A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times shone a front page light on a huge pile of petroleum coke (aka “petcoke”) along the banks of the Detroit River. Calling it the “the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom,” the Times echoed concerns we raised in our report earlier in the year about this dirty byproduct of refining heavy oils like Canadian tar sands.

The revelation that a huge pile of toxic petcoke was sitting in the open air along the banks of a river in Detroit has raised major concerns among community members and people all across the country.

But beyond the local impacts, one of the other key concerns we raised in our report back in January was that because petcoke is “priced to move” as a refinery waste product and can be burned essentially like coal, it’s growing abundance could help prop up a struggling coal power industry.

Well, in a new report from the New York Times on Thursday, we’re now seeing that fear play out in reality.