Today in Labor History April 3, 1891: Deputized members of the National Guard fired on immigrant strikers in the Morewood massacre, in Pennsylvania. They killed at least ten workers and injured dozens more. The workers were organized with the new United Mine Workers, and were fighting Henry Clay Frick, the same industrialist responsible for the massacre at Homestead the following year, and the man who anarchist Alexander Berkman attempted to assassinate, also in 1892.

Gee, I wonder how this will go...

Dirtiest US Coal-Fired Power Plant Applies for EPA Exemption
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-02/dirtiest-us-coal-fired-power-plant-applies-for-epa-s-exemption

Today in Labor History April 2, 1840: Émile Zola, French novelist, playwright, journalist was born. He was also a liberal activist, playing a significant role in the political liberalization of France, and in the exoneration of Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army officer falsely convicted and imprisoned on trumped up, antisemitic charges of espionage. He was also a significant influence on mid-20th century journalist-authors, like Thom Wolfe, Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer and Joan Didion. Wolfe said that his goal in writing fiction was to document contemporary society in the tradition of Steinbeck, Dickens, and Zola.

Zola wrote dozens of novels, but his most famous, Germinal, about a violently repressed coalminers’ strike, is one of the greatest books ever written about working class rebellion. It had a huge influence on future radicals, especially anarchists. Some anarchists named their children Germinal. Rudolf Rocker had a Yiddish-language anarchist journal in London called Germinal, in the 1910s. There were also anarchist papers called Germinal in Mexico and Brazil in the 1910s.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #zola #germinal #anarchism #writer #fiction #strike #dreyfus #antisemitism #rebellion #novel #author #books #france #mining #coal #journalism @bookstadon

Finland Ending Use of Coal as Last Utility-Scale Plant Shuts Down https://www.byteseu.com/884820/ #Biomass #Coal #Finland #HeatPump #Helen #Helsinki #RenewableEnergy #Renewables #SalmisaariPowerPlant

How Finland has replaced coal power with wind in less than 10 years.

Power utility company Helen officially decommissioned its Salmisaari plant in Helsinki on 1 April, dropping coal to a less than 1% share of the country’s energy mix.

The closure of a coal power plant in Finland today brings the country to the brink of a full coal phase-out - four years ahead of schedule.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20250401-how-finland-has-replaced-coal-power-with-wind-in-less-than-10-years?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

Finland phases out coal, ahead of schedule:

“Imported fossil energy has been replaced with cleaner solutions that reduce climate emissions, while consumers benefit from lower energy prices”

“As Finland previously relied primarily on coal imported from Russia, the phase-out has also boosted Finland’s energy independence and, therefore, national security.”

https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/04/01/finland-ahead-of-schedule-on-coal-phase-out-as-helsinkis-salmisaari-plant-closes

Today, Helsinki's last coal fired CHP shut down for good after a one-year extension. It and the remaining two coal plants elsewhere produced less than 1% of Finland's energy over 2024.
#energy #coal #renewables
https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/04/01/finland-ahead-of-schedule-on-coal-phase-out-as-helsinkis-salmisaari-plant-closes

China Coal-Fired Generation Additions Tied to Economics, Energy Security https://www.byteseu.com/882849/ #China #Coal #economy #Energy #EnergySecurity

Finland ‘ahead of schedule’ on coal phase out as Helsinki’s Salmisaari plant closes https://www.byteseu.com/882815/ #CarbonEmissions #CleanEnergy #Coal #Finland #FossilFuels #PowerPlant #WindEnergy

‘Operators of power plants that burn #coal or #oil, linked to tens of thousands of deaths each year in the US via the mercury, arsenic and other carcinogens emitted through their air pollution, have until Monday to ask #Trump to allow them to bypass clean air laws.’

#EPA
#FossilFuels
#AirPollution

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/27/epa-trump-email-fossil-fuel-exemptions

Today In Labor History March 27, 1904: The authorities kicked Mother Jones out of Colorado for “stirring-up” striking coal miners. Earlier in March, the authorities deported 60 striking miners from Colorado. In June, they arrested 22 in Telluride. For nearly 2 years, strikers, led by the Western Federation of Miners, were violently attacked by Pinkerton and Baldwin-Felts detectives. 33 strikers were killed. At least two scholars have said “There is no episode in American labor history in which violence was as systematically used by employers as in the Colorado labor war of 1903 and 1904.”

https://www.europesays.com/1943086/ $1.2 billion power plant faces environmental pushback in Oak Creek #approval #CleanEnergy #CleanPower #coal #CurrentCoalPlant #customer #Energy #Environment #EnvironmentalPushback #gas #GasPrice #GoodWay #hearing #LiquefiedNaturalGas #lng #LNGPrice #Milwaukee #NaturalGas #NewFossilFuelPlant #OakCreek #PowerPlant #protest #RenewableEnergy #RenewablePower #time #WeEnergies #wind #Wisconsin #year

Today in Labor History March 25, 1947: A coal mine exploded in Centralia, Illinois killing 111. American folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote and recorded a song about the Centralia disaster called “The Dying Miner.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4pShnMe6Rk

Over half of US states get more electricity from #cleanenergy than coal.

28 states total, including:

Oklahoma
Kansas
South Dakota

Coal is the worst #fossilfuel for environment (and public health). 20 years ago, over half of US electricity came from coal.

Once again: clean energy investment and policy helps red states, too.

#wind #solar #coal #climatechange #publichealth #airquality

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/chart-states-more-power-wind-solar-coal

Indonesia’s $20-Billion Energy Transition Deal Will Survive Without the U.S. https://www.byteseu.com/861419/ #Climate #Coal #emissions #Energy #EnergyTransition #funding #GreenEnergy #Indonesia #jetp #partnership #Renewables

one of many stories to think about whenever crypto bros are trying to convince you that bitcoin transaction processing ("mining") is environmentally friendly:

> "The plant burns waste coal, a lower-grade fuel left over from abandoned mining operations, to generate electricity. It uses that electricity for crypto-mining, a process where power-hungry computers generate digital currency like Bitcoin."

https://www.wesa.fm/environment-energy/2025-03-17/crypto-coal-ash-cleanup-dep

https://www.europesays.com/1925339/ Trump’s EPA Pivots to Powering Business at Risk to Environment #ClimateChange #coal #DrinkingWater #EconomicOutlook #Environment #ExistingSources(airPollution) #FederalAgencyBudget #FederalTax #MassLayoffs #mining #NonU.S.EnvironmentalRegulation #OilAndGas #ProbationaryEmployees #SocialMedia #VehicleEmissions #WaterQualityStandards #Wetlands

“beautiful, clean coal” — an oxymoron like “Trump (is) brilliant”