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==Coal Waste==
Burning coal produces airborne compounds, known as [[fly ash]] and bottom ash (collectively referred to as [[coal ash]]), which can contain large quantities of heavy metals that settle or wash out of the atmosphere into oceans, streams, and land.<ref name="Toppin">Eilene Toppin Ording,[http://environmentalism.suite101.com/article.cfm/heavy_metals_and_coal "Heavy Metals and Coal: Carbon Footprint Aside, Coal is not Environmentally Friendly"] Suite 101, accessed November 2009</ref><ref name="rachel"/> The amount of fly ash is going up: in 2006, coal plants in the United States produced almost 72 million tons, up 50 percent since 1993.<ref name="union">[http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02c.html "Coal Power: Air Pollution,"] Union of Concerned Scientists, accessed August 2008</ref>
The large quantities of toxic metals in coal ash include lead, mercury, nickel, tin, cadmium, antimony, and arsenic, as well as radio isotopes of thorium and strontium.<ref name="rachel"/> Small amounts of [[heavy metals and coal|heavy metals]] can be necessary for health, but too much may cause acute or chronic toxicity (poisoning). Many of the heavy metals released in the mining and burning of coal are environmentally and biologically toxic elements, stored in federally unregulated [[coal waste]] sites.<ref name="Toppin"/>