Theres this great podcast called Stuff You Should Know from howstuffworks.com that I listen to almost daily, it's free on itunes, the guys who host are really great....
...Anywho, their latest episode went into detail about the facets of mountaintop removal, a mining operation i was only generally familiarized with through the Dear Companion album and Season 2 of Justified....the link to the podcast is below, it features Ben Sollee and JJ and MMJ get a quick mention as well....thought people here might enjoy, it's interesting and crazy stuff!
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/stuff-you-should-know/id278981407 (http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/stuff-you-should-know/id278981407)