I love watching television shows like 60 Minutes and 20/20 because I always seem to learn something. Frequently, what I learn has nothing to do with the Internet or domain names, but on occasion, it can help with my domain investment business.
Yesterday evening, after watching football and while waiting for a food delivery, I tuned in to 60 Minutes. After the lead in for the story about Marc Dreier and his Ponzi scheme, there was another lead in for a story about coal ash and how coal ash pollution has caused major problems for a town in Tennessee. Additionally, there are other areas that may face problems related to coal ash.
One thing that Leslie Stahl mentioned in the preview was that “there are no federal regulations for coal ash disposal which is dumped in hundreds of sites all over the country.” Later on, she said that coal ash is regulated by individual states, but the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is set to rule on whether federal regulations for coal ash are needed by December. Some people think coal ash disposal is necessary (despite the potential $13 billion cost) while others say coal ash recycling is the most economic way to deal with this problem, which hasn’t been determined to be an official hazard yet.
To me, after seeing this segment I believe that “coal ash disposal” or “coal ash recycling” will become big business opportunities. As a domain investor, this leads me to a business opportunity, and I registered CoalAshDisposal.com and CoalAshRecycling.com. In doing some follow-up research, I think these were good purchases, and time will tell. There are over 600k results in Google for “coal ash disposal” already, but very few advertisers. I am betting that this will change if/when the government determines it to be a hazardous material that needs to be regulated similarly to asbestos.
As an aside, I am always asked about registering other extensions on speculative buys like these as well as tertiary terms (like CoalAshRecyclers.com). In my opinion, my $16 investment will pay off very well if coal ash disposal or recycling companies are mandated, and the other tertiary names will have a much less pay-off. As a result, I didn’t feel the need to spend additional speculative money.
Although it’s not considered a “best practice” to use a free email service as the administrative or registrant contact for your domain names, I know quite a few people who do use services such as 
Now that Rio De Janeiro, Brazil has been awarded the Summer Olympic Games in 2016, it’s important that domain investors keep in mind the words “Olympic” and “Olympics” in relation to sporting events is a highly protected trademarked term. The International Olympic Committee is familiar with the UDRP process, and the USOC has also 