures necessary to build a new underwater museum in Alexandria. Visitors will be able to enjoy an underwater tour walking along special tunnels among the different sunken artifacts. On the other hand, extracting further pieces would require a great amount of time as would the cleaning the objects from accumulated salts.

According to Harry Tzalas who headed the 1998 mission, the tower was part of an entrance to a temple dedicated to Isis Lochias located on Cape Lochias. According to ancient sources, Cleopatra’s Mausoleum was near this temple – a door lintel and a coin bearing the image of a similar tower were among objects discovered in 1998.

At the eastern harbor is where Mark Antony died after being defeated by Octavian. It is also where Cleopatra tragically ended her life. However, we do not think the couple was buried here.

eTurboNews (Hazel Heyer)

On December 17, Egypt’s Culture Minister, Farouk Hosni, and the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Dr. Zahi Hawass, unveil yet again an important find in Egypt’s Mediterranean coast.

The precious artifact is to be the centerpiece in the future Underwater Museum to be constructed in the Stanley area of Alexandria. The museum is set to display over 200 objects excavated from the Mediterranean over the past several years.

Media attending an international press conference at the Qait Bey Citadel on the eastern harbor in Alexandria – Egypt’s historic city on the Med will be given the first view of the relic. Both Hosni and Hawass will unveil a unique, sunken artifact from the Mediterranean’s seabed. This piece is said to be a granite pylon tower of Isis temple found beside the Cleopatra Mausoleum off the royal quarter at the eastern harbor.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

The world’s biggest airbag and seat belt manufacturer, Swedish company Autoliv, has decided to shut down four of its foreign factories in France, Germany, Mexico and Tunisia. As a result, 820 company employees will lose their jobs.

The company was forced to adopt this measure as part of a cost-cutting plan developed to deal with the seriously decreased orders that resulted from the general decrease of the automotive market.

The seat belt assembling plant in Tunisia … (read more)

GINEBRA, EFE
El Foro Humanitario Global se apenó por el fracaso de los gobiernos reunidos en Copenhague en alcanzar un acuerdo contra el cambio climático.

“Este resultado representa una oportunidad perdida para terminar con esta crisis de manera definitiva, además varios países pequeños se sintieron marginados en el proceso”, dijo esta organización no gubernamental (ONG) presidida por el ex secretario general de la ONU, Kofi Annan.

Logros
No obstante, la organización reconoció que “el hecho de que grandes economías como Brasil, China e India pactaran el ‘Acuerdo de Copenhague’ con Estados Unidos, con el que en principio tenían puntos de vista diferentes, supone un avance significativo”.
Por ello, el Foro considera que, aunque aún queda mucho trabajo por hacer para alcanzar el tipo de acuerdo internacional que el mundo necesita, la cumbre “representa un importante paso adelante en el esfuerzo de la humanidad para luchar contra el cambio climático”.
“En Copenhague el mundo se comprometió con este tema por primera vez”, afirmó.

Fuente Bibliografìa

Japanese carmaker Toyota, one of the most battered (on several fronts) carmakers of 2009 is reportedly considering two options for its Australian Altona engine plant: either retool it and get it ready to receive production of the new-generation engine of the 2012 Camry, or shut it down and send all 300 workers home.

According to GoAuto, the management of the plant is trying its best to convince the upper management of the company to invest for the retooling.

I unde… (read more)

This past summer I had talked about a hydrogen yacht sailing around the Mediterranean Sea and just yesterday I had talked about how the first hydrogen transport vehicle was not a boat. So, today, of course I’d like to talk about a new hydrogen yacht on the scene.

Pharos Marine, based out of Egypt, has in fact, unveiled the Orcageno hydrogen diesel hybrid super-yacht. The Orcageno is 197 feet long is has been built to cut through the water with minimal friction and have minimal impact on marine life as well.

In regard to hydrogen safety, “High safety standards are applied for hydrogen tanks to provide reliable operation conditions during loading and consumption of hydrogen fuel. The tanks are well isolated and fabricated from stress resistant material connected to each other by means of pipes and valves with sensors to indicate any leakage of hydrogen gas with a reliable shut down emergency system to ensure safety at all times.”

The hydrogen-diesel system is dual fuel and either can be used with the flip of a switch inside the vessel’s internal combustion engine, which in turn drives the Pharos Marine Orcageno’s generator. The generator then powers the Azipod electrical propulsion system.

Of course, being a yacht the Orcageno is not only environmentally friendly but also a luxury vehicle as well. It features a spa, health center, swimming pool and dining room so that guests can relax and enjoy the sunrises and sunsets aboard this eco-vessel.

Yesterday’s gold slip has today been made definitive. Gold $1,100 has been smashed, we’re now near $1,085.

It’s quite a conundrum for investors looking to use gold as a hedge. U.S. GDP was just reported lower than expected, which means the fed’s punch bowl is more likely to stay around. Yet gold is falling. Buy on dips?

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Canadian Mint Reveals How It Miscounted Its Gold And Lost Millions
• The World’s #1 Miner Succeeds By Completely Ignoring Gold
• Doug Kass’s Big Surprises For 2010: A Dollar Surge, A Gold Collapse, And Goldman Sachs Going Private

Have you ever noticed that the corners of your rooms are dirtier than the rest of the house? Maybe it is because vents and breezes blow things around until they land in the corner, never to move again. Well, at least not until you vacuum them up the next day. Today, I’m cleaning all of my corners after yesterday’s big “I’m bored. What can I do? Can I do the vacuuming?” event, because they got missed and I didn’t want to re-clean in front of my helpers. (Children and some grownups tend to clean right in the middle of a room without thinking about the fact that the space under the sofa or that corner over there needs to be vacuumed, too.)So, why did I wait until the next day to do the job right?

Going right behind helpers and re-cleaning isn’t a good way to make them feel capable and useful. Since you have children help with household chores to teach responsibility, to build stronger families and to do any number of other good things, you don’t want to undo all the good by destroying their self esteem and making them feel inadequate. Instead, you may want to wait until they are in school to clean your corners properly. Then, guide them to clean those areas by modeling the right way to do it another day.

Photo: SXC

Post from: Blisstree

Tidy Tuesday – Clean Your Corners

BRUSELAS, EFE
Los ministros europeos de Medio Ambiente se reúnen hoy tras el fracaso de la Cumbre sobre cambio climático de Copenhague para analizar lo ocurrido y estudiar cómo reconducir las negociaciones el año que viene, bajo las presidencias rotativas de la Unión Europea (UE) de España y Bélgica.

“Nadie sabe qué hacer”, reconoció una fuente diplomática que también aseguró que la UE “fue dejada de lado” por Estados Unidos, China, India, Sudáfrica y Brasil, que llegaron a un acuerdo de mínimos por su cuenta sin respetar el sistema tradicional de negociación de Naciones Unidas.

Europa marginado
Después de Copenhague, las dos únicas citas previstas hasta el momento son la reunión de la ONU de México en noviembre de 2010 y otro encuentro a escala técnica también en el seno de Naciones Unidas que se celebrará en Bonn (Alemania) el próximo mes de junio, con España aún al frente de la UE.
Los europeos no han tenido aún tiempo material de reaccionar, pero ya tienen claro que se han equivocado en su planteamiento y que deben calibrar de nuevo su posición para evitar que ocurra lo mismo en México.

El afán de liderazgo de la UE que anunció con un año de antelación un compromiso unilateral de reducción de emisiones del 20% para 2020 pudo ser el factor que dejó directamente fuera de la mesa a los europeos, interpretaron estas fuentes.

Expertos comunitarios indicaron, por otro lado, que la UE mantendrá su compromiso de reducción del 20%, pero no llegará al 30% que había prometido si otros actores internacionales hacían un esfuerzo equivalente.

En lo económico
El máximo logro conseguido en la capital danesa fue el acuerdo para crear un fondo de financiación anticipada (2010-2012) de 30 mil millones de dólares para ayudar a países en desarrollo a combatir el calentamiento global y otro que tendrá que haber llegado a los 100 mil millones de dólares anuales en 2020.

No obstante, el texto final sólo señala que esta financiación provendrá de fuentes privadas y públicas sin especificar cuánto aportará cada país.
Fuente Bibliográfica

Online identity is one of the biggest themes on the web today and a number of providers, most notably Facebook and Google, are battling it out to become the most powerful player in the field. On the other hand, there is a great tendency towards integration and interoperability between various web services. One increasingly popular way of enabling this is OAuth, a protocol which allows sites to share private data in a secure manner. The next generation OAuth WRAP specification is getting fleshed out and this time around it gets the full support of Facebook which has now introduced an experimental implementation on FriendFeed, which it acquired last summer.

“While Facebook Connect and our APIs do not use OAuth today, we’ve been working over the past month to share what we’ve learned with the broader community and shape both the new OAuth WRAP specification and OAuth’s IETF standardization effort,” Facebook’s David Recordon writes.

This move is interesting from two perspectives. For one, it makes a definite commitment from Facebook to the standard. The social network has had great success with Connect which serves a very similar purpose to OAuth’s albeit with a more limited scope as it is restricted to Facebook data, but it plans to support the open standard as it moves on. The … (read more)

by Jeff Biggers

This post was co-written by Stephanie Pistello, Ben Evans, and Ben Sollee, co-founders of the Coal Free Future Project.

On the heels of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, we plan to make our own post-Copenhagen pledge here at home: It’s time to envision a coal-free future. It’s time for clean energy independence.  

For those of us in the anti-mountaintop removal and anti-coal-fired plant movements, we believe this means we must start in coal country.

For starters, here in Kentucky we disagree with Commerce Lexington that energy legislation is “the most immediate threat to Kentucky’s business climate.”

Nothing could be further from the truth for Lexington, Kentucky, and the rest of our nation. Dirty energy led to Lexington’s embarrassing selection last year as the worst carbon footprint contributor in the nation. Commerce Lexington has taken a giant carbon step backwards.

In 1776, Thomas Paine challenged our country to embrace the cause of independence over compromise. In a moment of crisis, he declared: “We have it in our power to make the world over again.”

Our modern-day Paine, James Hansen at the NASA Goddard Center, has issued a similar clarion call: “Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet. Our global climate is nearing tipping points.”

It’s time to envision a coal-free future. It’s time for clean energy independence.

Coal mining, which provides 45 percent of our electricity, will not end tomorrow. Every coal miner deserves a right to a sustainable livelihood; given the legacy of our coal miners, we also believe no coal miner should be displaced from his or her job until we develop clean energy alternatives. This means that coalfield residents, like all Americans, deserve a road map for a feasible transition to clean-energy jobs—including a Coal Miner’s GI Bill for retraining and a massive reinvestment in sustainable economic development in coalfield communities—before we reach a point of no return.

All coal mining communities know that the first time in 25 years, utilities coal stockpiles have increased during the summer; absentee coal companies are cutting jobs and idling higher-cost mines to keep their stock holders happy in a period of slumping demand; recent U.S. Geological Survey estimates place “peak coal” production as early as 2020.

As grandchildren of black-lung-afflicted coal miners from Kentucky, Illinois, and southwestern Virginia, we honor our families’ sacrifices in recognizing, not denying, the true cost of coal. Our grandfathers benefited from a transition to mechanization to improve mine safety. The time has come for a transition to clean-energy jobs.

A just transition, of course, means more than rhetoric about green jobs—it will require not only a shift in massive investments and sustainable economic development, but a change in our long-standing policies that have allowed coal country to be the sacrifice zone for the nation.

Coal is not cheap nor clean; coal has been killing us—for over 200 years. Over 104,000 Americans have died in coal-mining accidents; three coal miners die daily from black-lung disease. Millions of acres of forests and farmlands have been strip-mined into oblivion; pioneering communities have been plundered. Half of Americans live within an hour of a toxic coal ash dump.

The Physicians for Social Responsibility recently found that coal “contributes to four of the top five causes of mortality in the U.S. and is responsible for increasing the incidence of major diseases.”

The National Academy of Scientists totaled costs of coal at more than $62 billion in “external damages” to our health and lives. A West Virginia University report noted the coal industry “costs the Appalachian region five times more in early deaths than it provides in economic benefits.”

In Kentucky, according to a Mountain Association of Community Economic Development study, coal may provide $528 million in state revenue, but costs $643 million in state expenditures.

Nothing has motivated our commitment for clean energy more than the tragedy of mountaintop-removal mining. We have seen the devastation of clear-cutting our nation’s great forests and carbon sink of Appalachia and blowing up its oldest mountain range. We have met the casualties of absentee commerce; grieving parents who have lost loved ones to coal slurry-contaminated water; veterans and elderly who endure blasting, fly rock and silica dust; families who have seen their homes washed away in floods caused by erosion; streams poisoned with mining waste; boarded-up communities, strangled by a boom-and-bust single economy.

The plunder of Appalachia must end.

More so, with coal-fired plants contributing over 30 percent of our CO2 emissions, everyone’s fate is connected to the coalfields now.

In the end, our fiduciary responsibility to our children demands a new way of generating our electricity in Kentucky and the country. It also affords us a great opportunity for economic and social revitalization

Clean energy independence, not coal, will bring more sustainable jobs.

Wind, solar, hydropower and turbine manufacturing, along with weatherization, retrofitting appliances and homes, could create jobs. The Appalachian Regional Commission found that “energy-efficiency investments could result in an increase of 77,378 net jobs by 2030” in the region.

For us, such a clean energy revolution begins with the proposed Smith # 1 coal-fired plant in eastern Kentucky. Instead of a costly coal-fired dinosaur, a recent study found that a combination of “energy efficiency, weatherization, hydropower, and wind power initiatives in the East Kentucky Power Cooperative region would generate more than 8,750 new jobs for Kentucky residents, with a total impact of more than $1.7 billon on the region’s economy over the next three years.”

Ultimately, this clean energy independence would meet the energy needs of EKPC customers and cost less than the proposed coal plant.

So, this is our Copenhagen pledge at home: It’s time to imagine a coal-free future.

For more on the Coal Free Future Project, see: www.coalfreefuture.org

Related Links:

What happens now for the forests?

Copenhagen coal in the stocking?

The top green stories of the ‘00s