Overview of Recent Toxic Coal Ash Spills

Where is Your Clean Coal Now? We all know that burning coal is a very dirty source of energy. Just the act of mining it out of the ground causes a fair amount of destruction (and costs the lives of many miners, especially in poorer countries), and burning it produces more CO2 than any other source of energy, as well as mercury that makes its way up the food chain and smog-forming emissions of all kinds... But that's not all! Even after all that you are left with literally tons of coal ash (fly ash captured from the chimneys, and bottom ash from the furnace) that somet...