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Comment by freehunter | Hacker News Reader

I never really had a strong opinion on mining until I drove through Wyoming and northern Nevada. I knew it wasn't ecologically friendly, but it wasn't happening near me so I never saw much impact. But after driving through there and seeing entire mountains halfway destroyed as the mining crews work their way through it... in a few more years, that mountain won't even exist anymore.

Watching humans take an entire mountain down rock-by-rock is a humbling experience.

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Even worse than the act of disassembling a mountain is the processing of all of that rock - which concentrates huge amounts of harmful materials that would never appear in such great concentration and quantity naturally - and subsequently leaving it there permanently in massive tailing ponds that are one dam breach from wiping out millenia-old ecosystems downstream.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Polley_mine_disaster

>and subsequently leaving it there permanently in massive tailing ponds

Not permanent. They can be reclaimed, but that usually doesn't happen for many years until after the end of life for the mine.

Reclamation does not un-concentrate the materials found in the impoundment. Typically a "Mine Plan of Operations" which includes the reclamation plan is a contouring of the topography and vegetation. Some mines require indefinite groundwater treatment due to leaching from tailings ponds or other mine activity. The cost responsibility for this _indefinite_ process is sometimes borne by the state following bankruptcy of a mine.

The worst part is humans only want a small fraction of the mountain, so the whole thing is chewed up and spat out into the land around the mountain. It would be a little better if we actually had a use for the whole mountain.

The tar sands come to mind. The entire forest above the sands is literally scraped off the face of the earth, the sands removed, the oil removed from the sands, and then everything aside from the oil is left behind in huge swaths of desolate waste.

Odd wording to describe a replanted forest as "desolate waste". If anything one may suspect you are not being fully honest to leave out the "then they spent millions to try and return to the forest to its original state."

When Alberta’s oil sands industry marked its 40th anniversary in 2007, one statistic stood out among the many that measure economic success and environmental impact: Not a single acre of mined land had been certified as being “reclaimed” to government standards.

Lee Foote, a University of Alberta wetlands ecologist who has worked with the tar sands industry and advised the Alberta government on wetland reclamation policies, agrees that reclamation has so far been done more for public show than to create viable ecosystems.

“The mindset is to throw big dollars at engineering designer wetlands that are green but not nearly as functional as what was there in the past,” says Foote. “The main aim is to get the social license that is needed for these companies to continue operating.”

-- https://e360.yale.edu/features/on_ravaged_tar_sands_lands_bi...

Same kabuki happens with developers & timber vs salmon fisheries.

One county in my state even bothers with monitoring, enforcement. Not a single issued citation (fine) was ever collected (during the study period).

Maddening.

had the same epiphany driving from CA to WA through OR. Oregon allows logging to clear-cut - meaning they don't pluck 1 tree among 5 to cut but instead just lop entire mountainsides down like someone getting a buzz cut.

California has many many clear-cuts. Just not directly on I-5.

The alternative is having less minerals available and thus higher prices, which hurts all social strata.

I think mining is a necessity to exploit all natural resource opportunities, very similar to how I would view solar and wind installations being built in "nice" areas like off the coast of Massachusetts.

I suspect some people consider ecological destruction as impacting all social strata as well.

I agree, mining is necessary. But it's a necessary evil. And like with all necessary evils, it'd be pretty nice if we could do our best to make sure we can stop committing the evil once it stops being necessary. It's hard to argue that coal mining is still necessary rather than merely convenient.

It is perhaps necessary as Germany now has to import coal.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-30/germany-c...

I guess I should amend my statement: is coal use still necessary, or merely convenient? If we're using coal, it's necessary to mine it. The upstream question is, is it still necessary to use coal beyond the very boring argument of "it would cost money to replace coal"?

I'm not looking for an answer to this question, as I don't own any coal mines or coal power plants. Just expressing general dissatisfaction with humanity's destructive-but-convenient habits.

>is it still necessary to use coal beyond the very boring argument of "it would cost money to replace coal"?

Yes, but not for electricity. There isn't a way to make steel at any scale without using coking coal in the furnaces.

> There isn't a way to make steel at any scale without using coking coal in the furnaces.

At least for Germany (as mentioned by GP), that business will not be around for much longer. Steel from China and India simply is too cheap compared with domestic production. Probably once these two countries get too expensive production will shift over to Africa...

I googled around a bit and it appears that "There isn't a way to make steel at any scale without using coking coal in the furnaces." is a coal industry talking point.

Here's a 2013 article about making steel without coal: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cleaner-cheaper-w...

And something from 2018: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611961/this-mit-spinout-c...

Not proven at scale yet, but it appears to be more promising than many other unsolved climate problems.

Also, natural gas is already being used at scale to make steel, not a complete replacement of coal, but a big reduction.

Evil? It seems really good based on how you described it. Useless rocks get transformed into infrastructure.

How about seeing mountains being destroyed by Nature alone over the course of hundreds of millions of years ? Nature is not so beautiful if you consider it destroyed, eradicated, 99.9% of life which ever existed (and will destroy mankind) over the course of History.

Of course nature is destructive. But there's nothing we can really do about that. There is something we can do about humans being destructive. The difference between humans and the rest of nature is that we have the ability to choose our actions, these choices are not made for us already.

I've never understood the argument that since [bad thing] happens, [more bad things] are justified. But judge, since nature kills humans all the time you can't possibly charge me with murder...

How about all the good, technology, societal advancement, reduction of poverty which required the destruction if those mountains to mine the mattress to feel it ?

Also, I'm sure you can make find some negatives in the lithium / PV / wind industries which are so vehemently pushed forward around here.

Again, you're arguing that since [bad thing] happens, [more bad things] are justified. Stopping coal mining today isn't going to undo all of that progress you talked about. It already happened. And the progress only required energy, not coal. Coal was just the energy source that was available at the time. We have other energy sources.

Changing the argument to the damage caused by lithium mines is just a distraction. My argument isn't against coal, it's against unnecessary evils. It would take a mighty strong mind to honestly argue that solar and wind power is more evil than coal.

I'm going to bow out of this argument now as I'm not actually looking to have my opinion changed to a more pro-coal stance in 2018.

> Of course nature is destructive. But there's nothing we can really do about that. There is something we can do about humans being destructive.

Aren’t humans a part of that nature? Isn’t that what makes us destructive?

I think you quoted too early and forgot to read the sentence that came directly after that.

I did read and I didn’t intend to misquote.

Maybe my point is not clear. I’m trying to say that even if we have a choice (or an illusion of it), our nature (and nature itself) has and will drive us to do destructive things.

I’m not suggesting we give up all hope, but it is important to recognize that the beauty of an everlasting mountain is definitely a concept invented by man.

there is plenty we can and do about it. thats the whole point of a moral cas for fossile fuels, it help us against the things mother nature throws against us.

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