Dirty and dangerous may be desirable qualities when you’re looking to date a biker, but are less so when you’re talking about the source of approximately half the energy for electricity in the country.

The report from The Star Tribune of a coal dust explosion in suburban Milwaukee definitely put an emphasis on the coal’s dangerous side, and not in a sexy James-Dean-Rebel-Without-a-Cause kind of way. The explosion, which happened early Tuesday at a We Energies plant in Oak Creek, WI injured six workers.

Says the article:

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, a federal agency that investigates industrial accidents, said the government has ignored repeated calls from safety officials for tougher standards to prevent dust explosions.

Irresponsible use and too lax regulations have been a theme for the last 8 years, but also, promisingly, in recent media coverage of coal from the Coal River Mountain protests to Clean Air Act lawsuits. Check out this great post from New York Times blogger Tom Zeller, Jr. entitled “A Tough Week for Coal”.