American Electric Power operating unit Appalachian Power has received authority from the Public Service Commission of West Virginia to build a 629-megawatt Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) electric generating plant in West Virginia.  The plant will be located beside the company’s existing Mountaineer Plant near New Haven, WV, and will cost an estimated $2.23 billion.  From the time construction begins, it will require approximately 48 to 54 months to complete the IGCC unit.  In addition to the Mountaineer unit, AEP has proposed to build a similar 629-megawatt unit in Ohio.  IGCC technology converts coal into a synthetic gas that moves through pollutant-removal equipment before the gas is burned in a combined-cycle gas turbine to produce electricity.

The Alaska Miners Association has released a survey that shows 3,500 Alaskans are directly employed in mining jobs in 2007 and another 2,000 employed indirectly.  The average annual industry wage stood at $80,000 in 2007, 90 percent higher than the state average.  Alaska’s mining industry had a direct and indirect payroll of $340 million and generated $175 million in state government revenue and $14 million in local government revenue.  The state’s mines produced $3.4 billion worth of coal, gold, silver, zinc and construction materials and accounted for 27 percent of Alaska’s total exports in 2007. (See Alaska Mining Economic Impacts).

Joy Global Inc., Milwaukee, WI, has completed its acquisition of N.E.S. Investment Co. and its subsidiary, Continental Global Group, Inc., provider of conveyor systems for bulk material handling in mining and industrial applications.  Continental, with 2007 sales of approximately $340 million, designs, manufactures, installs and services highly engineered conveyor systems for customers on six continents and has manufacturing facilities in the U.S., United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia.

GE Energy, Atlanta, GA, has signed a letter of intent with the University of Wyoming and Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal for the development of an advanced gasification research and technology center in Wyoming.  The proposed center would consists of a small-scale gasification system that would enable the University of Wyoming and GE researchers to develop advanced gasification technology solutions for Power River Basin (PRB) and other Wyoming coals.  GE is a leader in cleaner coal integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) and gasification technology, which as been operating at the 230-megawatt TECO Polk I Station in Florida for more than 10 years.  The company currently offers a 630-megawatt commercial-scale plant that produces 75 percent less Sox, 33 percent less water than a pulverized coal plant.   Utilities in the eastern U.S. (Duke Energy, AEP and others) have committed to using GE’s IGCC technology in proposed projects.

Utah coal production is up 20 percent over the past two years with an output of 26.1 million tons, according to Annual Review and Forecast of Utah Coal Production and Distribution 2006.  The report adds that the increased is the result of longwall mining at the Skyline mine and significant production increases at Aberdeen, West Ridge and SUFCO.  In addition, Utah achieved record production in the Book Cliffs coal field, at Carbon County and on state lands.  The Wasatch Plateau led the way with 59.4 percent of the state’s total production last year.  Total production for 2007, according to the report, is expected to total 26.4 Mt and a new state record of 28 Mt possibly for 2008.

National Coal Corp., Knoxville, TN, a coal producer in central and southern Appalachia, has agreed to sell its Kentucky assets to Xinergy Corp. for $11 million in cash.  Jon Nix, founder and major shareholder of National Coal, controls Xinergy.

Large-scale commercial implementation of clean coal-burning technology is like five to 10 years away in the U.S. and could suffer delays due to the government’s move to pull the pull on FutureGen, says Peabody Energy Corp. Chief Executive Gregory Boyce.  After a site was selected at Mattoon, IL, Boyce said that he and other investors had thought it was about to start.    Peabody Energy is part of a 13-memnber FutureGen Alliance that included U.S. utilities and coal producers, along with international producers Anglo American, BHP Billiton and China’s Huaneng Group.

Longwall Associates Inc., Chilhowie, VA, an original equipment manufacturer, has a contract to deliver a full longwall face conveyor system to Micare Mine in Mexico.  A second contract is underway for a full AFC system from SAADEC Daning Mine in Shanxi Province, China.  The armored face conveyor, beam stage loader, crusher and CMT will be delivered to Micare this summer with trials scheduled at the Chilhowie location early this year.  Longwall Associates occupies more than 25 percent of the U.S. longwall conveyor market, with additional contracts in Australia and China.

Dominion Virginia Power, St. Paul, VA, is proposing a $1.6 billion coal-fired power plant, which is currently under review by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.  The construction phase of the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center would create 800 jobs for economically depressed southwest Virginia.  It could support more than 250 coal-mining jobs once it was on line in 2012.  The plant would employ 75 people. Dominion plans to use advanced technology to burn cleaner coal and will burn only coal mines in Virginia, as well as coal waste and wood products.

Integrated Power Services, Greenville, SC, prominent in the service and repair of electric motors and mechanical power transmission components, has acquired Electro-Mec of Indiana, PA, which offers motor and mechanical repair, new product sales, field services and precision-machined products.  IPS has twelve regional service centers across the country.  Electro-Mec will operate as an IPS company.

Fuel Frontiers, Inc., a subsidiary of Nuclear Solutions, Inc., has met with Westinghouse Plasma and Shaw, Stone & Webster in Washington, DC, to lay groundwork for a 400-ton per day coal-to-ultra clean diesel fuel production facility in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.

Sunflower Electric Power Corp. has received approval from the Kansas House to build two large-coal burning generators at its existing plant, near Holcomb, KS.  A state regulator rejected the project last year, citing climate-change concerns. However, passage of the bill, SB 327, would strip the power the official used to block the plant and allow Sunflower to try again.

Foundation Coal has acquired 49 percent interest in Target Drilling Inc., Jefferson Hills, PA, known for its in-mine as well as surface horizontal directional drilling for develpment and coal seam methane gas capture.  The driller plans to add more than 20 employees to its current staff of 60 by the end of the year and improve equipment capabilities.

Tenaska Inc., Omaha, NB, has proposed a $3 billion conventional 600-MW coal-fired power plant with the ability to capture carbon dioxide emissions in Sweetwater, Texas.  Approval of The Trailblazer Energy Center won’t be known until 2009, depending on financial incentive, construction costs and projected market prices for electricity and carbon dioxide.  Tenaska has filed an air permit application with Texas regulators.

American Electric Power, Columbus, OH, has sold four inactive generating plants owned by its AEP Texas North Generation Company LLC subsidiary to Eagle Construction and Environmental Services, LP.  The plants, which have not operated since 2004, had a total generating capacity of 656 megawatts and had produced electricity from natural gas or oil.

The market for exports of U.S.-made construction machinery closed out 2007 with a gain of more than 26 percent compared to the previous year, for a total of $17.2 billion worth of equipment sold worldwide, according to the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM).  Africa led the way in 2007 with a 67-percent gain in export purchases, for a total of $1.1 billion. Exports to Asia grew 57 percent and totaled $2.4 billion, while Europe took delivery of $2.8 billion, a 50 percent gain.  Countries buying the most U.S.-made construction machinery in 2007 were: Canada, $5.5 billion; Australia, $1.5 billion; Mexico, $1.1 billion; and Chile $675 million.

Foundation Coal of Maryland has purchased the Eagle Butte surface operation in Wyoming for $80.5 million.  The lease encompasses about 255 million minable tons on 1400 acres of land and is classified as +8400 Btu.  Foundation also owns the Bell Ayr surface complex near Gillette. The Eagle Butte Mine produced 25 Mt of coal in 2007 using a truck and shovel mining method.

Continental Global Group has been renamed Continental Crushing and Conveying, following its purchase by Joy Global.  The newly named division will join P&H Mining Equipment and Joy Mining Machinery as one of Joy Global’s three business segments.  Terry Nicola will serve as president of the entity.  The name change stems from Joy’s decision to include its Stamler surface crushers and underground feeder breakers as part of the Continental Crushing and Conveying division.

Technogenia Inc., Atlanta, GA, has opened a new office in Atlanta to develop its business in North America. Technogenia offers a wide range of anti-abrasion materials to keep industrial parts strong in such hard-wear applications as oil drilling, mining, foundry, aluminum, iron and steel industries. 

Saft, a designer and manufacturer of high-tech batteries, Valdese, NC, has been selected to power MineTracer, a wireless miner tracking and communication system developed by Venture Design Services, Inc.  Utilizing Saft’s (IS) MP 174865 IS battery, MineTracer is the first underground miner tracking system approved by MSHA.  MineTracer is completely reliant on power from Saft’s single cell batteries, installed in the system’s Wireless Access Point.

World coal consumption is about 6.2 billion tons annually, of which about 75 percent is used for the production of electricity.  China produced 2.36 billion tons in 2006 and India produced about 447.3 million tons in 2006.  83.2 percent of China’s electricity comes from coal.  The U.S. consumes about 1,053 billion tons of coal each year, using 90 percent of it for generation of electricity.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) will provide free, confidential health screenings to working underground coal miners in 16 counties throughout West Virginia this year to provide early detection of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, or “black lung”.  The screenings will be provided through a NIOSH mobile testing van at locations.  First visit is scheduled for April 7-19 in Randolph, Upshur, Webster, Nicholas, and Fayette Counties, WV.  All working underground coal miners are eligible for chest x-ray screening at no cost to them.  For more information visit http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/ORDS/ecwhsp.html  Or call 888/480-4042.

Global Parts Solution LLC, Tucson, AZ, announces a newly redesigned website at www.gotogps.com  The website is open to list and buy machines, components, parts, and dismantled machines.  Over 1,000,000 parts are online for review.

The Prairie State Energy Campus air permit process has been successfully concluded. Prairie State is a 1,600-megawatt supercritical coal-fueled power plant being built in Washington County, IL, that would be among the cleanest U.S. plants with emission rates that are approximately 80 percent lower than existing U.S. power plants.  The mine and power plant will create more than 500 permanent jobs and will inject nearly $125 million into the region each year.  Units 1 and 2 are expected to be online in the 2011-2012 timeframe.  It will deliver low-cost energy to more than 1.7 million families.

The first pilot project that uses chilled ammonia to capture carbon dioxide from coal-fueled power plants has commenced operation, reports Alstom, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and We Energies.  Alstom designed, constructed and will operate the 1.7-megawatt system that captures CO2 from a portion of coal-fired boiler flue gas at We Energies Pleasant Prairie Power Plant, a 1,210-megawatt coal-fired generating station.  The demonstration project will provide the opportunity to test the process on a large scale and to evaluate the potential to remove CO2 while reducing the energy used in the process.

ADA-ES, Inc., Littleton, CO, announces it has successfully completed the first full-scale tests of its chemically treated activated carbon (AC) that it intends to sell to coal-fired power plants for reducing mercury emissions.  ADA produced its first batches of AC in January and has completed the first performance tests of the product at a power plant burning Western PRB coal.  While operating with ADA’s AC, it was possible to reduce mercury emissions by greater than 90 percent at a very competitive feed rate.

Glen Raven, Inc., a specialty fabrics maker, Logan, WV, announces that R.J. Stern, a wholly owned subsidiary of John Boyle Company, will join the company’s technical fabrics division.  Stern fabricates and markets Minemaster ventilation brattice and other products for the mining industry. Glen Raven recently announced that John Boyle’s Statesville plant, which manufactures Minemaster, will also become part of Glen Raven Technical Fabrics.  The John Boyle Company was acquired by Glen Raven in May 2007.

American Electric Power, Columbus, OH, named one of the “100 best corporate citizens” for 2008 by CRO (Corporate Responsibility Officer) magazine.  Large-cap companies in the Russell 1000 index were ranked based on their efforts and performance in these areas: climate change, employee relations, environment, financial, governance, human rights, lobbying and philanthropy.  AEP ranks 69^th on this year’s list.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Ecublens, Switzerland, has added an OES and X-ray Product Demonstration Center to its training institute in West Palm Beach, FL.  The center will give customers the opportunity to evaluate Thermo Scientific Optical Emission (OES), Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence and Wavelength Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence systems.  These innovative systems ensure stability, precision and reproducibility of results while achieving low detection limits. Training courses are available.

The Buchanan County coal mine was expected to be in full production last March, following repairs made after a series of roof falls last year.   Workers are at four of the sections and the mine’s longwall mining equipment has moved to another area of the mine.  The mine has 520 workers and is the largest coal mine in Virginia.

Cherokee Mining, Jasper, AL, has been granted permits to begin surface mining at Segco Mine Number 1, about one mile from Shelby County 270 and Shelby County 91.  The nearly 1,300 acre site could produce as much as one million tons of coal annually.  The mine will create 104 jobs and 35 spinoff jobs.

Virginia has 1.5 billion tons of minable and merchantable coal in its southwest, the majority of which is deep mine reserves, according to the Virginia Coal and Energy Research Dept.  There are more than 30,000 people either working in mines or supporting the coal industry in southwest Virginia, the major income-generating business in this area.

A.L. Lee Corp., Lester, WV, manufacturer that specializes in personnel carriers, stone duster, utility vehicles, shelters and other products for the underground coal mining industry, has signed a letter of intent of forming a merger with Bluefield Gear & Machine and IPM Technologies.  Bluefield Gear and IPM are located in the former Eimco headquarters in the old Coppinger Machine building in Brushfork.

MSHA has launched a new feature on its web site that provides additional tools for mine safety stakeholders to assess safety performance at specific mines around the nation.  The addition to MSHA’s existing Data Retrieval system (DRS) is designed to enable users to access specific data about violations per inspection day and repeat violations of the same standards.  Visit www.msha.gov/drs/drshome.htm

Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO), a unit of American Electric Power, has begun commercial operation of two new 85-megawatt peaking generation units at Southwestern Station (SWS), near Anadarko, OK.  The addition of 170 MW of peaking capacity at Southwestern increases the plant’s total generation capacity to 608 MW.  Two more 85 MW peaking units are in the final stages of testing at PSO’s Riverside Station in Jenks, OK, and are expected to be commercially available immediately

Peabody Energy, St. Louis, MO., has been named first in the Mining and Crude Oil Industries in Fortune Magazine’s “Most Admired Companies” ranking of U.S. companies.  Peabody held the number one score in every category including Innovation, People Management, Use of Corporate Assets, Social Responsibility, Quality of Management, Financial Soundness, Long-term Investment and Product/Services Quality.  Peabody Energy outpaced a group of leading U.S. mining and energy companies.

Canada’s Crown Corporation and SaskPower announce plans for a seven-year, $1.4 billion clean coal carbon sequestration demonstration project, involving SaskPower’s coal-fired power generation units at Boundary Dam, near Estevan.  The project will produce 100 megawatts of power with zero greenhouse gas emissions, reducing Crown’s emissions by about one mega-ton a year.  Construction is expected to start in 2011.

Cherokee Mining LLC, a subsidiary of Twin Pines Coal Co., Jasper, AL, has permits approved to begin coal mining on its 1,291-acre site, that’s projected to produce one million tons of coal a year.  Surface mining will commence at the Segco Mine No. 1.

Utilities have canceled or put on hold at least 45 coal plants in development this past year, according to a new analysis by the US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh.  The industry has had more than 150 such plants in development.  Natural gas and renewable power projects have moved ahead of coal in the development, according to Global Energy Decisions, Boulder, CO.  Gas and renewables each show more than 70,000 megawatts under development compared with about 66,000 megawatts in the coal-power pipeline.

Liebherr America Inc., Newport News, VA, has expanded its exclusive licensing and technical information alliance with Immersive Technologies, Sandy, UT, to include the company’s range of hydraulic mining excavators and shovels. This follows the alliance signed in 2005 for the Immersive T282B simulator representing one of the world’s largest haul trucks.  Liebherr will work with Immersive Technologies to develop training simulators for the Liebherr range of excavator and shovels.  The first Liebherr mining excavator represented in a simulator is the current flag ship, the R 996.  Other models will follow.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman announces a restructured approach to its FutureGen project that aims to demonstrate cutting-edge carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology at multiple commercial-scale Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) clean coal power plants.  Under this strategy, DOE will join industry in its efforts to build IGCC plants by providing funding for the addition of CCS technology to multiple plants that will be operational by 2015.  This approach builds on technological research and development advancements in IGCC and CCS technology achieved over the past five years and is expected to at least double the amount of carbon dioxide sequestered compared to the concept announces in 2003.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy FY 2009 coal budget request of $648 million focuses on technology allowing the U.S. to maintain its technological lead in coal use in a way that will not raise climate concerns.  This is the largest budget request for coal research development and demonstration in over 25 years and leverages a nearly $1 billion investment in Clean Coal Technology.   The budget includes $406.5 million for Coal R&D, including in-house R&D; $85 million for the Clean Coal Power Initiative and $156 million for a new approach to the FutureGen program.

Holmbury Ltd, Mentor, OH, is observing its 25^th anniversary in business.  David French founded Holmbury in 1983, producing hydraulic quick disconnect couplings and hydraulic components.  Holmbury has a central warehouse and headquarters in Great Britain and distribution outlets worldwide.  Its North American operations and central warehouse is located in Mentor.  Holmbury specializes in flat face couplings and offers an exclusive one-year warranty against leakage.  A complete catalog of products is listed online at www.holmburyUSA.com or call 866/465-6287.

The Fraser Institute, Toronto, ON, has created the Global Centre for Mining Studies to conduct research into public policy and the economic, environmental and social impacts of mining.  The centre will undertake fact-based research on policy frameworks that can deliver the greatest economic and social benefit to those affected by mining while maintaining a profitable industry that continues to invest and create opportunity.  The centre will examine issues related to best practices in developing projects to the benefit of the local economy.

American Electric Power, Columbus, OH, announces that the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH), AEP’s transmission joint venture with Allegheny Energy, received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for transmission incentives to help support construction of the approximately 290-mile, extra-high voltage transmission line from West Virginia into Maryland. The PATH project includes approximately 244 miles of 765-kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission from AEP’s Amos substation near St. Albans, WV, to Allegheny’s Bedington substation, northeast of Martinsburg, WV.  Another 46 miles of twin-circuit 500 kV transmission will be constructed from Bedington to a new substation to be built near Kemptown, southeast of Frederick , MD.  Total project is estimated to cost approximately $1.8 billion.

Massey Energy Company, Charleston, WV, announces that Aracoma Coal Company is the recipient of Massey Energy’s Bradbury Safety Award.  Miners at Aracoma achieved no lost time accidents and a non-fatal days lost (NFDL) rate of 0.00.  In 2007, Aracoma miners worked over 574,000 hours, while completing numerous large projects throughout the year without injury.  Aracoma miners removed two longwall miner systems from the Alma mine and worked on other major construction projects.  Massey Energy also achieved its best safety performance it its history during 2007 by recording a non-fatal days lost rate of 2.05, which bettered the industry average of 3.31.  Last year’s winner of the Bradbury Award, West Cazy Surface Mine, also continues to set the standard for companies like Aracoma.  In 2007, West Cazy again achieved a 0.00 NFDL rate, extending to 1135 days the number of days through the end of 2007 that the miners have worked without a lost time accident.