Trump should send fleets of moving trucks to coal country and help people move. Relocation assistance would do more to boost these voters economic prospects than resuscitating the dying coal industry.
1
My parents grew up in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, which was a thriving anthracite coal town until 1959, when miners working for the Knox Coal Company illegally dug under the bed of the Susquehanna river and flooded the mines, killing 12 miners. The economy of the surrounding towns suffered enormously from the resulting mine closure. A few years ago I asked my Uncle, then aged 94, about the closure and expected that he would look backward, and tell me stories of the "good old days" while mourning the end of an era. Instead, he explained that in retrospect, the closures were a good thing for the people of the area. He explained that mining was incredibly dangerous, filthy, unhealthy, backbreaking work that took a toll on everyone working in the mines and their families. More importantly, he noted that coal, even "hard rock" coal, was a dirty fuel, and that as such, it damaged the environment, and the health and welfare of the public. All this "forward vision" from a very, very conservative, life long Republican. Too bad that sort of vision has left the Republican party long ago.
4
We promote natural gas over coal even though methane leakage from fracking and the occasional earthquake have led the Union of Concerned Scientists to hedge on which is better. And we ignore the fact that the price of natural gas is steadily rising, so that coal provides cheaper winter warmth to the poor. And when it comes to health care, we ignore the fact that Medicaid spends half as much on those covered as does private insurance. It concerns me that the liberal agenda has become anti-Trump and, even before that, we were satisfied by half truths and outright lies, while our vision has amounted to not much.
If I'm not mistaken, about 70,000 Americans are employed in coal mining these days. (For perspective, there are about as many private investigators and loggers.) Even if coal comes roaring back (it won't), is anyone suggesting that the number of miners will rise dramatically? To what? 80,000?
I understand that coal is (was) important for some rural communities in Kentucky, WVa, PA, etc. (I also had relatives who lived in Centralia, PA, way back, who could attest to the fact that coal is a lousy thing for a community to depend on), but I just don't understand how the coal mining industry is such a political force these days. Someone just put this thing out of its misery, please.
I understand that coal is (was) important for some rural communities in Kentucky, WVa, PA, etc. (I also had relatives who lived in Centralia, PA, way back, who could attest to the fact that coal is a lousy thing for a community to depend on), but I just don't understand how the coal mining industry is such a political force these days. Someone just put this thing out of its misery, please.
4
Gas is the present and foreseeable future. It burns fairly clean and we have a ton of it.
Clean energy doesn't work economically unless the government subsidizes it. Coal does not burn clean at all.
Clean energy doesn't work economically unless the government subsidizes it. Coal does not burn clean at all.
1
The most important thing going on in the world today, and we totally drop the ball. And it's not just that - this issue is the most important thing going on in the economic world today, and we have just given the ball to our biggest rival served up on a silver platter.
Congratulations, Trump.
Congratulations, Trump.
4
If Trump is so determined to save jobs in what is already a buggy whip industry, where are the same crocodile tears for the thousands of retail jobs going away as the major retailers close scores of stores? Maybe he'll issue an executive order banning online purchases. That'll at least keep the ISPs from prying and selling my private doings.
2
What seems really weird to me is a Republican taking a position that does not support a free market economy. By trying to bolster the coal industry (which we all know is foolhardy from several dimensions) isn't Trump "subsidizing" the coal industry? Especially when there are other alternatives that are much cheaper, more effective choices and less damaging to the environment. To save how many jobs that are no longer needed. Maybe I should get out my box of buggy whips and find me a lobbyist.
4
If you are an electrical utility, looking at new power generating options, do you choose:
A) coal, which requires large plants,burner and generator maintenance, fuel purchases, and ash removal; or
B) natural gas, which requires large plants, burner and generator maintenance, and fuel purchases; or
C) wind turbines, which require small plants (faster and cheaper to build), generator maintenance, NO burner maintenance, and NO fuel purchases; or D)) solar power, which requires small plants (faster and cheaper to build), NO burner maintenance, NO fuel purchases, and NO generator maintenance???
Oh, and solar and wind are both coming down in price for the equipment, but coal and gas are going up.
Which do you think - in the long run - will be most profitable to operate?
A) coal, which requires large plants,burner and generator maintenance, fuel purchases, and ash removal; or
B) natural gas, which requires large plants, burner and generator maintenance, and fuel purchases; or
C) wind turbines, which require small plants (faster and cheaper to build), generator maintenance, NO burner maintenance, and NO fuel purchases; or D)) solar power, which requires small plants (faster and cheaper to build), NO burner maintenance, NO fuel purchases, and NO generator maintenance???
Oh, and solar and wind are both coming down in price for the equipment, but coal and gas are going up.
Which do you think - in the long run - will be most profitable to operate?
12
While the sun shines and the wind blows, hard to beat solar and wind power. But, there are always still days, cloudy days, night time every day. What then?
My grandfather was a coal miner. He died of black lung disease. I never got the chance to meet him.
"Putting our miners back to work" down there in the mines, is the gift that keeps on giving.
I can't handle any more Executive Orders like this.
"Putting our miners back to work" down there in the mines, is the gift that keeps on giving.
I can't handle any more Executive Orders like this.
12
The only thing dirtier than coal is Trump's Russian connections and the tricks he pulled to get elected. It's all useless posturing. Coal is as dead as the canary.
8
I often read the expression "Clean Coal". Since CO2 Capture and Sequestration (CCS) is still not an option I assume that this expression just means to filter out the usual coal pollutants. Well, we in Germany do that since the 1960's!
I worked at a coal fired power plant (in IT) and got to see how it works. Firstly the actual power plant is pretty small compared to the cleaning stuff installed around it. Secondly you have a lot of materials coming in and going out that have nothing to do with the actual power generation. All of this makes this kind of energy pretty expensive, but you can put such a power plant smack in the middle of a city and nobody will complain.
On a cold winter day you will see steam (water vapor) coming out of the chimney. But on a hot summer day you can only see the air above the chimney waver a bit. No black clouds. No smell. No sooth. No sulfur or even nitrates. Expensive, but clean (the power station I worked was primary backup for supplying an international airport in case of power grid failure, you don't put a price on that).
Having said all this: the plant STILL produced an awful lot of CO2! And most of the stuff that was taken out had to be either recycled or buried somewhere. So, from an environmental standpoint even "Clean Coal, Made in Germany" isn't _that_ clean. Which is why WE are going for renewable energy since about 2000. Hope to see the U.S. there in, what, another 50 years?
I worked at a coal fired power plant (in IT) and got to see how it works. Firstly the actual power plant is pretty small compared to the cleaning stuff installed around it. Secondly you have a lot of materials coming in and going out that have nothing to do with the actual power generation. All of this makes this kind of energy pretty expensive, but you can put such a power plant smack in the middle of a city and nobody will complain.
On a cold winter day you will see steam (water vapor) coming out of the chimney. But on a hot summer day you can only see the air above the chimney waver a bit. No black clouds. No smell. No sooth. No sulfur or even nitrates. Expensive, but clean (the power station I worked was primary backup for supplying an international airport in case of power grid failure, you don't put a price on that).
Having said all this: the plant STILL produced an awful lot of CO2! And most of the stuff that was taken out had to be either recycled or buried somewhere. So, from an environmental standpoint even "Clean Coal, Made in Germany" isn't _that_ clean. Which is why WE are going for renewable energy since about 2000. Hope to see the U.S. there in, what, another 50 years?
7
First off, there ain't no such thing a clean coal UNLESS the industry is deregulated which Trump is dumping (remember, the head of the EPA states carbon dioxide is not polluting?)
Secondly, trying to safe the coal industry is like trying to save the blacksmiths when the automobile took over from the horse. Blacksmiths had to find another job. HINT - all those West Virginia mountain tops the coal industry is cutting off, why not put windmills on top to generate electricity, or isn't there wind in WVA??
Secondly, trying to safe the coal industry is like trying to save the blacksmiths when the automobile took over from the horse. Blacksmiths had to find another job. HINT - all those West Virginia mountain tops the coal industry is cutting off, why not put windmills on top to generate electricity, or isn't there wind in WVA??
3
Is the coal pure coal or is it "dirty coal"? I heard that coal is sometimes contaminated with Hg (mercury) and other naturally occurring toxins.
1
That is not what they're referring to when then use the term "clean coal". All coal is "dirty" in the sense that it produces a lot of carbon dioxide, along with many other waste byproducts, both gaseous and solid. The industry and their supporters have been pimping "clean coal", which purports to remove most of these waste byproducts and offload them safely.
Coal is very dirty and toxic with mercury and other poisons. In order to burn it 'cleanly' it takes massive filtering of the burnt coal to remove ash and contaminates, but not the heavy concentration of CO2. Then you have the problem of what to do with the toxic ash, it has to be stored somewhere.
Sometimes ash is stored next to rivers where the sludge can break through the containing barriers and flow into the river, thus poisoning the water supply. The same can occur from coal top mountain removal, the mountain is literally pushed into the streams that the watershed depend upon for water.
And coal miners are prone to black lung disease from breathing the coal dust. Then there are mine collapses and accidents. Coal mining is one of the most dangerous occupations. In addition 50,000 people die every year from air pollution due to coal burning.
Thus the answer is that coal, is very dirty and toxic. Deadly to those who mine it and to the people that breath the air that the coal burning plants put out. And now it is getting to be the most expensive form of energy available.
Now if we did away with all those pesky regulations that save lives, like getting rid of the filters, putting the ash anywhere, having the miners do away with all the safety requirements, we could have very cheap coal.
That is what China did for years and we can see what happens when coal is just burnt w/o regards to health. Now China is turning around to do away with coal to cleaner energy sources.
Sometimes ash is stored next to rivers where the sludge can break through the containing barriers and flow into the river, thus poisoning the water supply. The same can occur from coal top mountain removal, the mountain is literally pushed into the streams that the watershed depend upon for water.
And coal miners are prone to black lung disease from breathing the coal dust. Then there are mine collapses and accidents. Coal mining is one of the most dangerous occupations. In addition 50,000 people die every year from air pollution due to coal burning.
Thus the answer is that coal, is very dirty and toxic. Deadly to those who mine it and to the people that breath the air that the coal burning plants put out. And now it is getting to be the most expensive form of energy available.
Now if we did away with all those pesky regulations that save lives, like getting rid of the filters, putting the ash anywhere, having the miners do away with all the safety requirements, we could have very cheap coal.
That is what China did for years and we can see what happens when coal is just burnt w/o regards to health. Now China is turning around to do away with coal to cleaner energy sources.
2
Don't despair. This pause in the decline of coal will not last more than a few years because the harms of global warming will become appalling and obvious to nearly everyone.
It is terrible how Trump is leading these coal miners down the cruel primrose path of belief that their jobs are going to return. Forget Obama's rules, economics are against coal and that is what is sounding the death knell; nevertheless, our president engages in a cynical, manipulative and fantastical campaign which, at its bitter end, will leave these folks even more bitter and disappointed. Coal is dead, environmentally and, perhaps just as important, economically for the reasons cited in this excellent article.
4
If you want to help, contract with your electric utility for 100% renewable power. Then call your Congressanimals and tell them to enact a carbon tax. Nothing speaks louder than money.
3
Well that's obviously not going to pass with a GOP controlled Congress and a pro-fossil fuels President, now is it?
Plus that means your out-of-pocket utility costs will go up. I know because I looked into it.
Plus that means your out-of-pocket utility costs will go up. I know because I looked into it.
ridiculous.our appalling,corrupt,illiterate,self serving,bigot of a president is lying to the very people who put him in office.he thinks he can wave his wand and suddenly coal will become relevant again.exactly what planet is this bozo from..I sure wish it wasn't here.all these hardworking coal workers who kept our country warm and safe deserve to be given jobs that aren't dangerous and unhealthy and have a future.But no,job training would take too much money out of the GOP's wallets.deplorable.
6
The Times and others have nicely illustrated the budget cuts to job training programs designed for folks like the coal miners. Even Robert Murray, a mine owner, said most of those jobs aren't coming back. I'm guessing Trump and his cronies know this but really don't care.
Too bad for us that Trump is also anti-science. First there is no such thing as clean coal. And, it's the emissions that we worry about, not the raw product. The technology to clean coal fired emissions is just as complicated and expensive as that used to clean other hydrocarbons, probably more so. Gas is the fuel of choice. It is cheaper, easier to use, and cleaner. More importantly, coal contains neuro toxins such as mercury that can get into the food chain and bio accumulate. Mercury is a poison that causes developmental problems among other things and can be found in trace amount even in the Artic, miles away from the source.
So Trump is not only trashing the environment he will be slowly poisoning us and all living breathing things just for a few jobs in coal country. Maybe he should work for awhile in a coal mine to see how great that job is.
So Trump is not only trashing the environment he will be slowly poisoning us and all living breathing things just for a few jobs in coal country. Maybe he should work for awhile in a coal mine to see how great that job is.
4
DSS, it's not even about coal, it's about removing all restrictions so that businesses can do as they please, so long as they do it to the masses.
1
So for a few jobs in coal country Trump has turned back the clock 50 years and turned over a trillion dollar green energy market to China. Sad!
10
Economic forces eventually win out. Big coal is not coming back. Blighted coal dependent communities will not revitalize on the back of the coal industry. I felt so sad the other day seeing an interview on PBS of a young man, a new dad, stating "all I want to do is be a coal miner. My Daddy was a coal miner, and I want to be one." Basically he saw that as the only path to provide for his family. We are failing these communities by falsely telling them they can stay put and mine coal. Although there may be temporary rebounds in some locations, the long term reality is that coal mining will continue to receded as other technologies make renewable energy and natural gas more economical. Also in this interview, as an older former miner with lung disease. His plea was that young people look for other opportunities, but for cultural and economic reasons, many in these regions cling to the fantasy that large scale coal mining will return. The GOP is fond of saying their policies offer "tough love" when it comes to social safety net programs. Why not offer the "tough love" and a "hand up" they so frequently boast about by being honest and looking for ways to diversify the economy of these communities and provide retraining and education for coal miners. Long term, this is the only viable option for many of these people.
11
Hey! You repubs elected him and now we have to live with crazy. More sickness, more health issues and guess what they want to get rid of the health plans. That's one way to get rid of poor people make them sick and don't give them the care they need. What a racket
7
The darkest night I ever spent was a sunny day in Beijing. (Apologies to Mr. Clemens).
5
When our children's children ask about what the earth was like in 2017, and why it had to become uninhabitable, I'll be sure to recall this sage quote from our great president:
DJT, Tuesday 3/28/17:
"I actually, in one case, I went to a group of miners in West Virginia — you remember, Shelly — and I said, how about this: Why don’t we get together, we’ll go to another place, and you’ll get another job; you won’t mine anymore. Do you like that idea? They said, no, we don’t like that idea — we love to mine, that’s what we want to do. I said, if that’s what you want to do, that’s what you’re going to do.
And I was very impressed. They love the job. That’s what their job is. I fully understand that. I grew up in a real estate family, and until this recent little excursion into the world of politics, I could never understand anybody who would not want to be in the world of real estate. (Laughter.) Believe me. So I understand it. And we’re with you 100 percent, and that’s what you’re going to do. Okay?"
DJT, Tuesday 3/28/17:
"I actually, in one case, I went to a group of miners in West Virginia — you remember, Shelly — and I said, how about this: Why don’t we get together, we’ll go to another place, and you’ll get another job; you won’t mine anymore. Do you like that idea? They said, no, we don’t like that idea — we love to mine, that’s what we want to do. I said, if that’s what you want to do, that’s what you’re going to do.
And I was very impressed. They love the job. That’s what their job is. I fully understand that. I grew up in a real estate family, and until this recent little excursion into the world of politics, I could never understand anybody who would not want to be in the world of real estate. (Laughter.) Believe me. So I understand it. And we’re with you 100 percent, and that’s what you’re going to do. Okay?"
Wouldn't be surprised if Trump and the Republicans dismantles the child labor laws too.
7
As Trump trashes our enviroment out of sheer idiocy or cruelty or both (he is 70 and won't be around forever), he should go visit a few cities in China where they have alternative vehicle days and many people wear breathing masks because the quality of the air is so polluted. Now Trump wants to pollute the rivers, the streams, the oceans and the atmosphere. How does that fit in with his plan to lower overall healthcare costs while he makes the US population sicker and sicker? No health care program is going to work in view of the Trump pollution program. Instead of a single payer plan, he has a single polluter plan.
10
Since the argument presented is that coal is not coming back and cheaper sources such as natural gas is more economical now, then it seems that there's not much consequence to lifting the regulations if such arguments are true.
1
RM, lets assume your unstated position - coal IS coming back.
In that case, there will be a consequence to lifting the regulations.
Enjoy the smog, as well as the rapidly increasing climate change.
It's absolutely pathetic that we take this course.
In that case, there will be a consequence to lifting the regulations.
Enjoy the smog, as well as the rapidly increasing climate change.
It's absolutely pathetic that we take this course.
3
Another thing that is "not coming back" is clean air!
2
Economical diversification and retraining are the way to deal with an outmoded industry, not to attempt to revive it.
7
During the early 1960's I lived with my Grandmother in Brooklyn. The day I moved in I noticed several people in the lobby talking about a new heat source. I could not "connect the dots" until the next day when I spoke with a neighbor of my Grandmothers and she told me the building just completed the switch to heat with natural gas. The coal chute remained as did the area in the basement where it was stored but was empty now. When I lived with my Grandmother I commuted by train to get to my job in Manhattan, it was a four block walk from the station I got off at to my office. In those four blocks when I arrived at my office my face was covered with black specks caused by polluted air that coal burning contributed to. The point I am trying to make is that coal is a dirty energy source no matter what you call it. Look at cities in China that use coal and the documented air pollution that citizens have to breathe on a daily basis. This Executive Order makes no sense and is another EO that will harm our once great nation.
14
So called "president trump":
What is the status of the Navajo Power Plant at Page, Arizona? Does the Trump Organization plan to keep it going after 2019?
What is the status of the Navajo Power Plant at Page, Arizona? Does the Trump Organization plan to keep it going after 2019?
6
I hope the democrats are doing a lot of soul-searching and reflecting because losing the electoral college and both houses of congress and 2/3rds of the state governments to the republicans is a disaster.
I feel bad for our dear Mother Earth. What did she do to deserve this abuse?
I feel bad for our dear Mother Earth. What did she do to deserve this abuse?
3
How many of you raging against measures to maintain employment in coal country don't eat beef and ride public transportation?
3
You are completely missing the point. Most of us, I believe, need electricity and heat in our homes (or air conditioning, if you are so fortunate as to not require heat). We need lights, we need refrigerators. There are cheaper, cleaner ways to supply electricity. These kind of silly analogies fit right in with Trump's hyperbolic version of reality. What is with this sentimental attachment to the coal industry? The Harlan County miners helped all of American workers with their brave stand to unionize. I get it. Coal country is part of our American culture and myth. But just as other commenters have said, we don't hold on to old industries like horse and buggies for sentimental reasons. Coal is dying and coal executives and workers know it. Retraining and employing coal workers in other industries just plain makes sense and is a lot less cruel than pretending coal will ever be what it was in its heyday.
5
Why should we subsidize a failing industry? Coal is going the way of the horse and buggy, throwing money at it won't help to save it. All you do is to delay the end. It would be far better to come up with measures to help the miners out, reeducate for different jobs, healthcare, better education for the children, inducing other industries to come into the area.
That would be far better than to tell coal miners that coal is going to be king again when it will never happen.
And it would be better to eat less beef and use public transportation. But we spend our resources making sure that beef is king among meats and that public transportation is not available to many people.
There was a time when public transportation was available to many people. But then we devoted our money to super highways and cars to drive on them and public transportation has gone down since then. And that will continue as long as our love affair with cars continue.
But by making cars have better mileage and be more efficient, it eliminates some pollution. Also the electric cars now on the market will change the market. As prices fall for them, it will be a better car for those who don't drive many miles in a day.
But Trump wishes to stop this, by removing regulations for cars to improve. Which means the US car cos. will suffer because the cars overseas will answer to a higher standard and be better built. Which is why the US car industry got itself in so much trouble, they were not competitive.
That would be far better than to tell coal miners that coal is going to be king again when it will never happen.
And it would be better to eat less beef and use public transportation. But we spend our resources making sure that beef is king among meats and that public transportation is not available to many people.
There was a time when public transportation was available to many people. But then we devoted our money to super highways and cars to drive on them and public transportation has gone down since then. And that will continue as long as our love affair with cars continue.
But by making cars have better mileage and be more efficient, it eliminates some pollution. Also the electric cars now on the market will change the market. As prices fall for them, it will be a better car for those who don't drive many miles in a day.
But Trump wishes to stop this, by removing regulations for cars to improve. Which means the US car cos. will suffer because the cars overseas will answer to a higher standard and be better built. Which is why the US car industry got itself in so much trouble, they were not competitive.
And after the atmosphere is depleted and the water sources are contaminated, it will make no difference if energy markets on the stock exchange are up.
4
Clearly what we lack here is innovation. If only some would invent a coal-powered automobile that the Trump administration could subsidize, then the there would be a huge boost in sustainable jobs through all aspects of the economy. Vehicle manufacture; Mining; Fuel processing and distribution; Health care; Mortuary services; etc.
5
The poor folks in W. Virginia we misled. Remember, they are a challenged population and Trump took advantage of that. God help them.
5
The sad truth for coal-mining communities that believed President Trump's promises is that automation is taking over coal mining by leaps and bounds, and that the workforce is declining rapidly.
According to a September 2016 report by the Canada-based International Institute for Sustainable Development, (http://www.iisd.org/sites/default/files/publications/mining-a-mirage.pdf )
over the next 10 years, half of mining industry jobs could be replaced by automated equipment already in use.
Drilling and tunnel-boring systems, self-driving trucks, automated surface and underground loaders, and automated long-distance trains mean far fewer of the lower-skilled jobs that used to support entire towns.
The net economic benefit of the Trump administration's policies will be increased profits for coal-mining companies due to domestic deregulation, enhanced by lower payrolls due to automation.
According to a September 2016 report by the Canada-based International Institute for Sustainable Development, (http://www.iisd.org/sites/default/files/publications/mining-a-mirage.pdf )
over the next 10 years, half of mining industry jobs could be replaced by automated equipment already in use.
Drilling and tunnel-boring systems, self-driving trucks, automated surface and underground loaders, and automated long-distance trains mean far fewer of the lower-skilled jobs that used to support entire towns.
The net economic benefit of the Trump administration's policies will be increased profits for coal-mining companies due to domestic deregulation, enhanced by lower payrolls due to automation.
5
It's only a matter of time before Trump signs an Executive Order mandating the resurrection of stagecoach travel and the resurgence of the whaling industry, both of which fell victim to the heinous forces of modernity like the Transcontinental Rail Road and the discovery of electricity. Putting stagecoach manufacturers and drivers back to work, along with whaling captains and their crews, will mark major milestones in bringing jobs back to America and making this country great again. I think.
10
Today I feel defeated. I went to graduate school at WVU and have fond memories of the state. I remember coal dust on my window sills all winter long but also remember seeing my first mink at Cranberry Glades. The state could be breath-taking. Surely people have to know coal jobs are not coming back and it has less to do with any pollution (sadly) than with economics. Yet I did read the article in Fox News out of curiosity and every paragraph emphasized the belief that the jobs left as a result of "regulations". Supposedly intelligent people were quoted as being optimistic about Trump's action. Once again I cry.
15
We should all cry ... when we witness the lies being told to the Coal country people and when we hear that regulations killed their jobs. And yet they believe these lies ...
What a sad comment of the State of the Union ...
What a sad comment of the State of the Union ...
Did voters really decide that coal miners and the oil industry should set our environmental and energy policies. Maybe be should take ourselves further back in history when coal was preceded by wood and emphasize wood over coal to bring those jobs back at the expense of coal mining jobs. The current administration is a disaster, hope everyone remembers this in 2018 and 2020.
10
Coal mania. Coal for opiates. Coal for the soul.
This is dark and satanic. Who could conceive of it? Take us back to the 18th century. Remember, this is the 21st... and we have the technology to do something else, something better. Maybe even build a new economy around it.
Quit polluting my children's country. Look forward, not backward.
This is dark and satanic. Who could conceive of it? Take us back to the 18th century. Remember, this is the 21st... and we have the technology to do something else, something better. Maybe even build a new economy around it.
Quit polluting my children's country. Look forward, not backward.
13
No one has the right to stasis. If the coal industry is obsolete, or on its way to obsolescence, then it's time for those areas dependent on coal to innovate and adapt. Trump told these regions the impossible, exactly what they wanted to hear, and now they'll face the hard reality of being conned.
10
Why is the Times spreading the nonsense that Natural Gas is a viable replacement for Coal *cough* Ads from the Energy Industry *cough*? It poisons our drinking water through Fracking and because of the Methane Gas that gets leaked at practically every point of the process, it releases MORE CO2 than Coal making it an accelerant for Climate Catastrophe. Renewable Solar & Wind should be the only option if we don't want to see the planet devastated over the next few decades.
3
I only disagree with one point. Natural gas is cleaner to burn with less CO2 emissions than coal, that is a fact. Coal is much dirtier in every way to burn
That doesn't mean that natural gas is safe for the environment, it isn't. Like coal it poisons our water, there is a large amount of methane released, and now as OK has found out, it can cause earthquakes as the earth collapses as water and gas are drained from the caverns.
Weaning ourselves from destructive energy sources is not something the US population really wants. Otherwise money would be spent to boost green tech.
That doesn't mean that natural gas is safe for the environment, it isn't. Like coal it poisons our water, there is a large amount of methane released, and now as OK has found out, it can cause earthquakes as the earth collapses as water and gas are drained from the caverns.
Weaning ourselves from destructive energy sources is not something the US population really wants. Otherwise money would be spent to boost green tech.
Since Trump is interested in reviving coal and spending another 45 billion on the military maybe he can combine the two, He could order the pentagon to convert all of the the Navy's air craft carriers from nuclear power to coal. After all if coal is good enough to generate power in the 21st century it should be good enough to run our naval vessels.
12
People. Donald Trump isn't trying to revive coal. Trump could care less about Obamacare. Trump has no idea how to spell climate science, or even climate change denial.
Trump is a narcissistic sociopath who would throw his mother under the bus if she got in the way of his grandiose image of himself.
Stop trying to find a thread of rationality in this man.
There is none.
Trump is a narcissistic sociopath who would throw his mother under the bus if she got in the way of his grandiose image of himself.
Stop trying to find a thread of rationality in this man.
There is none.
22
Does Trump know anything about coal beyond its use as a campaign slogan? Coal is becoming an obsolete fuel source. It is more expensive and less efficient than natural gas, and it contributes massively to pollution and global warming. Trump's promise to bring back coal jobs is a cruel hoax, and a cheat to those who supported him.
15
America could be at the cutting edge of renewable energy right now. That scenario would be in keeping with our long legacy of technological innovation.
Instead we've been too busy stewing around in our superpower status, like the smug hare who takes a nap during the race.
Instead we've been too busy stewing around in our superpower status, like the smug hare who takes a nap during the race.
10
Indeed, it appears that the leader in clean energy will be China of all countries!
2
Dear Trump Voters,
Was it your intention to see environmental restrictions gutted for the sake of a few short term jobs? People in the coal industry, I understand your hopes but most experts seem to agree that there's not much that can be done for you in that industry given the current state of energy economics. I'm sure many of you are concerned about the environment and the health and future of your children and grand children. If you don't agree with this major step backwards for all of us, please let President Trump know. You are maybe the only people he'll listen to. Thanks for considering.
Was it your intention to see environmental restrictions gutted for the sake of a few short term jobs? People in the coal industry, I understand your hopes but most experts seem to agree that there's not much that can be done for you in that industry given the current state of energy economics. I'm sure many of you are concerned about the environment and the health and future of your children and grand children. If you don't agree with this major step backwards for all of us, please let President Trump know. You are maybe the only people he'll listen to. Thanks for considering.
11
Perhaps Trump will bring back child labor next; after all, there must be money in that, too.
18
At least the children won't find any jobs in coal mines.
2
I think he's already started. Look at his administration and cabinet. An awful lot of childish behavior going on.
5
Not even Donald Trump can repeal the laws of suppy and demand.
5
The man does everything for spite. That is his personality. Does he study the issues? No Does he get varying opinions from moderates and conservatives within his own party? No Is he driven by revenge, jealousy, paranoia, and extreme ego? Of course.
13
A few big energy companies on the East Coast have been fighting coal conservation for decades, and getting their coal fired power plants grandfathered in to every clean air measure passed by Congress. This is just their newest and best action. Congress needs to stop them. Trump won't. He's in their pocket. Vote clean air next election and throw the bums out
5
Is it only me OR is their some significance to the fact that around the same time that Trump is announcing his idiotic attempt at trying to revive a dying fossil fuel industry, one of the largest builders of nuclear power plants in America, Westinghouse Corp., has declared bankruptcy.
3
This action just proves we a Moron in Chief. He will say and do anything for audience approval.
7
The NYT bolsters the narrative of climate deniers by conjuring the image of a pendulum that can be adjusted just so; as if there can be a clean trade-off between 'jobs' and ravaging the planet, as if all economies and all forms of human thriving aren't entirely dependent upon a protected environment, as if the renewables sector isn't a massive opportunity for development in itself.
1
Job training and infrastructure rebuilding would probably do more for the out of work coal industry labor force than any other "executive" order. Let's hope
this administration comes up with "great and beautiful" even "fantastic"
plan to rebuild our roads, tunnels, bridges, and all other "disasters" on the
agenda.
this administration comes up with "great and beautiful" even "fantastic"
plan to rebuild our roads, tunnels, bridges, and all other "disasters" on the
agenda.
5
Trump is an enemy but only to those Americans who breathe. This includes our children and grandchildren. He obviously doesn't care too much about Baron's future either.
13
Trump has a lot of kids and a pack of grandkids too.
I have no idea what he thinks or cares about their futures; but commonly the wealthy assume that money will provide comfort and security, that it will be the poor who will suffer and die ... and they don't matter, good riddance.
One of the hilarious "by-catches" of the big "climategate" email exposure was an email conversation between Lord Moncton of Brenchley III (a noted climate denier) and Jones (a Hadley centre scientist) in which Moncton admitted that the reason he didn't care about CO2 is that he believed there would be an enormous population crash soon -- all "those people" dying -- after which low population would be the solution to CO2 emissions.
One wonders what kind of cruelty it takes to imagine one's children as survivors in a world that has suffered an enormous human die-off ... and view that as the course to promote.
Moncton of Brenchley is a very odd character indeed ... and few of his claims about himself are to be believed. One of them caused a rare official rebuke from the Clerk of Parliaments
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/july/letter-to-viscount-monc...
His climate-denialism is all of a piece with his many other claims.
I have no idea what he thinks or cares about their futures; but commonly the wealthy assume that money will provide comfort and security, that it will be the poor who will suffer and die ... and they don't matter, good riddance.
One of the hilarious "by-catches" of the big "climategate" email exposure was an email conversation between Lord Moncton of Brenchley III (a noted climate denier) and Jones (a Hadley centre scientist) in which Moncton admitted that the reason he didn't care about CO2 is that he believed there would be an enormous population crash soon -- all "those people" dying -- after which low population would be the solution to CO2 emissions.
One wonders what kind of cruelty it takes to imagine one's children as survivors in a world that has suffered an enormous human die-off ... and view that as the course to promote.
Moncton of Brenchley is a very odd character indeed ... and few of his claims about himself are to be believed. One of them caused a rare official rebuke from the Clerk of Parliaments
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/july/letter-to-viscount-monc...
His climate-denialism is all of a piece with his many other claims.
2
Trump is old enough to remember the problems caused by acid rain. Someone should ask him if he can explain it.
The emphasis on sulfur and nitrites as causes of acid rain (fuel, coal, with high concentrations of sulfur & nitrogen) leaves the carbonic acid cycle out of the loop. Carbon dioxide dissolves in rain as do oxides of sulfur and nitrogen and it causes changes in acidity as well. Worse, there are more molecules of carbon in coal than sulfur or nitrogen combined.
I'm sure Trump can recall the terms but he can't explain the problem since he's not very well educated man. His ideas concerning the use of nuclear weapons and technology are even worse.
Trump will have to be fought on every point to be stopped. We now have evidence that carbon dioxide alters the environment in ways that no amount of money and technology can fix. Trump wants to bring back acid rain again. We must resist every action Trump takes.
The emphasis on sulfur and nitrites as causes of acid rain (fuel, coal, with high concentrations of sulfur & nitrogen) leaves the carbonic acid cycle out of the loop. Carbon dioxide dissolves in rain as do oxides of sulfur and nitrogen and it causes changes in acidity as well. Worse, there are more molecules of carbon in coal than sulfur or nitrogen combined.
I'm sure Trump can recall the terms but he can't explain the problem since he's not very well educated man. His ideas concerning the use of nuclear weapons and technology are even worse.
Trump will have to be fought on every point to be stopped. We now have evidence that carbon dioxide alters the environment in ways that no amount of money and technology can fix. Trump wants to bring back acid rain again. We must resist every action Trump takes.
10
Coal miners are no dummies, and if they are, their wives certainly aren't. So, once they realize that Donald Trump has just sold them an empty promise they will turn on him like many other Americans have and he will be getting coal in his stocking by Christmas!
3
They were dumb enough to vote for him in the first place, despite decades of evidence of his being a fraud and a con man.
9
It would nice for his sons and grandkids to leave next to the plants and enjoy the air. We tend to always be disconnected when it is not our family or kids that are been medically impacted by our inaction to make sure we control the air quality. Give the Miners Job now and sign them for long term Medicaid or special program when they start getting sick. What a messed up way to think.
4
I hope other fuels will continue to develop on their own merits. Coal seems to be a strong competitor if you ignore environmental issue. If I understand correctly, it is a rock that will burn as is. You don't have to process it like petroleum products, or have a special container as with gases. Unlike wind or solar power, it is available on demand.
Light it up, and you get heat which can be used directly, or to generate power.
The critical question is what the environmental costs are. I don't doubt the skills of most Scientist, but I also do not blindly accept their objectivity especially on issues that are very ideologically charged.
John
Light it up, and you get heat which can be used directly, or to generate power.
The critical question is what the environmental costs are. I don't doubt the skills of most Scientist, but I also do not blindly accept their objectivity especially on issues that are very ideologically charged.
John
We've been burning coal for 200 years, so we know quite a lot about it. Among the fossil fuels it's the dirtiest (most pollution) and the lowest in carbon (least energy per pound). If you take the costs of pollution into account, which is a cost, it's already more expensive than wind. Over time, we will use less and less coal, and more of everything else.
4
The effects of burning coal on the environment is not up for speculation or debate. The debate is in weighing cost of jobs and the economy versus cost to the environment. And this is really a moot point, since cleaner sources of energy are available and cheaper--this making coal the loser in the free market. That's what this story is about, NOT whether coal pollutes.
5
Perhaps one way to beat this is to shame companies using coal or other greenhouse gas sources. When the bottom line is in peril, you'll see them capitulate.
Okay, now let's get the list going...
Okay, now let's get the list going...
5
How many coal miners are there as a percentage of the population?!?!? You'd think this was our only natural resource by the amount of time and effort going into keeping these jobs!
8
There are about 65,000 coal mining jobs in a nation of roughly 320 million.
65e3 / 320e6 = 0.000203125 ... or 0.02 % ... or if you prefer, about one out of every 5,000 is a coal miner.
65e3 / 320e6 = 0.000203125 ... or 0.02 % ... or if you prefer, about one out of every 5,000 is a coal miner.
1
This isn't about coal. Trump's focus on small, disadvantaged groups, like coal miners and Carrier employees in Indiana, let his supporters know that he's for them. If he'll move the state of Indiana to bail out a few hundred Carrier employees, or literally change the fate of the planet for a declining population of coal miners, just think what he'll do if something happens to some other group that falls on hard times and voted for Trump. It's working. Trump's support among his true believers has stayed rock solid since the election. For them, he's delivering.
It's actually a pretty lazy way of governing, and it will cause greater problems further down the road, when Trump is no longer in office, mind you. This is what Trump does: he sells the gilded dream to a few investors and customers and sneaks out the back door when it all starts to tarnish.
It's actually a pretty lazy way of governing, and it will cause greater problems further down the road, when Trump is no longer in office, mind you. This is what Trump does: he sells the gilded dream to a few investors and customers and sneaks out the back door when it all starts to tarnish.
8
Aren't we still giving subsidies to oil companies?
3
This hand wringing from my fellow commentators doesn't matter if Trump supporters don't see the folly in their vote. As long as they continue to fall for his snake oil, he will continue to be the fool he is.
9
Short sighted and fantasy based initiatives on Trumps part.
3
He's been living in an alternate universe, high up in a tower.
What else should we expect from Donald Trump...totally out of touch with everything but his mirror and his money. We pay the price.
What else should we expect from Donald Trump...totally out of touch with everything but his mirror and his money. We pay the price.
1
My only consolation now is the thought of Mar-a-Lago-Beneath-the-Sea. Trump's going to have to turn it into an underwater resort when the Florida coastline moves inland.
8
It's a mean-spirited thing ... but the next real hurricane to hit Palm Beach squarely will change it forever. It's all living on borrowed time. One wonders who carries the Mar-a-Lago insurance .... today ... how much of it is carried by the American public via subsidies?
You might want to see
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ap-trump-mar-a-lago-claim-2...
Wilma was a major Caribbean hurricane that did major damage to the Yucatan, and then went on to cross Florida from west to east -- weakening very substantially across the land. it left Florida centered on Jupiter ... to the north of Palm Beach. It wasn't much of a storm really at Mar-a-Lago
The next Cat III or greater hurricane that hits Palm Beach from the Atlantic side will eliminate most of it.
You might want to see
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ap-trump-mar-a-lago-claim-2...
Wilma was a major Caribbean hurricane that did major damage to the Yucatan, and then went on to cross Florida from west to east -- weakening very substantially across the land. it left Florida centered on Jupiter ... to the north of Palm Beach. It wasn't much of a storm really at Mar-a-Lago
The next Cat III or greater hurricane that hits Palm Beach from the Atlantic side will eliminate most of it.
1
You Dems have not been this mad since we Republicans took your slaves away. You need to get a grip and knock off the Chicken Little routine.
1
Is there a volume two of What's the Matter With Kansas? There's certainly enough material for one.
4
What will it take to end this false piece of "history" and when will it happen? The truth is that "Liberals" took the slaves away from the "Conservatives." In 1860 the Republican party WAS the liberal party. Lincoln would vomit in disgust if he could see what the Republican party has become, a fascist hate group. And don't disparage Chicken Little. He would make a better president than Trump.
7
Since the republicans were the liberals back then, the conservatives were the slave owners. The parties switched in ideology back in the 1960s' from dems being conservative to the dems being the liberals and repubs being more liberal to becoming completely conservative these days.
It is the conservatives who are all upset and trying to bring back the 'good old days'. The equal rights for people, ever since the beginning of this country has always been the liberal stance and fought against by conservatives.
Was nixon a liberal, goldwater? They opposed the equal rights acts of the 60s, all the conservatives did. Nixon used the southern strategy to attract conservatives from the democrats to the republican party. And they have used that strategy to this day.
Find me a conservative who is willing to give equal rights to gays these days. There are a few, but most conservative fight against equal rights. They alway have, no matter what minority it is.
Conservatives mock liberals for wanting tolerance, diversity, and multi-culturalism, for wanting all people to be treated equally.
Learn some history.
It is the conservatives who are all upset and trying to bring back the 'good old days'. The equal rights for people, ever since the beginning of this country has always been the liberal stance and fought against by conservatives.
Was nixon a liberal, goldwater? They opposed the equal rights acts of the 60s, all the conservatives did. Nixon used the southern strategy to attract conservatives from the democrats to the republican party. And they have used that strategy to this day.
Find me a conservative who is willing to give equal rights to gays these days. There are a few, but most conservative fight against equal rights. They alway have, no matter what minority it is.
Conservatives mock liberals for wanting tolerance, diversity, and multi-culturalism, for wanting all people to be treated equally.
Learn some history.
So, the stock prices for energy companies have skyrocketed with the de-regulation news? Well, it seems the beleaguered energy executives and wealth investors will get the relief they voted for.
Not so the coal miners that put all their chips on Trump.
Not so the coal miners that put all their chips on Trump.
5
Instead of deregulating the coal industry, I wish Trump developed a policy of helping those who lost the jobs through retraining, temporary financial aid and give priority on future construction jobs. The executive order is just false promise of brighter future.
2
The important thing to Trump, but not the country or for the workers, is that he will claim "I got rid of these job-killing coal regulations and created 100's of thousands of new jobs." If someone points out, after say a year or two, that no jobs were created, he will say "That's Fake News" or "That's a lie! I've been told that many, many jobs have been created!" Data, logic, or the truth won't make any difference.
4
Coal is the past, renewables are the future, get used to it. We stopped using horses and buggies.
7
Trump's bizarre claims and acts may even damage coal's industry's chances of survival in the US. Those chances depend on two things Trump is doing absolutely nothing about:
1. exports.
The reality in the US is that Eastern coal really is DOA -- all the good coal is gone and production costs are rising rapidly above world market prices. Columbia can deliver coal cheaper to our eastern seaboard than Appalachia can.
But western (mostly Wyoming) coal may remain viable for export markets ... and Trump is doing absolutely nothing to help them with that.
2. CO2 sequestration. If coal is to have any longer-term future, it will depend on an economically-viable method of burning coal "cleanly" -- including CO2 sequestration.
The technical and economic problems of CO2 sequestration are severe, and every coal-fired CO2-sequestration demonstration plant to date has been a fiasco. It is not clear that any technology can be developed that will be economically competitive with wind and solar ... but for the industry to have any longer term hope it is a necessity. See here about the various issues:
https://energy.gov/fe/science-innovation/carbon-capture-and-storage-rese...
The salient point is that by claiming that "CO2 is not a problem" the Trump administration is TURNING OFF the motivation for CO2-sequestration R&D.
1. exports.
The reality in the US is that Eastern coal really is DOA -- all the good coal is gone and production costs are rising rapidly above world market prices. Columbia can deliver coal cheaper to our eastern seaboard than Appalachia can.
But western (mostly Wyoming) coal may remain viable for export markets ... and Trump is doing absolutely nothing to help them with that.
2. CO2 sequestration. If coal is to have any longer-term future, it will depend on an economically-viable method of burning coal "cleanly" -- including CO2 sequestration.
The technical and economic problems of CO2 sequestration are severe, and every coal-fired CO2-sequestration demonstration plant to date has been a fiasco. It is not clear that any technology can be developed that will be economically competitive with wind and solar ... but for the industry to have any longer term hope it is a necessity. See here about the various issues:
https://energy.gov/fe/science-innovation/carbon-capture-and-storage-rese...
The salient point is that by claiming that "CO2 is not a problem" the Trump administration is TURNING OFF the motivation for CO2-sequestration R&D.
4
And as far as costs, see this very depressing conclusion:
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/study-ccs-technology-four-times-as-expen...
Unless there is some big breakthrough on CCS costs ... coal is DOA.
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/study-ccs-technology-four-times-as-expen...
Unless there is some big breakthrough on CCS costs ... coal is DOA.
2
Someone should tell DT that if he became a clean-energy leader engaged in fighting climate change he could redeem himself from almost any of the scores of gaffes and repulsive mistakes he's made. Overnight, he could become a hero.
3
He doesn't care. He's a hero to a lot of ignorant bigots and that's enough for him. What he really enjoys doing is hurting people.
1
Spending trillions of dollars to control carbon emissions - when such efforts have a negligible impact on global warming, as even climate scientists admit - should not make someone a hero to anyone, unless you want to become some kind of hero of "virtue signaling." DT is not into virtue signaling, and a lot of people respect him for that.
Coal is going away because it costs more than other sources, and nobody is spending trillions to limit carbon emissions, unless you count the cost of new generation. That money would be spent no matter what the source, so it's not a valid argument.
1
There's no such thing as Clean Coal, and the coal industry is not coming back.
Perhaps Trump can resurrect the VHS industry and Video stores after this one.
Perhaps Trump can resurrect the VHS industry and Video stores after this one.
18
Will the new budget include any funds for Black Lung Disease claims, and will the Bureau of Land Management get funds for land reclamation? Not likely. At a time when alternative sources of clean energy need promoting, and car manufacturers are increasingly investing in electric cars, the Administration is trending backwards.
10
I can't take it anymore. I'm going to take a long walk in the woods---for 3 years. While there are still woods. This guy really hates America, deep down, he really does. His every single act does damage. And he doesn't even know it. And sadly, he thinks that he loves America. My god. It has to back to his childhood. A sick kid produced a sick man.
18
Donald Trump will have many fewer healthy Americans to applaud him. What Kim Jong-Un does with VX nerve agents, Donald Trump is doing with the effluents from fossil fuel combustion.
5
It's not coming back, it is backwards and it cannot compete with NG and Oil. And there is no such thing as "clean coal". Trump supporters who are miners need to wake up and smell the coffee...it's NOT coming back. Retrain in alternative energies or other technologies or starve. No, Trump is not going to send you a check or pay your health insurance while you starve. He has conned you big time and you believe in his snake oil.
6
The belief by the Trump administration that the direction of energy development and delivery will suddenly change from renewables back to coal is absurd. Even coal workers probably didn't believe the lie that Trump told over and over to gain their votes. Now the man who sits in the White House thinks by signing proclamations he can change the direction of energy production in this country. He's a fool, a person who can't nor wants to understand neither energy nor health care details. That makes him all the more dangerous.
3
For four years my father's uncle was a coal miner while helping raise him. Much of his side of my family are from coal country.
Short term sympathy for coal miners does not help them long term, does not help their children make the decision to avoid the temptation to follow their parents and instead get education and training that will lead them away from coal. It does not help our economy compete and create jobs with a future. It does not help our planet maintain temperatures that will not bring extreme weather disasters and disruption to the food chain to us all.
We are a nation of change and development. When the market leaves old industries behind we should help ease the transition, not try to hold back the future.
Short term sympathy for coal miners does not help them long term, does not help their children make the decision to avoid the temptation to follow their parents and instead get education and training that will lead them away from coal. It does not help our economy compete and create jobs with a future. It does not help our planet maintain temperatures that will not bring extreme weather disasters and disruption to the food chain to us all.
We are a nation of change and development. When the market leaves old industries behind we should help ease the transition, not try to hold back the future.
6
Right. The whaling ships lost out to the new technology. It happens all the time. If whaling hadn't gone out of business there probably wouldn't be any whales now. If dirty energy doesn't go out of business there probably won't be any us in another 200 years.
2
Go to the website of the US Energy Information Administration, the government's official energy information site. It reports that natural gas prices have been steadily rising and are soon expected to be significantly higher than coal. As a result coal, which has generally been a more abundant fuel source than gas, is expected to return to that status. I just read that. I didn't write it. Apparently, the reporters consider the government an unreliable source.
2
It is unreliable when it does not fit their agenda.
1
Well it is Trump's Administration running the US Energy Administration now. You know, Rick Perry?
1
Yes and that same report says that renewable technology is dropping is price. It is already cheaper than coal, so as natural gas increases in price, it will become cheaper than that.
Renewables is the fastest growing industry with about 3 times more jobs than coal has. Building a coal burning plant is way more expensive than building solar and wind generators. Coal plants are also more expensive to maintain and then there is the problem of disposing the sludge that is made after burning coal.
Which is why coal has been failing and will never stay as a way to get energy. Part of the problem with natural gas prices has to do with the market. A couple of years ago, natural gas had a glut on the market and prices fell greatly. Many investors lost their shirts because the expense of drilling and shipping was too high and thus many drill sites closed. As natural gas prices go up, there will be more investing in drilling, which will lower the cost.
Since a natural gas plant is cheaper to build and maintain than a coal plant, natural gas will be the one to make a come back, not coal. Sure coal will have a small rebound now, but the future is that coal will go the way of wood burning.
Renewables is the fastest growing industry with about 3 times more jobs than coal has. Building a coal burning plant is way more expensive than building solar and wind generators. Coal plants are also more expensive to maintain and then there is the problem of disposing the sludge that is made after burning coal.
Which is why coal has been failing and will never stay as a way to get energy. Part of the problem with natural gas prices has to do with the market. A couple of years ago, natural gas had a glut on the market and prices fell greatly. Many investors lost their shirts because the expense of drilling and shipping was too high and thus many drill sites closed. As natural gas prices go up, there will be more investing in drilling, which will lower the cost.
Since a natural gas plant is cheaper to build and maintain than a coal plant, natural gas will be the one to make a come back, not coal. Sure coal will have a small rebound now, but the future is that coal will go the way of wood burning.
Elsewhere in the Times I read that the U.S. will achieve energy independence in 2018 regardless of these policy changes. Overall this is a thoughtful article but it echoes the false choice between energy independence and job creation on the one hand and the clean/ alternative energy plan on the other. This is not a real trade off at a national level. Have we actually lost more coal jobs than we've created in solar and other emerging energy sectors? Lots of jobs and lots of energy grow from the new alternative energy sectors. Furthermore, natural gas, our "transition" fuel is so cheap that companies can scarcely afford to get it out of the ground. Layoffs in that industry are the direct result of a national and global glut, not environmental regulations. America doesn't need coal and we shouldn't build one more coal power plant. The return to coal is a political statement not an energy policy.
2
Good points. Renewable energy has 3 times the employment that coal does. And is increasing. Overall since coal's heyday, it certainly has lost more jobs that renewables have grown. But those job losses did not come because of renewables, coal has been shedding jobs since the 1920s' when it employed nearly 750K people.
Oil and natural gas caused most of the lost jobs. Automation also cut down on the number of miners needed, along with mountain top removal.
But as coal sheds jobs, renewables are gaining jobs, it is one of the fastest growing industries and could get us to energy independence in the future.
I don't remember the figures, but we export coal, oil, and natural gas to other countries because the price is higher elsewhere. The pipelines ship oil to texas, where the refineries are. Then the refined oil is sent oveseas. If that all was kept in the US, our need to import would certainly help towards energy independence.
Oil and natural gas caused most of the lost jobs. Automation also cut down on the number of miners needed, along with mountain top removal.
But as coal sheds jobs, renewables are gaining jobs, it is one of the fastest growing industries and could get us to energy independence in the future.
I don't remember the figures, but we export coal, oil, and natural gas to other countries because the price is higher elsewhere. The pipelines ship oil to texas, where the refineries are. Then the refined oil is sent oveseas. If that all was kept in the US, our need to import would certainly help towards energy independence.
“If the Clean Power Plan is reneged upon, I don’t think you will see utilities going back to investing in coal because they have already reduced their infrastructure and they already have commitments geared toward natural gas,” said Tamar Essner, an energy analyst at Nasdaq Advisory Services.
The entire scenario of "Making Coal Great Again" is comparable to putting secure locks on the barn door now that the cows got out. If President Trump sincerely wants to help the many unemployed coal miners, why not point them in a different employment direction? Wind and solar power as well as a host of other assorted energy employment opportunities have been in the works for a long time. Why not invest in training and education for these unemployed miners so they could secure safer and healthier career opportunities? I do applaud President Trump for wanting to help these individuals and their families. But the big demand for coal seems to only be generated by this administration and the chosen financially elite than by the this country in general. Doesn't it make more sense to help provide a better Plan B that would truly benefit the coal miners, their families and this country in the long run? For once, just once, it would be refreshing if profit did not overshadow and undermine people.
2
Marge Keller, they don't want to invest in training or education for coal miners or anyone else in America. As far as the GOP is concerned people, unless they are rich, are not worth investing in, helping to keep healthy, or being kept alive. It's not just coal miners that they feel this way about. It's every working American. They value our hard work but not us. We're replaceable by new workers.
3
Dear President Trump,
It's not the tree huggers or the EPA or scientists who are running around screaming that the sky is falling, the sky is falling. It's you because you and your cabinet and cronies are living in the mid-twentieth century, a time before we knew we could start to ease our reliance on fossil fuel. Instead of giving the coal miners what they say they want how about giving them what they need, what that region needs: retraining programs that will equip the miners with skills that will enable them to get decent jobs, support their families, maintain their dignity, and help their children have a future? Any politician can scream that people need jobs. The best ones try to develop and implement programs and policies that will create and maintain them so that their constituents can thrive. Which sort of politician are you Mr. Trump?
It's not the tree huggers or the EPA or scientists who are running around screaming that the sky is falling, the sky is falling. It's you because you and your cabinet and cronies are living in the mid-twentieth century, a time before we knew we could start to ease our reliance on fossil fuel. Instead of giving the coal miners what they say they want how about giving them what they need, what that region needs: retraining programs that will equip the miners with skills that will enable them to get decent jobs, support their families, maintain their dignity, and help their children have a future? Any politician can scream that people need jobs. The best ones try to develop and implement programs and policies that will create and maintain them so that their constituents can thrive. Which sort of politician are you Mr. Trump?
4
Coal is the most plentiful fossil fuel in the planet but it's the dirtiest to use, too. Over decades coal fired plants in the U.S. have been modified to reduce particulate pollutions and chemical pollutions, but the contribution to carbon gases in the atmosphere is the greatest problem the use of coal causes. The consequences of just not attempting to reduce pollution from coal fired energy plants has ruined the air quality in many places on Earth and is becoming a very serious health and economic problem for China and India. The increasing automation of coal mining and the pollution problems coal causes are both going to diminish the extent of it's use over the next century. The problem with reducing carbon gases in the air is that it takes decades and by the time that the consequences are obvious, it will be too late to do much to mitigate them. We have enjoyed the advantages in predicting what outcomes to expect from our actions because of science but with regards to coal and climate change science is being ignored and superseded by wishful thinking.
2
Without tax payer subsidies coal mining will not be profitable.
Cost - Conversion - Profit are reasons coal is being used less and less.
Sustained low natural gas prices have driven more power providers to convert to natural gas as the cost-effective fuel option for energy generation.
Units most likely for a coal-to-gas conversion are 50-plus year old. A large percentage of plants have converter while many more are getting ready for coal to gas conversions. Once converted there is no going back.
There are significant financial benefits for providers using natural gas in capacity markets. More profit for a plant that can generate power when that capacity is needed. *Coal cannot compete in this market!
Cost - Conversion - Profit are reasons coal is being used less and less.
Sustained low natural gas prices have driven more power providers to convert to natural gas as the cost-effective fuel option for energy generation.
Units most likely for a coal-to-gas conversion are 50-plus year old. A large percentage of plants have converter while many more are getting ready for coal to gas conversions. Once converted there is no going back.
There are significant financial benefits for providers using natural gas in capacity markets. More profit for a plant that can generate power when that capacity is needed. *Coal cannot compete in this market!
Money-driven policies and politics produce sure-fire failures. The wealthy may make money off of this action with coal only because the US govt sets lease-sale fees too low to pay for the remediation mining causes.
If Trump believed in coal then he would have installed coal-fired heating systems in his buildings, wouldn't he? Trump doesn't believe in coal, he believes in money.
And coal miners? Running a digger in the Powder River Basin pays well but that digger replaced a 100 other workers. They aren't going to get their jobs back.
The costs of coal mining, ash ponds, mercury in the atmosphere and water (it's now on the West Coast from Chinese coal-fired plant fallout), asthma, and many other costs sustained by the population make coal more than nuisance.
Trump wants the US to go back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Or worse. Building walls, digging motes, serfdom, lords and ladies! The methods Trump uses as well as the rest of the republican party are more likely to cause a worldwide recession than create prosperity, except for the 1%.
Use your buying power to keep coal and tar sands in the ground. Boycott businesses that build the Dakota Access pipeline or assist with it, don't allow new coal & tar sand oil trains to pass thru your cities and towns, and prevent coal loading terminals from being built in your ports. The people in the Pacific Northwest have been able to block several such projects. Don't let Trump pollute your air & water so he can get richer!
If Trump believed in coal then he would have installed coal-fired heating systems in his buildings, wouldn't he? Trump doesn't believe in coal, he believes in money.
And coal miners? Running a digger in the Powder River Basin pays well but that digger replaced a 100 other workers. They aren't going to get their jobs back.
The costs of coal mining, ash ponds, mercury in the atmosphere and water (it's now on the West Coast from Chinese coal-fired plant fallout), asthma, and many other costs sustained by the population make coal more than nuisance.
Trump wants the US to go back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Or worse. Building walls, digging motes, serfdom, lords and ladies! The methods Trump uses as well as the rest of the republican party are more likely to cause a worldwide recession than create prosperity, except for the 1%.
Use your buying power to keep coal and tar sands in the ground. Boycott businesses that build the Dakota Access pipeline or assist with it, don't allow new coal & tar sand oil trains to pass thru your cities and towns, and prevent coal loading terminals from being built in your ports. The people in the Pacific Northwest have been able to block several such projects. Don't let Trump pollute your air & water so he can get richer!
3
The US has an abundance of coal.
Coal is a dirty fuel. Toxics like mercury and global warming CO2 are released when coal is burned.
Natural gas is now abundant but that may well change in the future.
While the use of solar and wind generated electricity should be encouraged these will not completely replace fossil fuels.
At some point that coal is going to be mined.
How do we prevent the harmful effects of coal.
I would like to see a GOVERNMENT [I apologize for swearing.]Manhattan type project to develop more efficient and effective ways to trap toxics and CO2.
I would like to see more work and research on coal gassification.
Such a project is not commercially feasible for the energy companies to do which is why it must be done by the big bad GOVERNMENT.
We have to do more to help the laid off coal miners.
HRC's telling these miners to be call center operators at a fraction of their former wage was an insulting NON-solution. That is in part why she lost.
Telling them tough expletive is not a solution either.
Helping the laid off miners does not necessarily mean increasing use of coal.
Use of the earned income tax credit can help restore lost income.
If we do not develop programs to help the displaced workers in all industries they will vote for demagogues like you know whom.
Coal is a dirty fuel. Toxics like mercury and global warming CO2 are released when coal is burned.
Natural gas is now abundant but that may well change in the future.
While the use of solar and wind generated electricity should be encouraged these will not completely replace fossil fuels.
At some point that coal is going to be mined.
How do we prevent the harmful effects of coal.
I would like to see a GOVERNMENT [I apologize for swearing.]Manhattan type project to develop more efficient and effective ways to trap toxics and CO2.
I would like to see more work and research on coal gassification.
Such a project is not commercially feasible for the energy companies to do which is why it must be done by the big bad GOVERNMENT.
We have to do more to help the laid off coal miners.
HRC's telling these miners to be call center operators at a fraction of their former wage was an insulting NON-solution. That is in part why she lost.
Telling them tough expletive is not a solution either.
Helping the laid off miners does not necessarily mean increasing use of coal.
Use of the earned income tax credit can help restore lost income.
If we do not develop programs to help the displaced workers in all industries they will vote for demagogues like you know whom.
6
While I totally agree with you regarding more attention needing to be paid to displaced workers in a lot of industries, this is not going to be a happy conversation by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, I wouldn't call offering any jobs to displaced workers as "insulting". Many people effectively took demotions and had their careers derailed by the great recession; that's a hard reality of life but offering them false hope of easily and quickly replacing their former jobs and income is far more misleading.
I do agree that this was a serious miscalculation on the part of the Democrats. They should've been in these communities, talking to the displaced workers and actively helping them to work through their challenges and transitions.
I do agree that this was a serious miscalculation on the part of the Democrats. They should've been in these communities, talking to the displaced workers and actively helping them to work through their challenges and transitions.
2
I'm not an economist but one proposal discussed in the Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/upshot/what-would-it-take-to-replace-t...®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
might be considered.
I don't know what is fair or insulting.
There are a lot of people who are hurting economically because of globalization and automation.
They find being told to accept a lower standard of living insulting AND THEY VOTE.
They elected TRump and will elect other more extreme demagogues.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/upshot/what-would-it-take-to-replace-t...®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
might be considered.
I don't know what is fair or insulting.
There are a lot of people who are hurting economically because of globalization and automation.
They find being told to accept a lower standard of living insulting AND THEY VOTE.
They elected TRump and will elect other more extreme demagogues.
Worst problem: Trump is planning to continue wasting govt money on clean coal. Obama wasted $3B on experimental power plants, which all failed. Trump plans to include Clean Coal development funds in the new budget, per his promise to coal miners. No amount of money will stop the market, which has decided that Natural gas is superior, and plants using gas are cheaper to build.
2
Next up...Trump taxes music downloads to save the struggling 8 track industry. "Let's Make America Great Again" by bringing back the loud "click" that we all so fondly remember from the 70s!"
8
So, is that how the Republicans want to get rid of the under-funded and sick? When health care destruction fails, plan B?
3
Good. If other energy sources rise on their own, that is fine. But to strangle coal via regulation is not letting the free market operate.
So you're OK with dirty air and water?
1
So it is logical, too, to release regulations on anything else no matter how toxic? Are market forces the only thing that matter in a society? If we haven't yet learned from our years of smog an pollution leading up to the environmental awakening, then what more can be said.
Coal is filth. Coal kills. Coal destroys the environment. Use less of it by regulating the hell out of it until it is permanently dead.
Coal is filth. Coal kills. Coal destroys the environment. Use less of it by regulating the hell out of it until it is permanently dead.
4
Free markets -- killing people and the planet since the Industrial Revolution.
2
Why do people want to be coal miners anyway? It's a terrible job, with awful working conditions often resulting in very poor health. Sure, there's this romance about it that comes from folk songs and labor history - but the reality is it's an awful job. Coal miners should instead demand they be paid NOT to work in the coal mines! Or, think of something else to do anyway . . . pay them to be folklorists or craftsmen or arborists or something - I'm trying to think what you could train these illiterate, non-curious, Fox News- brainwashed, servile hillbillies to do - - But anyway, coal mining is bad for everyone/everything that is physically involved in the thing. The only people who benefit are those far away from the mines.
2
What's good for the return on equity of a coal company is NOT the same as the public good. The government is supposed to look out for the public.
4
The President should realize that his son will breathe the air in America long after his father is gone.
2
Trump's move to dismantle as many environmental protections as possible puts me in mind of the unforgettable image conjured up by the poet Robert Bly in the 60s. He was commenting on McNamara and his Whiz Kids who were in the process of foisting the Vietnam debacle on the world: "They are loosening the nails on Noah's Ark."
6
The surge in stock prices for energy companies shows that President Trump's Executive Order is good for business. In fact, most company's stock prices have surged since his historic election. Companies are interested in conducting business again. Why does the liberal opposition see that as a bad thing? Thank you.
1
Clean energy is a better business for a lot of reasons. The market enthusiasm for Trump won't last.
3
"The surge in stock prices for energy companies shows that President Trump's Executive Order is good for business."
In your logic
"The stock price in 2008 prior to the meltdown went historic high back then, therefore the Mortgage plan is doing well and good, and will never fail"
Also, "The life span of an average person is increasing on average, that must mean the overall health of human being is okay, we don't need medicine anymore"
And also this:
"The economy overall is growing, that must mean the coal miners, middle class and lower class are doing well. We need to stop funding the southern states as the overall picture is fine.."
History do repeat itself. Maybe it's time to pick up a book and read it
In your logic
"The stock price in 2008 prior to the meltdown went historic high back then, therefore the Mortgage plan is doing well and good, and will never fail"
Also, "The life span of an average person is increasing on average, that must mean the overall health of human being is okay, we don't need medicine anymore"
And also this:
"The economy overall is growing, that must mean the coal miners, middle class and lower class are doing well. We need to stop funding the southern states as the overall picture is fine.."
History do repeat itself. Maybe it's time to pick up a book and read it
3
Southern Boy. Coal is no longer a useful fuel. There are better substitutes that wont give us asthma or black lung disease or cancer, or make the air so filthy that we will all eventually wear gas masks or be smothered. Go to the library and research the truth story of our already corrupted air. Might do some additional research on Donald Trump and his past. You don't know him and been bought.
8
The other article posted in the NYT has the happy coal miners of West Virginia doing their little victory dance. One guy who has Black Lung caused by coal mining, says he is happy the coal mines are back,and figured he could have worked a little longer if clear air regulations had not been enforced. He can no longer work due to the Black Lung he GOT from coal mining. The government will have to support him now-the stupid in this country runs so deep. If America ever gets rid of the GOP and Trump, the damage to this country will take years to repair.
23
While Trump and co. will hasten the demise of these people, I'm starting to wonder if anything would ever truly help them. How can anyone function with this level of stupidity?
4
There is absolutely no such thing as "clean coal." It's nothing more than spin and wishful thinking. And, everyone in the coal industry and the political hacks who serve them know it.
Meanwhile, next up, perhaps Trump will aim to bring back jobs in other industries of the future, like radio tubes, horse-drawn carriages, and the telegraph.
Any coal miner that believes anything that Trump says is a stooge, played by Trump for their vote, plain and simple. Trump's base is ignorance.
Meanwhile, next up, perhaps Trump will aim to bring back jobs in other industries of the future, like radio tubes, horse-drawn carriages, and the telegraph.
Any coal miner that believes anything that Trump says is a stooge, played by Trump for their vote, plain and simple. Trump's base is ignorance.
15
President Trump's next two executive orders will repeal the laws of supply and demand and replace market forces with an order to "buy coal first". That should work.
3
To quote the late Sam Kinison regarding world hunger: Move to where the food is!
There are boomtown pockets around the country, and a Cash for Clunkers-like program could help the rust belt workers relocate to the jobs.
If Republicans won't fund it, I suggest one of their favorite pieces of advice for other folks who are down on their luck: Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!
There are boomtown pockets around the country, and a Cash for Clunkers-like program could help the rust belt workers relocate to the jobs.
If Republicans won't fund it, I suggest one of their favorite pieces of advice for other folks who are down on their luck: Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!
2
What are miners whining about. Thanks to Trump's immigration policy, there our thousands of good jobs in California picking Kumquat.
6
I've read in the media about one key idea on renewables - even in The Economist - and it's typically the kind of ideas so difficult for The Donald to grasp (because, precisely, he likes the wealth to be grabbed)
Basically, it says that renewables are not supply-based but are rather technology-based. Which means supplies get scarcier and more expensive with time, whereas technology improves and gets cheaper over time.
I enjoy a lot seeing the King erring
Basically, it says that renewables are not supply-based but are rather technology-based. Which means supplies get scarcier and more expensive with time, whereas technology improves and gets cheaper over time.
I enjoy a lot seeing the King erring
4
Make America Great Again? Sure! After all, greatness need not be confined to goodness. We should give the dystopians their fair share of the glory.
So let's be really great and line water pipes with lead all over again. Add DDT back into our pesticides and PCBs to children's pajamas to make them flame-retardant. Let's change the labels on cigarette packages and remove all evidence that smoking causes cancer, advertise them on television again, and sell them in school vending machines. And while we're at it, why not insulate our homes with asbestos and put a tanning bed in every basement? How about shutting down the FDA and putting experimental drugs on the market, and remove seat belts and air bags from automobiles? Let's dismantle air travel safety regulations. Let's store nuclear waste in cardboard boxes and leave them out in the rain.
But we won't be truly great until people can no longer afford health insurance and we shut down hospitals, doctors, dentists and all medical research.
Jonathan Swift must be turning in his grave.
So let's be really great and line water pipes with lead all over again. Add DDT back into our pesticides and PCBs to children's pajamas to make them flame-retardant. Let's change the labels on cigarette packages and remove all evidence that smoking causes cancer, advertise them on television again, and sell them in school vending machines. And while we're at it, why not insulate our homes with asbestos and put a tanning bed in every basement? How about shutting down the FDA and putting experimental drugs on the market, and remove seat belts and air bags from automobiles? Let's dismantle air travel safety regulations. Let's store nuclear waste in cardboard boxes and leave them out in the rain.
But we won't be truly great until people can no longer afford health insurance and we shut down hospitals, doctors, dentists and all medical research.
Jonathan Swift must be turning in his grave.
10
Trump isn't looking out for the miners in his base, despite his rhetoric. This is merely a move to reward his donors, for example:
Murray Energy, largest coal company in America donated:
$250k to the Cleveland Host Committee to fund the RNC
$20k to pro-Trump super PAC Rebuilding America Now
$100k to the Trump Victory Fund
Joe Craft, CEO of Alliance Resource Partners donated nearly $2 million to Trump super PACs.
Just another day in the Trump swamp today.
Murray Energy, largest coal company in America donated:
$250k to the Cleveland Host Committee to fund the RNC
$20k to pro-Trump super PAC Rebuilding America Now
$100k to the Trump Victory Fund
Joe Craft, CEO of Alliance Resource Partners donated nearly $2 million to Trump super PACs.
Just another day in the Trump swamp today.
11
Correction:
$20k* to pro-Trump super PAC Rebuilding America Now
Typo, it was actually 200k
$20k* to pro-Trump super PAC Rebuilding America Now
Typo, it was actually 200k
2
Check out the report from the Guardian on Tuesday on what Charles Murray, owner of the largest coal company in the world, had to say to Trump regarding all those great coal jobs that are coming back.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/27/us-coal-industry-cle...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/27/us-coal-industry-cle...
1
I pray for the return of the day when we all begin burning dung again, like the good old days ...
7
There would certainly be tons of it in Washington to burn. Maybe the congress, and the Trump administration would finally feel as if they were really contributing and doing something constructive.
I guess you have to look to other news sources to find out Trump actually has brought coal jobs back.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/23/exclusive-jobs-and-confidence-return-t...
http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/23/exclusive-jobs-and-confidence-return-t...
How long with those "roughly 1,000 new jobs?" last? Are they worth polluting the air and water of millions of people? Do you have any idea of what environmental disasters do to local economies?
3
That's just one area and one story, there are more.
I don't care if we don't use it here, we can and do export it.
All the posts on this forum blow right past that fact.
I don't care if we don't use it here, we can and do export it.
All the posts on this forum blow right past that fact.
1
This article seems spun out of the single statistic about rail car loads of coal.
Go check the AAR website for the data over the last 4 years. The increase is likely random.
Go check the AAR website for the data over the last 4 years. The increase is likely random.
2
In honor of Trump's coal initiative, the reigning wizard has decided to change the name of Trump Tower to Isengard.
In unrelated news, Trump signed an executive order to jumpstart the military's Organic Reconstituted Combat (ORC) program, which plans to identify and clone combat soldiers. Grima (aka Steve Bannon) will be in charge of day-to-day operations. The first detachment is scheduled to guard Isengard some time before the next presidential election.
In unrelated news, Trump signed an executive order to jumpstart the military's Organic Reconstituted Combat (ORC) program, which plans to identify and clone combat soldiers. Grima (aka Steve Bannon) will be in charge of day-to-day operations. The first detachment is scheduled to guard Isengard some time before the next presidential election.
4
I for one am not willing to risk lung disease for a few jobs. Especially when there are alternatives for those who lost jobs. Retrain and move on like millions of others who had to do the same. I have had to and know others who have done the same.
5
What astounding prescience on the part of the NYT! In tandem with an article from CNN too. Trumps Move to Revive Coak Won't. .. reads more like a leftist fascist idealogue rather than a news article. I in fact concur with the assessment but again, I don't need this newspaper to be a vapid echo chamber for the left. What happened here? Kowtowing to the hoipoloi of the left?
I don't think you read actual news and if you do, you certainly don't seem to comprehend it.
4
What happened here? It's called news. You might try it sometime.
1
No it is called reality. Trump is posing like a boxer who is about to be knocked out.
Coal wasn't losing jobs because of regulations that hadn't even taken effect yet. Coal is shedding jobs due to automation and cost. Other sources of energy are cheaper, which is why the market is making coal less desirable.
That is the truth, coal can't make it. No matter what Trump says. I guess the truth must be a leftist idea to you. But we call it reality. Why should we subsidize an industry that can't make it on it's own and is going the way of the dodo bird.
Coal wasn't losing jobs because of regulations that hadn't even taken effect yet. Coal is shedding jobs due to automation and cost. Other sources of energy are cheaper, which is why the market is making coal less desirable.
That is the truth, coal can't make it. No matter what Trump says. I guess the truth must be a leftist idea to you. But we call it reality. Why should we subsidize an industry that can't make it on it's own and is going the way of the dodo bird.
As for revived coal mining and other fossil fuel pandering I always find it amusing when conservatives decide that market forces and Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” aren’t really that important or controlling...
9
Where does Carbon come into the conversation about steel mills?
The main ingredients to making raw steel
are Iron Ore and Coke, which is Carbon.
At the Pittsburgh steel mills in the 1960’s, 24/7, you could watch Car Dumpers on slanted rails moving up the outside of the mill carrying the
iron ore to be dropped down inside of it. The coke/carbon came in on train cars and was shoveled into the furnace by workers who were like expert chefs following a specific recipe.
I can still “see” the red lights on top of the stacks,
during the nights, blinking dimly through the smoke.
The main ingredients to making raw steel
are Iron Ore and Coke, which is Carbon.
At the Pittsburgh steel mills in the 1960’s, 24/7, you could watch Car Dumpers on slanted rails moving up the outside of the mill carrying the
iron ore to be dropped down inside of it. The coke/carbon came in on train cars and was shoveled into the furnace by workers who were like expert chefs following a specific recipe.
I can still “see” the red lights on top of the stacks,
during the nights, blinking dimly through the smoke.
3
The number of US coal workers 70-100,000 for 20 yrs- easily found on a search. Coal production soared 1960-2008 then trended down with decreased consumption. Number of workers relatively stable. Not really sure how the numbers of new jobs and increased productivity promised by current administration can be acheived.
Not as crazy as when the conveyor belt was invented-
From Wikipedia....
"Irish mining engineer Richard Sutcliffe invented the first conveyor belt for use in the coal mines of Yorkshire in the early 1900s. Within the first forty years of the 20th century, more than sixty percent of US coal was loaded mechanically rather than by man power. The history of the industry is the history of increasing mechanization.[15] As mechanization continued, fewer miners were needed, and some miners reacted with violence. One of the first machines to arrive at West Virginia's Kanawha field had to be escorted by armed guards. The same machine introduced at a mine in Illinois was operated at a slow speed because the superintendent feared labor troubles."
We've come a long way balancing energy and jobs and environment and now we
Are going backwards.
Not as crazy as when the conveyor belt was invented-
From Wikipedia....
"Irish mining engineer Richard Sutcliffe invented the first conveyor belt for use in the coal mines of Yorkshire in the early 1900s. Within the first forty years of the 20th century, more than sixty percent of US coal was loaded mechanically rather than by man power. The history of the industry is the history of increasing mechanization.[15] As mechanization continued, fewer miners were needed, and some miners reacted with violence. One of the first machines to arrive at West Virginia's Kanawha field had to be escorted by armed guards. The same machine introduced at a mine in Illinois was operated at a slow speed because the superintendent feared labor troubles."
We've come a long way balancing energy and jobs and environment and now we
Are going backwards.
7
It's that "again" thing.
1
Considering how awful Trump's approval poll ratings are - Gallup has him at 35/59, 24 points underwater and even Republican friendly Rasmussen has him at 44/56, 12 points underwater (most presidents at this stage have 20-40 net positives), what sort of lunatic would invest in building a coal fired plant right now, or base other investments on `Trump's carbon policy rollback?
It's obvious that this roll-back will likely be rolled back in say 4 years, or even earlier if the 2018 midterms are as torrid for the Republicans as current polls suggest. But itakes 2-5 years to build a coal fired generating plant, which needs to run for 30+ years; 3+ years to design a car, etc.
Does anyone really plan on making major investment decisions based of the unpopular policies of a President with the lowest approval poll ratings since this sort of polling began?
It's obvious that this roll-back will likely be rolled back in say 4 years, or even earlier if the 2018 midterms are as torrid for the Republicans as current polls suggest. But itakes 2-5 years to build a coal fired generating plant, which needs to run for 30+ years; 3+ years to design a car, etc.
Does anyone really plan on making major investment decisions based of the unpopular policies of a President with the lowest approval poll ratings since this sort of polling began?
10
How about a NYT article on how the Obama "Clean Power Plan" was deemed a radical executive power grab and declared unconstitutional? Instead of, you know, the daily barrage of articles on the front page and throughout on the end of the world as we know it. I am no fan of Trump, but the hysterics on the left are becoming exhausting.
1
So you think polluting our air and water is nothing to get upset about?
2
Did you even read what I wrote? Good example of why dialogue and discussion is so fruitless these days.
1
Underclaw - You aren't engaging in dialogue, you went on a rant against liberals that contributes nothing to the discussion.
1
Demand for coal has been declining for years and will continue to do so. Any attempts to increase demand by reducing environmental regulations will at best temporarily prop up demand from the lowest cost mining operations like the surface mines in Wyoming that use fewer miners (miners there are 10 times more productive than in WV). The mining jobs are not coming back no matter what the tangerine bloviator in chief says.
3
So our President who fancies himself a great business leader supports a dying, excessively polluting industry, while at the same time allowing China to take the lead on fighting pollution? Am I missing something?
7
You appear to mistake Trump voters for the sort of people who could understand that kind of analysis. Any discussion more complex that "Lock her up!" is quickly discarded in favor of a punchy slogan.
24
A lot of these people are the same ones that hated Obamacare, but thought the Affordable Care Act was just fine. Go figure.
3
We need to distinguish between those who voted for a conservative supreme court or simply hated Hillary, and those who still go to his rallies...because that is a gap we can take advantage of, pilgrims. My sis is loath to discuss her mussed up Trumpet. I'm happy to abide without, because he really blows a room apart.
2
Totally agree Abby.
The US EXPORTS coal - a fact this story completely ignores.
Trump eliminated restrictions on US coal production and on permitting of export operations - that surely will lead to more coal exports.
Exports are NOT considered in US GHG emissions inventories.
The emissions from IMPORTS of products also are not counted in US emissions inventory,
Trump eliminated restrictions on US coal production and on permitting of export operations - that surely will lead to more coal exports.
Exports are NOT considered in US GHG emissions inventories.
The emissions from IMPORTS of products also are not counted in US emissions inventory,
2
Trump bringing the coal miners in to watch him sign a bill on climate change was a cold brutal use of those coal miners. He knows he's not doing anything to help them, coal is a dying industry and has been since 1980 - there's no turning that trend around.
President Obama and Hillary Clinton offered them job re-training programs but they refused them, not wanting to leave their towns, insisting that someone bring coal industry back. Trump made empty promises. Its horrible thing to use these people so callously for a headline and popularity boost.
President Obama and Hillary Clinton offered them job re-training programs but they refused them, not wanting to leave their towns, insisting that someone bring coal industry back. Trump made empty promises. Its horrible thing to use these people so callously for a headline and popularity boost.
13
It's a waste to post this here, but those comments that mention subsidies for coal seem to happily forget about the subsidies that wind and solar are/have been getting for a long time.
In fact, the wealthy homeowners that've built out their solar arrays on their houses (& summer houses) on the backs of taxpayers would never have been done unless the gov was footing more than 50% of the bill.
Especially in NY. Check your electric bill for a change folks, and see how much of your charges go toward these 'ventures' per Kw hr.
Also, those that think coal isn't efficient in turning a turbine here know close to zero. If solar lost its subsidies, it would die a quick death. But hey, the wealthy (even liberals) have to fleece the poor..
In fact, the wealthy homeowners that've built out their solar arrays on their houses (& summer houses) on the backs of taxpayers would never have been done unless the gov was footing more than 50% of the bill.
Especially in NY. Check your electric bill for a change folks, and see how much of your charges go toward these 'ventures' per Kw hr.
Also, those that think coal isn't efficient in turning a turbine here know close to zero. If solar lost its subsidies, it would die a quick death. But hey, the wealthy (even liberals) have to fleece the poor..
You don't think cleaner air is worth spending money on? Trying talking to a poor person with asthma who can't afford an inhaler.
3
The subsidies are meant to encourage growth in cleaner, renewable energy sources. Those who take the long view know that reliance on fossil fuels is no longer wise, so the gov't supports the development of other energy sources. If we ever make a full transition to cleaner, renewable sources of energy the subsidies will probably disappear, no? Not all subsidies are bad.
1
Almost all the easy to reach, economically minable coal in West Virginia, Kentucky, and and Pennsylvania has been extracted. The coal that remains is hard to get to and dangerous to produce. Unless Mr. Trump can change geology, they need a new industry. Say, maybe, clean energy?
7
It seems little Donald used to get coal in his stocking and thought it was a good thing.
8
Don the Con is continuing his conning ways. Next he will tell former coal miners to stock up on canaries because the mines will open immediately.
8
Just another callously cynical ploy to distract voters in coal mining states away from all the various ways they are being shafted (pun intended) by this administration. Slash job training in Appalachia, deny health benefits to miners, destroy the ACA in the very states most dependent on it, undercut education so that another generation gains few other employable skills, shield the coal companies from any accountability for their destruction of human lives and the environment, need I go on?
14
The true economic boom in West Virginia will be selling clean urine...
6
Just wondering, how long before Trump puts children back to work in the garment industry and coal mines?
Someone should also check to see if Trump has negotiated a deal with Russia to export the free press to some gulag in Siberia.
I do not want to see the name 'New York Tass' on the masthead of this beloved paper!
Someone should also check to see if Trump has negotiated a deal with Russia to export the free press to some gulag in Siberia.
I do not want to see the name 'New York Tass' on the masthead of this beloved paper!
8
The attitudes and beliefs held by folks in E. Kentucky and WV are quite emblematic of the views of the so called "white working class." They refuse to acknowledge that the country and world has changed...some say for the better. Instead of focusing on educating themselves to adjust and evolve with the changing times, they obstinately stand their ground in the belief that their lives will improve if somehow they could go back in time.
Coal is a dying fuel. Fossil fuels for that matter are becoming obsolete. The voting population of this country..the folks who vote in every single election are of a demographic that refuse to support progress. They should vote in elected officials who support progress. Even Saudi Arabia has acknowledged their economy should not be dependent on fossil fuels and is diversifying their economy. It is shameful that these other countries are now taking the lead in this category, and it falls all on the so called "white working class."
Coal is a dying fuel. Fossil fuels for that matter are becoming obsolete. The voting population of this country..the folks who vote in every single election are of a demographic that refuse to support progress. They should vote in elected officials who support progress. Even Saudi Arabia has acknowledged their economy should not be dependent on fossil fuels and is diversifying their economy. It is shameful that these other countries are now taking the lead in this category, and it falls all on the so called "white working class."
6
Global solar energy capacity (GW): 2000, 1GW. 2005, 5GW. 2010, 40GW. 2014, 180GW. 2015, 260GW. Don Trump is literally 'tilting at windmills'. Don Quixote at least had the benefit of thinking they were dragons.
6
So a Spanish company is profiting on US subsidies. Just great.
2
Nobody is saying a 1% billionaire entrepreneur couldn't do the same thing. Just takes some vision.
Republicans are closed minded to any reason for gov. costing corporations money. No matter how important the reason is.
2
Moving to Pittsburgh in the early 60’s from the Southwest was an experience for me like moving to a foreign country: black-smoke-belching steel mill stacks, coal dust on the window sills in spite of storm windows, and no blue sky. Old-timers said that downtown business men in suits changed their white shirts at noon because of the coal dust.
This begged the naïve question: ‘Why would people choose to live like this?” The answer from native residents was, almost to a person, “It’s the cost of having jobs.”
Putting coal and its carbon back into our environment begs the now not-naïve question: “Why?” The answer from Trump and his financial supporters: “It’s the cost of making us rich.”
I drove through Pittsburgh a few years ago and did not recognize it. The downtown mill was gone, the skies were blue, the pastel bridges over the three rivers were beautiful, and the waters were being enjoyed by the public. Where are the steel jobs now? In China, of course. Where are the Pittsburgh jobs now? Research it.
This begged the naïve question: ‘Why would people choose to live like this?” The answer from native residents was, almost to a person, “It’s the cost of having jobs.”
Putting coal and its carbon back into our environment begs the now not-naïve question: “Why?” The answer from Trump and his financial supporters: “It’s the cost of making us rich.”
I drove through Pittsburgh a few years ago and did not recognize it. The downtown mill was gone, the skies were blue, the pastel bridges over the three rivers were beautiful, and the waters were being enjoyed by the public. Where are the steel jobs now? In China, of course. Where are the Pittsburgh jobs now? Research it.
6
It's coal. That's really all we have to say.
The level of progressive thinking in the republican party is summed up by this one, ridiculous topic. They're talking about coal. When we think about how unfit and unqualified Trump is for office or how the republican congress is undeniably bought and paid for by corporate interests that favor the very, very wealthy, we still have the conundrum of dealing with seriously intellectually challenged science-deniers who are talking about coal. Whether it's about coal as a viable energy source, here in the future--in the 21st century, or coal as an industry and an economic engine, this thinking is dead. Coal has died for a reason. The jobs are not coming back. Ever. And the idea of coal as a sensible, viable energy option is even being phased out by RURAL INDIA!
Ireland voted this year to divest completely from fossil fuels as a country.
And the republican United States wants to bring back coal.
The saddest thing of all: until we act, and act immediately, it will only get more embarrassingly catastrophic. For our environment. For our economy. For our health and well-being. For our children's education. For the safety of our country and the world. This administration is an absolute disaster.
The level of progressive thinking in the republican party is summed up by this one, ridiculous topic. They're talking about coal. When we think about how unfit and unqualified Trump is for office or how the republican congress is undeniably bought and paid for by corporate interests that favor the very, very wealthy, we still have the conundrum of dealing with seriously intellectually challenged science-deniers who are talking about coal. Whether it's about coal as a viable energy source, here in the future--in the 21st century, or coal as an industry and an economic engine, this thinking is dead. Coal has died for a reason. The jobs are not coming back. Ever. And the idea of coal as a sensible, viable energy option is even being phased out by RURAL INDIA!
Ireland voted this year to divest completely from fossil fuels as a country.
And the republican United States wants to bring back coal.
The saddest thing of all: until we act, and act immediately, it will only get more embarrassingly catastrophic. For our environment. For our economy. For our health and well-being. For our children's education. For the safety of our country and the world. This administration is an absolute disaster.
17
Just a great response.
5
Ditto Mike! Excellent response mj from Santa Fe!
4
I wish the president was doing more to help us parchment scroll makers. We've been making scrolls for over one thousand years and we are besieged by some incredibly partisan types that are well connected-- probably funded by George Soros-- and continue to suggest that our craft and trade is moribund.
Please do something to preserve parchment scrolls Mr. President!
Sincerely,
Scroll-Worker union delegate Mickey
Please do something to preserve parchment scrolls Mr. President!
Sincerely,
Scroll-Worker union delegate Mickey
8
Du Bois, Baughman, Bowman, all prequels of the family name that came to be Poorman for working the woods for a living. That was until King Coal rolled into town and put a lot of them out of business.
Good thing, too, or we would have entirely denuded you, PA. Do we have chips? Wearing it to this day...get over it, Coalman.
Good thing, too, or we would have entirely denuded you, PA. Do we have chips? Wearing it to this day...get over it, Coalman.
1
Well, seems like Donald ought to just start doing everything he can to actively destroy the wind, solar, and natural gas industries. Seems to be one of the sorts of things he does best, right?
4
Ironic to me that his daughter is shown supporting STEM initiatives (the way forward) while her father is photographed with coal miners - the way backwards! Would anyone choose to work in the mines if they had better options?
4
I am sure many others have said the same thing, but I have to get it off my chest. I simply can't believe that the President of the United States would sell out future generations for a questionable short term gain for a very small number of people - especially when there are numerous other ways we could help these individuals. I am sure that any economist could calculate that the long term economic costs of continued use of coal are so great that we could simply pay the 65,000 coal miners not to work and we would still be better off.
If there is a God, Donald Trump is sure going to have some explaining to do when the time comes.
If there is a God, Donald Trump is sure going to have some explaining to do when the time comes.
5
If there's a God she will put as much distance between herself and Trump as possible and I hope his cohorts end up in the same wing of hades with him.
2
Why didn't Trump announce he was going to personally start the comeback to coal by switching the energy needs of Trump Tower completely to coal, including coal powered furnaces within the building? He could probably give himself a "Trump coal" tax break (watch for that!) for switching over.
4
In a related development, President Trump signed an order directing all American children twelve years old and under to misbehave, be disruptive and otherwise just act badly. In keeping with past practice and under a long-term understanding, Santa will then bring bring the country so much coal that there will no longer be a need for mines or miners.
Steve Miller was quoted as saying, "Who knew the invisible hand of the free market wore a red suit, had a jolly laugh and lived at the North Pole."
Steve Miller was quoted as saying, "Who knew the invisible hand of the free market wore a red suit, had a jolly laugh and lived at the North Pole."
4
Trump's actions are symbolic propaganda moves - we don't have to analyze his ad campaign.
5
The U.S.: leading from behind under Trump.
Go China.
Go China.
When one has no constraints upon one's imagination one can assert anything with complete confidence. In this case, Trump's aversion to facts and analysis enables him to imagine that just removing all regulations and laws pertaining to coal mining will make coal the perfect fuel and source of renewal of America's industrial might. He's a man who has succeeded in life without actually doing anything, so he cannot grasp what really is necessary to do anything.
9
Ask the buggy whip people how they did when times changed.
5
Trump's "promise" to bring back coal jobs was nothing more than another one of his lies - and he knew it all along. Hillary Clinton may have been inartful in her statements on this, but she was telling the truth - , whether people wanted to hear it or not. The decline of coal has been going on for decades, and will continue. No president, no policy, no repeal of regulation can change market forces. Railroads replaced stagecoaches, cars replaced horses and buggys, and so it is with coal.
9
I'm waiting for the Feds to come and regulate my wood burning fireplace.
3
We aren't allowed to have one in CA. It's not so bad.
1
Are you "joking" Robert? Did you read the article? If "the Feds" require you to do anything with your wood burning fireplace, it will be to require you to burn coal in it.
1
The Dutch style with the oversized fireworks where you stand under the hood among heaps of wood fires were a disaster scene, Cinderella. Franklin made his stove much more energy efficient, and then gave the patent to humanity to save their posterity.
Sign, sealed, delivered, it's yours!
Sign, sealed, delivered, it's yours!
1
Retroactive policies by a "businessman" president who doesn't understand real business (e.g., manufacturing, production) will not bring back the heyday of coal mining. Energy production companies have always pursued technological advances with an eye to efficiency; the boat has sailed on coal mining. While some may benefit, what Trump is doing will basically be a bone to a pack of dogs. Any CEO of a major energy company is looking beyond oil and coal. The only people who don't realize how businesses really operate are those with their feet stuck in the mud and don't understand the force of technology.
11
It is time to recognize that despite Trump's unrealistic promises the only winners are not the miners. Those jobs were leaving because of other factors, not the restrictions placed on them. The winners are the mine owners.
Trump may try to erase every legislation that Obama put into place, sell off this country for his and the billionaires' coffers but their grand kids will still have to breathe poisons and drink water. The green energy economy has already taken root and has created jobs and opportunities.
Who will care for the sick miners? Paul Ryan?
Who will buy coal other than locally and burn it with the alternatives available.
Who will tell Trump this is 2017 and the world has moved on from the fifties.
Trump may try to erase every legislation that Obama put into place, sell off this country for his and the billionaires' coffers but their grand kids will still have to breathe poisons and drink water. The green energy economy has already taken root and has created jobs and opportunities.
Who will care for the sick miners? Paul Ryan?
Who will buy coal other than locally and burn it with the alternatives available.
Who will tell Trump this is 2017 and the world has moved on from the fifties.
7
I agree wholeheartedly with president Trump's decision. I do believe that climate change is happening and making significant changes to the earth but the ONE and ONLY path to follow is to make solar and wind energy less expensive than coal and other fossil fuels, not to damage the economy by adding additional stresses on those who make it work.
3
Without the tax breaks coal companies had enjoyed and the environmental damage that was ignored (and the dangerous working conditions that killed dozens of miners), the coal industry would be moribund. Trump's actions are typical of developers: make a quick buck and leave future generations to pay the price.
7
The economy is more important than the earth?
5
Here is a fun exercise for you RMR. Find out how many feet (or inches) West Palm Beach is above sea-level today, and then check it again in 4 or 8 years. If your property isn't taken down by a flood or hurricane, or your drinking water supply becomes contaminated with salt water, before then. Then report back if you then feel it was wise for you to "wholeheartedly" agree with Trujmp's decision.
4
The only "constant" in life is "change"...As we learn more about ourselves and our environment, there is an inherent attraction to embrace that which serves our best interest in the long run. I understand that the coal mining community has been a casualty of environmental progress. But the simple truth is that there is no such thing as "clean coal". Hopefully, the government -- both national and State will innovate some re-education and training where new higher paying skillsets are learned where these workers can find some gainful employment. But to reiterate -- Life is change and change is really the only constant in life. We all must learn to adapt in ways that improve our situations, both locally and globally..
30
This is a reactionary "executive order" by a desperate group of authoritarians seeking to distract from a HUGE loss (NO repeal, nor replacement of the ACA).
This is an empty gesture (although replete with an emotionless man holding up a folder containing paper he's signed, but most likely hasn't read), that will NOT bring back coal mining jobs. There is NO MARKET.
A REAL president would introduce legislation to help retrain those miners to learn new, marketable skills, say, in the renewable energy industry (HIGH GROWTH!). The shrinking minority of this pretender's supporters will find no solace in the meaningless photo-op.
REMEMBER, he tried to take away your health care!
This is an empty gesture (although replete with an emotionless man holding up a folder containing paper he's signed, but most likely hasn't read), that will NOT bring back coal mining jobs. There is NO MARKET.
A REAL president would introduce legislation to help retrain those miners to learn new, marketable skills, say, in the renewable energy industry (HIGH GROWTH!). The shrinking minority of this pretender's supporters will find no solace in the meaningless photo-op.
REMEMBER, he tried to take away your health care!
5
Sorry coal miners. Given the choice between your jobs or air that is safe to breathe I gotta go with the air.
15
Two can play this game. When the Democratic majority in this country regains power, all coal mining should be banned within 18-24 months, period, end of story.
7
Certain smelting processes require this fuel, Mangenese, or do you like stains on your steel?
1
Policy based on fake news that coal can make a comeback and that climate change is a hoax.
The real news in this is that the United States is giving up world leadership in order to satisfying a cabal of fossil fuel oligarchs.
The real news in this is that the United States is giving up world leadership in order to satisfying a cabal of fossil fuel oligarchs.
10
Elon Musk and Tesla are ramping up production of solar panels that look like roof tiles for residential use. How cool is that?! Meanwhile Trump is looking 100 years backwards and the NYT is covering it? What a joke!! How about some of the coal miners getting on the solar train which will only get bigger. Go to Buffalo and check it out. Coal is dead Donnie boy.
9
I expected the coal miners Trump assembled for the signing of his executive order to chant, in unison, "those of us who are about to die salute you".
Truly a waste of human potential. Sad. So sad.
Truly a waste of human potential. Sad. So sad.
4
How will we measure the cost of this endeavor when the price of coal drops through the floor and the men & women in the mines lose everything?
3
Well Trump can look forward to more of his property being under water - not in his life time but his children's. We have to make sure we take control of congress in 2018 and stop this madman.
3
They eagerly await Santa to bring them their jobs, but what they will get is coal in their stockings.
7
Perhaps the additional revenue that the owners of coal mines will see - now that those pesky regulations have been eliminated can go toward the reeducation of the coal miners who will not be rehired due to industry mechanization. Oh wait - that would be the civic-minded, ultimately country-building, right thing to do. Never mind.
5
I guess we'll have to welcome acid rain in our lakes and rivers again. What a shame that, after eliminating that nefarious and noxious pollutant, we'll have to live with the reduction in our productive ecosystem. And for what? Someone's delusional idea that coal can be made safe and that it has a future?
5
the Cotton Gin will make a triumphant return, believe me, that much i can tell you. big league
4
The Cotton Gin never went away. Modern versions are still used today. How do you think they get seeds out of cotton?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin
A case of pandering for votes from the hopeless. Coal isn't coming back; there is no reason it should and lots of reasons it shouldn't.
8
The only way to consume more coal and to increase mining is going to be to get Americans to consume a lot more energy. One way to get Americans to consume more energy is to can Energy Star and the resulting efficiency in consumption. It's all tied together.
Will Americans unlearn hard won habits and go back to single pane windows, incandescent lightbulbs, and other low efficiency options? Stay tuned! But that's the only way coal production will increase.
Will Americans unlearn hard won habits and go back to single pane windows, incandescent lightbulbs, and other low efficiency options? Stay tuned! But that's the only way coal production will increase.
3
I'm puzzled here, is this President DJT's innovative idea of progress for energy independence? Coal?!!! Someone please explain to me how this is moving our country forward?
4
Need to let your fingers do the talking in the elections next year Sy.
1
Why don't we just start rubbing sticks together?
1
If coal had not come along, the entirety of Appalachia would be fir free by now. Coal has had its reign; time for the sun to pay some taxes.
It's safe to say that even Trump's children and grandchildren don't have a better supply of air than the rest of us.
So he apparently just doesn't care.
So he apparently just doesn't care.
3
Trump would sell off any one of his progeny if the price was right.
1
Ignore the pun, but I see coal as a smoke screen. Coal is not going to come back in any significant way, but this gives Trump cover to loosen other air pollution controls.
4
Helping coal will hurt everyone, but not everyone equally. The miners are helped by having a job, but hurt by black lung disease. Hillary made a great PR mistake by making getting rid of coal miner's job the lead story, but she was right that our support should go to the displaced workers and not the mines and mining operations. The future of coal is a diminishing one. I don't expect coal use to be eliminated in the near future, but it must be sharply curtailed to lower the risk of catastrophic climate change. While growth in solar and wind is brisk, they are still minor players on the energy scene. We need to block any government efforts to help the coal industry and support any efforts to help displaced workers.
3
I applaud the President's efforts to bring back coal to help make America great again.
Let's also return to the horse and buggy for transport. That'll keep those pesky environmentalists and scientists quiet. And the animal rights folks can pound sand.
Just make sure to buy sugar futures early.
Let's also return to the horse and buggy for transport. That'll keep those pesky environmentalists and scientists quiet. And the animal rights folks can pound sand.
Just make sure to buy sugar futures early.
4
I found a funny in a 1915 NYTs where a man in a buggy lashes another in a new fangled automobile with his whip; not for cutting him off, just for being a bad bucket shop curb broker.
1
Uncle Will makes the grade again, Exeter! His first appearance long before he blew Tea Pot's Dome off.
Despite the claim of Trump and his supporters, there is no "war on coal." There is no liberal conspiracy against it. There is simply chemistry and physics. Coal burning produces carbon dioxide, which is a green house gas. This will contribute to global climate change both in terms of increased green house effect and CO2 levels in the oceans. Coal burning also produces byproducts toxic to the human body, such as mercury and sulfer dioxide.
To call the need to transition to other energy sources a "war on coal" makes about as much as sense as telling people to not smoke two packs a day as "war on cigarettes."
To call the need to transition to other energy sources a "war on coal" makes about as much as sense as telling people to not smoke two packs a day as "war on cigarettes."
8
Despite the claim of Trump and his supporters, there is no "war on coal." There is no liberal conspiracy against it
================
Oh, please……….
“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said, responding to a question. He later added, “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
================
Oh, please……….
“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said, responding to a question. He later added, “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
Care to source that quote?
1
Is it possible to boycott coal? And where do I sign up? A lot of it needs to stay in the ground pretty much forever, if we want to avoid widespread devastation and possibly famine.
7
You can start by switching your electricity provider from your local utility to a provider who sources electricity generated using renewable sources like solar and wind.
1
It's called grand standing. And the benefit all goes to the coal companies -- higher profits -- but no new jobs. Sorry for those workers who fell for the scam.
9
I'm not sorry for them. They get what they deserve for siding with greed, ignorance and bigotry.
2
Incredible that we are fighting this battle again...
Besides, are american cars going to be below international emission standards?
Where are we going to export them?
Besides, are american cars going to be below international emission standards?
Where are we going to export them?
7
I just LOVE the photo (in "your Wednesday briefing",) of Trump with Coal Company CEO's, and Coal Miners, during a speech AT the Office of the E.P.A. (!!!), telling them that they are "going back to work".
When the entire World recognizes that burning fossil fuels is killing the Planet, and thus, ourselves, only a crazy person would go jubilant over renewed Coal production.
And, energy-wise, what is most of Coal burned for ??? Electricity. Well, gratefully there are now cheaper, renewable, non-polluting ways to create Electricity without raping the Planet. Even with Republican foot-dragging in legislation, Solar Power and Wind Generation Power are fast becoming more competitive in producing Electricity - as China is clearly showing us by taking the lead.
Capitalism is all well and good, until greed gets in the way, BIG time. This Administration is the worst thing that has happened to America, and the outlook of their agenda for what is left of our clean Federal Lands is horrifying.
Roll over, Mitch McConnell, and tell The Donald the news: Coal is dead.
May you both find peace AND enlightenment at the bottom of a Peabody Coal Mine.
When the entire World recognizes that burning fossil fuels is killing the Planet, and thus, ourselves, only a crazy person would go jubilant over renewed Coal production.
And, energy-wise, what is most of Coal burned for ??? Electricity. Well, gratefully there are now cheaper, renewable, non-polluting ways to create Electricity without raping the Planet. Even with Republican foot-dragging in legislation, Solar Power and Wind Generation Power are fast becoming more competitive in producing Electricity - as China is clearly showing us by taking the lead.
Capitalism is all well and good, until greed gets in the way, BIG time. This Administration is the worst thing that has happened to America, and the outlook of their agenda for what is left of our clean Federal Lands is horrifying.
Roll over, Mitch McConnell, and tell The Donald the news: Coal is dead.
May you both find peace AND enlightenment at the bottom of a Peabody Coal Mine.
23
Trump and his clique will be remembered as criminals, and so will McConnell. For whatever consolation that is.
3
I'm confused. Is the coal actually necessary to cook the meth in unemployed, rural America? Or is it the promise of a decent paying job, despite making workers extremely sick, that will allow those workers to move up to the opioids for relief? And which ones voted for trump? Well, they had both better start looking into herbal medicine. Regardless, round-up another group of the usual, cardboard cut-out suspects to serve as an audience to surround the loon-king for another royal signing ceremony. And giv'em $5. Hardee's gift certificates on the way out. Yeeesch.
13
Old King Coal is a very dead soul,
And a dead industry is he,
Trump called for new laws, and tossed the old,
And he called for mines aplenty,
Every miner he had a mine,
But we can't go back in time,
Can we?
Oh there's none so dumb
As President Trump,
And his climate change deniers, baby!
And a dead industry is he,
Trump called for new laws, and tossed the old,
And he called for mines aplenty,
Every miner he had a mine,
But we can't go back in time,
Can we?
Oh there's none so dumb
As President Trump,
And his climate change deniers, baby!
6
We have coal, lots and lots of it. We have lots of gas too so our coal burning power stations are being closed, and so are our mines.
It has proved cheaper for our government to subsidise solar panels on homes than to build extra power plants. We are seeing morevand more shoping centres and industrial buildings with solar roofs.
We had a big market for coal in Asia, but they are turning to alternatives because of air pollution.
Take it from me, coal miners are a dying breed as machines now do the work of men. Machines don't get black lung.
It has proved cheaper for our government to subsidise solar panels on homes than to build extra power plants. We are seeing morevand more shoping centres and industrial buildings with solar roofs.
We had a big market for coal in Asia, but they are turning to alternatives because of air pollution.
Take it from me, coal miners are a dying breed as machines now do the work of men. Machines don't get black lung.
15
Not only is coal not going to come back significantly enough to put a lot of people back to work, the educational/job retraining funding that might have helped the coal worker enter a new industry is now being diverted to build a wall on our southern border. Pathetic.
16
Trump has abdicated the leadership role in clean energy to China. After decades of being the prime force behind clean technology, America is being left behind. We are seeing, under Trump, the end of the American Century. As China, Russia and India rush to fill the science and technology void left by Trump's devastatingly short-sighted policies, America is pushed into the background, and out of it's leadership role in the world.
Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, those are the great American companies that led the charge into new technologies and made America synonymous with leadership in those areas. Soon we will be seeing Chinese offering up their versions of these technologies , and America will slide further and further behind.
Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, those are the great American companies that led the charge into new technologies and made America synonymous with leadership in those areas. Soon we will be seeing Chinese offering up their versions of these technologies , and America will slide further and further behind.
11
Once Trump voters realize coal comeback is fake news we can get back to the true agenda for Americans
5
like building walls and taking health care away
usa # 1
Trump's followers will never blame The Donald. It will always be somebody else's fault.
3
Coal isn't coming back in any meaningful way; the underlying economics just aren't there. Talk from miners is wishful thinking; none of these men have a clue as to what investment bankers and utilities are planning. Environmentalists will fight lessening of clean air standards and states will implement their own clean air and water standards despite Trump, Pruitt and Perry. Dirty WV coal, what's left of it after 150 years of mining it, will be exported from Baltimore and Norfolk to nations with lax air standards. My father's railroad gave up steam power 60 years ago. Coal's glow is long over, let's more forward not backwards.
6
It's hard for me to process why anyone would want to go back to work in a coal mine if there was any other option. With the risk of silicosis and workplace hazards, you're a dead man walking. And in death they only bury you 6 feet deep.
9
It's just as hard to imagine why anyone would smoke, take addictive drugs, eat themselves to morbid obesity, or drive under the influence of too much alcohol but people do it constantly and in far greater numbers. I don't think we should judge people in coal regions too harshly for hanging onto a lifestyle and vocation that has been the norm for hundreds of years before coal fell into disuse.
If it were free, I would not heat my New England home with coal. It is filthy.
8
Amen. Boycott the stuff.
If it were free, I would not heat my New England home with coal. It is filthy.
================
Located in Massachusetts, you most likely heat your home with fuel oil, which is also filthy
================
Located in Massachusetts, you most likely heat your home with fuel oil, which is also filthy
Coal? Seriously? A 19th century power-source. Horrible for the environment. Absolutely unnecessary in the current age. Bloody ridiculous.
10
Clean coal is fake news.
20
Trump's grandchildren and great grandchildren will now have the same problem as descendants of Benedict Arnold. To borrow his Dr. Seuss level vocabulary, "Sad, Bad, Mad".
10
At this rate, I'm thinking in a few generations of climate change on this scale, the world will look more like a Mad Max dystopia. Little historical memory and lots of warring over diminishing resources in an evermore hostile natural environment.
More like life on Venus, which is the hottest planet by far, even though not the closest to the sun, with a surface temperature of some 850 deg. F due to runaway greenhouse gases...
More like life on Venus, which is the hottest planet by far, even though not the closest to the sun, with a surface temperature of some 850 deg. F due to runaway greenhouse gases...
Is anyone aware of the huge technology possibilities regarding coal and gasification? Summit Power Group, LLC has a very advanced project in Texas with proven technology to greatly reduce any pollution and create fertilizer and gas as a bi-product. The DOE and the Chinese are supporting this breakthrough in coal processing. If the project started today- I am sure it would have been financially supported by American interests.
1
There has been no such breakthrough, all the attempts to clean up coal burning have failed...and the efforts use up more energy than the coal produces. Stop misleading people, there is no such thing as clean coal.
4
cites or links ?
1
"“At the end of the day, coal will still have to compete with a host of other fuels,” said Rick Curtsinger, a spokesman for Cloud Peak Energy, one of the country’s leading coal producers."
But wait! Can't the Trump administration start encouraging homeowners and apartment building operators to return to coal furnaces? Just think on it: a return to the days of cast iron coal stoves in the parlor. It's a heartwarming scene straight out of Currier and Ives. And think of all those ancillary products that'd revive other struggling American manufacturing industries: coal buckets and shovels, asbestos floor coverings, bandannas for keeping the dust out of your mouth, and coal chutes for dropping coal deliveries into the family basement.
First thing is to appoint a National Coal Czar, probably a good job for the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner, to head up a US Coal Council. (He's got nothing to do, right?) Here's an idea: PSAs touting the patriotic aspects of coal-heated homes. Then maybe Trump can start by setting an example himself and retrofitting the White House for coal. New government jobs--- not bureaucrats!--- can be filled with some kindly old locals to keep the coal stove in the Oval Office stoked during Washington winters. And what a photo-op that'd make!
It's only a matter of time before now-forgotten scenes of small children scavenging for lumps of coal on American railroad tracks becomes a reality again.
But wait! Can't the Trump administration start encouraging homeowners and apartment building operators to return to coal furnaces? Just think on it: a return to the days of cast iron coal stoves in the parlor. It's a heartwarming scene straight out of Currier and Ives. And think of all those ancillary products that'd revive other struggling American manufacturing industries: coal buckets and shovels, asbestos floor coverings, bandannas for keeping the dust out of your mouth, and coal chutes for dropping coal deliveries into the family basement.
First thing is to appoint a National Coal Czar, probably a good job for the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner, to head up a US Coal Council. (He's got nothing to do, right?) Here's an idea: PSAs touting the patriotic aspects of coal-heated homes. Then maybe Trump can start by setting an example himself and retrofitting the White House for coal. New government jobs--- not bureaucrats!--- can be filled with some kindly old locals to keep the coal stove in the Oval Office stoked during Washington winters. And what a photo-op that'd make!
It's only a matter of time before now-forgotten scenes of small children scavenging for lumps of coal on American railroad tracks becomes a reality again.
5
Yes, it is both laughable and ludicrous that the senior environmental official in the United States of America believes that carbon dioxide may not be a prime cause of climate change.
Still, the unemployed coal miner on whom this practical joke is being played deserves our concern. The continued inequality in our republic will inevitably lead to social unrest. And to be sure, the coal mining communities that overwhelming supported Trump will continue to sink lower and lower on the economic and social food chain as the coal industry marches on toward bankruptcy, in spite of Trump's idiotic executive orders.
Somehow, we must find a way to provide retraining, career planning, environmental education and other social supports for these communities or there will be no hope of avoiding significant social unrest.
Still, the unemployed coal miner on whom this practical joke is being played deserves our concern. The continued inequality in our republic will inevitably lead to social unrest. And to be sure, the coal mining communities that overwhelming supported Trump will continue to sink lower and lower on the economic and social food chain as the coal industry marches on toward bankruptcy, in spite of Trump's idiotic executive orders.
Somehow, we must find a way to provide retraining, career planning, environmental education and other social supports for these communities or there will be no hope of avoiding significant social unrest.
3
Trump probably did not study history so he can't see socioeconomic trends.
First his travel bans get shot down because he can't see that the trend is towards freer movement of people in the World.
Then his healthcare plan is shot down because the World has already shifted to public insurance and the US is half way there.
Now he is trying to turn back the clock on fossil fuel.
Its a good thing that the Country's institutions (Judicial system, State governments, businesses etc.) are strong enough to withstand his dangerous and harmful errors.
First his travel bans get shot down because he can't see that the trend is towards freer movement of people in the World.
Then his healthcare plan is shot down because the World has already shifted to public insurance and the US is half way there.
Now he is trying to turn back the clock on fossil fuel.
Its a good thing that the Country's institutions (Judicial system, State governments, businesses etc.) are strong enough to withstand his dangerous and harmful errors.
4
Only partly, D.R. By removing regs and changing policies and filling federal judgeships, he (and successor Pence if the orange baboon is removed from office) can do quite a lot of damage for a long time.
1
We are well on our way to becoming the dumbest country on the planet.
15
I don't know, which came first the chicken or the egg?
3
I think we reached that some time ago.
1
But what has Trump done to revive the buggy whip industry?
And chimney sweeps? What of the poor chimney sweepers who lost their job?
I won't even mention the bowling alley pin setters.
Why is Trump so cruel to those people?
So sad.
And chimney sweeps? What of the poor chimney sweepers who lost their job?
I won't even mention the bowling alley pin setters.
Why is Trump so cruel to those people?
So sad.
15
Now remember, it was Obama that said evil ATMs were putting bank tellers out of work!
As usual, with Trump this is just another in the long list of useless bravado and empty promises that his supporters blindly continue to embrace. For years now, manufacturers have turned away from coal in favor of natural gas because it is CHEAPER and cleaner, this despite the fact that the U.S. is a net supplier of coal. As Bernie Sanders has already determined in town halls he has conducted with MSNBC, i.e. in the coal country of West Virginia, there have been a few mining jobs return, however, there is no indication how long they will last and with the impending stripping of regulations, the locals are now very worried about the safety of their water. In addition, they are extremely worried about the potential de-funding of their healthcare facilities dealing with retired miners suffering from black lung and other mine related diseases.
For the sake of a temporary photo-op, this President has ignored so many repercussions for his decisions, one wonders what planet he is currently living on? Coal mines closed not only because of illegal activities by a few of its owners that were causing serious safety issues, but, because of a lack of demand. Photo-ops are NOT going to bring that back.
As Sanders stated quite correctly, instead of giving tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks to rich people, invest some of that money in suffering places like W.V. so the residents at least have a chance of securing alternative types of employment.
For the sake of a temporary photo-op, this President has ignored so many repercussions for his decisions, one wonders what planet he is currently living on? Coal mines closed not only because of illegal activities by a few of its owners that were causing serious safety issues, but, because of a lack of demand. Photo-ops are NOT going to bring that back.
As Sanders stated quite correctly, instead of giving tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks to rich people, invest some of that money in suffering places like W.V. so the residents at least have a chance of securing alternative types of employment.
6
Trump likely knows that this is no panacea for coal miners but he had to make some political theater given that his spurious promises sometimes require it. But presidents can shape the cultural view in this country and he is directing us towards a culture of greater environmental abuse and the absolute dominance of financial considerations over all other factors
3
The coal industry here in Kentucky uses the phrase "Coal keeps the lights on." It's on ads, outdoor boards and bumper stickers aplenty. But in the mid to late 1800's, it was whale oil that kept the lights on.
Perhaps Trump's next Big Idea will be to bring back the whaling industry.
Perhaps Trump's next Big Idea will be to bring back the whaling industry.
6
Amen! Divest from coal. Suffocate its demand once and for all.
The only coal you are going to get is what Trump puts under your xmas tree.
9
"We will have so much winning if I get elected." --Trump
Ah ha! I finally realized that Trump has been using an alternative definition for the word winning.
winning (noun) MINING: any opening by which coal is being or has been extracted.
Ah ha! I finally realized that Trump has been using an alternative definition for the word winning.
winning (noun) MINING: any opening by which coal is being or has been extracted.
1
When Trump says "Winning!" he reminds me of a drug addled Charlie Sheen.
3
It would be better for West Virginia to exploit their Fiesta ware plant. Fiesta is the preferred dinnerware for middle class Americans. Given China, and their adoration for anything American middle class, why is not Fiesta exploiting world markets and exporting this product? There is no future in coal, but a bright future in middle class exportable products.
3
He's going to deliver "cleeeean coal. Reeeeally cleeeean coal". Does he even know what that is? If Republicans believe in market forces, then they must realize that "clean coal" is a pipe dream (no pun intended).
I suggest Mr. Trump read the Times article from last year about CCS, carbon capture and storage technology, so that he has some grasp of what he is saying.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/01/science/what-is-clean-coa...
I suggest Mr. Trump read the Times article from last year about CCS, carbon capture and storage technology, so that he has some grasp of what he is saying.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/01/science/what-is-clean-coa...
Please, him "read"? He'd better start with Donald and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
3
It won't halt the rise of its rivals? Only because he hasn't issued that executive order yet.
Trump may be keeping a rash promise, but it is a band-aid at the expense of the entire nation, and those to the east.
According to NPR, there are now some 50,000 miners, down from 100,000 in 1985. Is the GOP so power hungry and stupid that they ignore the perils of mining? that they care so little for the health and welfare of their children? that owners put off repairing or preventing mines from collapsing? that miners get black lung and the ACA or Medicaid helps them? Is it cheaper to clean up a coal ash pit then to prevent it?
The handwriting has been on the coal wall for years, and the states have had ample opportunity to offer training programs for miners. It is time they took responsibility for their folly.
This is like watching Rome burn. Salut! for tomorrow we die.
According to NPR, there are now some 50,000 miners, down from 100,000 in 1985. Is the GOP so power hungry and stupid that they ignore the perils of mining? that they care so little for the health and welfare of their children? that owners put off repairing or preventing mines from collapsing? that miners get black lung and the ACA or Medicaid helps them? Is it cheaper to clean up a coal ash pit then to prevent it?
The handwriting has been on the coal wall for years, and the states have had ample opportunity to offer training programs for miners. It is time they took responsibility for their folly.
This is like watching Rome burn. Salut! for tomorrow we die.
14
I hope the coal miners will enjoy the idyllic life described in such paeans to the coal industry as Emile Zola's "Germinal". It is clear that these miners haven't worked in a while; they forgot how bad their jobs were.
7
Yes, and let's see how they deal with the inevitable cancer, black lung and other illnesses without affordable health care.
2
i only wish i was young enough to start a career as a coal miner --
what could be better than spending ones life thousands of feet cramped in the underworld, drenched in sweaty heat and perfect darkness, all the while getting black lung from breathing in toxic dust particles
man, thats what i call the american dream !
6
To those of my Republican-voting neighbors here on Long Island and Staten Island, particularly in red districts (Zeldin, King and Donovan), keep in mind, you and your children live downwind of those dirty coal-fired plans whose lives will now be extended under these Trump/Republican policies and initiatives.
Not to mention that you and many of your neighbors are still laboring after 5 years with the task of having homes repaired and lifted due to Sandy, and lose sleep every time a storm heads up the coast. These policies will work to accelerate the arrival of the next superstorm or massive flood.
And your family members and neighbors who are working in that exploding local industry of installing solar panels on homes, businesses, etc., they will be hurt too.
Not to mention that you and many of your neighbors are still laboring after 5 years with the task of having homes repaired and lifted due to Sandy, and lose sleep every time a storm heads up the coast. These policies will work to accelerate the arrival of the next superstorm or massive flood.
And your family members and neighbors who are working in that exploding local industry of installing solar panels on homes, businesses, etc., they will be hurt too.
8
To use those poor coal miners yesterday is disgusting! Trump knows coal is not coming back in any significant way, To use the miners and give them false hope is a point at which I didn't Trump could lower himself to.
5
Shame on Trump for giving false hope of reviving the coal industry to those coal miners who voted for him. My great grandfather and grandfather were Democrats and coal miners, and I'm sure they would be appalled at the lies he has told versus what treatment these people will actually receive from his administration - they will be disappointed on all levels...health care, pension protection and jobs.
7
OTOH, mak, surely any mature coal miner can see that the price of natural gas dictates any revival of coal mining is just no going to happen. I have read that surface coal mines in the west may still be selling coal, but deep mines? Not economically viable in today's market.
1
Disappointed? Try dead, along with the rest of us.
2
I'm assuming the fireplaces in the White House will be burning lovely black coal
11
And once the public education system is destroyed, the children will be free to go to work.
12
theyre the only ones you can get to work cheap enough to compete w chinese workers
1
Hooooorah
Let's create that lovely cola based late 19th century Dickensian world again.
Let's create that lovely cola based late 19th century Dickensian world again.
1
Thanks for my daily dose of sarcasm.
This country needs to develop a coal-powered pickup truck. It would be a win-win-win for everyone involved. Pickup trucks are very popular in the red states that voted for Trump. It creates a new market for the otherwise unwanted coal. And it would create design and manufacturing jobs for coal-powered pickup trucks. The truck bed can be used to carry around the coal.
As for coal ash, it can just be dumped on the side of roads in red states, much like the way that - in horse and buggy days - horse dung was just left lying in the road.
As for coal ash, it can just be dumped on the side of roads in red states, much like the way that - in horse and buggy days - horse dung was just left lying in the road.
8
Along similar lines, I was thinking that we could create a 100 yard wide continuously burning coal pit along the Mexican border. It would create a demand for coal, it would create transportation jobs, and maintainance jobs for those who create and fan the fire. And, it would last as long as it takes for the pollution to poison North and South America. A great investment in coal and border control.
3
Funny
In 2000, I was in the window seat of a 757 on approach to land in Cheng du, China. As we descended into the overcast layer that I assumed was water vapor (clouds), the acrid smell of coal smoke permeated the cabin. My lungs began to burn as they did in the mid-70s during smog-alert days in the SF Bay Area. China has recognized the problems associated with reliance on coal-fired power plants and has closed over 100 of them. They are gleefully becoming a major world player in renewable energy as the US hands them the future of clean energy the market demands.
Trump's roll-back of clean energy plans will not effect market realities of cheaper/cleaner natural gas, wind and solar. Coal job decline may slow, but they are not coming back. In the west, regulatory requirements will shift from the feds to the states. Meanwhile, renewable energy jobs in Texas, Oregon, and Idaho are plentiful. Trump's lies continue to severely damage our economy and standing as a world-leading nation...while literally killing the people he claims to be helping.
Thank goodness I live upwind and get most of my electricity from hydropower.
Trump's roll-back of clean energy plans will not effect market realities of cheaper/cleaner natural gas, wind and solar. Coal job decline may slow, but they are not coming back. In the west, regulatory requirements will shift from the feds to the states. Meanwhile, renewable energy jobs in Texas, Oregon, and Idaho are plentiful. Trump's lies continue to severely damage our economy and standing as a world-leading nation...while literally killing the people he claims to be helping.
Thank goodness I live upwind and get most of my electricity from hydropower.
5
He doesn't care about the little people.
2
I was NOT aware, until listening to a podcast, that NONE of the regulations has gone into effect due to judicial pushback. Thus the current coal situation has NOTHING to do with Obama's proposed regulations; that's all they are at this point- proposed. As many have noted, it is the inexorable result of market forces. And what is more Republican than that??
1
I am not a betting person. But I'd be willing to bet that Donald Trump doesn't know the first thing about coal, and the closest he has ever come to it, is by shaking miner's hands and wearing a hard-hat for a photo-op.
Coal is a dirty business. Literally. And the number of deaths it is responsible for, cannot be underestimated -- which is why the recent Republican Health Care bill made so little sense.
This country is not going forwards, but backwards in resurrecting the use of it.
Coal is a dirty business. Literally. And the number of deaths it is responsible for, cannot be underestimated -- which is why the recent Republican Health Care bill made so little sense.
This country is not going forwards, but backwards in resurrecting the use of it.
7
They can attempt to resurrect the use of coal, but most power plants have already moved on and are not going back. Also, coal is more expensive than natural gas....
1
This country is not going forwards, but backwards in resurrecting the use of it.
==================
Sort of like California thinking its transportation future lies in the 19th century technology of railroads.
==================
Sort of like California thinking its transportation future lies in the 19th century technology of railroads.
@Campesino
Actually, as the third geographically largest state in the Union, and as as one most plagued by traffic congestion, it is well within California's interest to find its future in railroad technology.
Actually, as the third geographically largest state in the Union, and as as one most plagued by traffic congestion, it is well within California's interest to find its future in railroad technology.
2
There appears to be such unanimity about coal being "dead" that I cannot help but think that there will be a revival just around the corner.
2
Yes! The science is settled!
Coal fired furnaces are dirty, they have to be rebricked every three to five years, col has to be delivered to the plants by truck or rail, and the power companies can be sued for polluting the air, and for acid rain.
Gas is delivered by pipeline, and the furnaces last much longer. It is far less expensive than coal, and renewables like wind and solar, are now producing 15% of the needed energy. Homeowners are going to solar in sunny locations, cutting the need for more power.
The coal fanatics have their heads up their you know what.
Gas is delivered by pipeline, and the furnaces last much longer. It is far less expensive than coal, and renewables like wind and solar, are now producing 15% of the needed energy. Homeowners are going to solar in sunny locations, cutting the need for more power.
The coal fanatics have their heads up their you know what.
4
Is it even legal to burn coal in a fireplace?
3
It became illegal in the UK in the mid sixties. No more pea souper fogs and al those black buildings have been scrubbed of their carbon coating. Lean air means improved lung health too.
1
I propose that we make the return of blacksmiths national legislative priority number one.
12
Think of the jobs it will create!
3
you cant
no more chestnut trees
And horse drawn buggies!
1
How utterly stupid the US energy policy is. A putrid coal mine puts out energy for fifty or maybe eighty years. A stinking, dangerous oilfield puts out energy for fifty to one hundred years. A nuclear power plant puts out energy for fifty years and then needs a trillion dollar clean up. (San Onofre). A WINDMILL PUTS OUT ENERGY FOREVER. It takes the same amount of materials and manpower to build a windmill as it does an oil derrick. What. Are. We. Doing?
11
to be fair, the blades on wind turbines need regular replacement
anything w moving parts needs that
not a cheap operation, very high labor/parts costs
solar panels seem to be immortal, however
2
Speaking as someone who does a lot of work with the wind industry: a wind turbine is only good for about twenty years before the generator and frame have taken too much stress damage to be safe to use, and a lot of rare earth elements go into making the generators. They're definatly better than most of the alternatives, but they're not squeaky clean and eternal.
2
We are tuned in the person who occupies the WH, his brilliant ideas.
Last time when this happened , we found ourselves fighting 2 wars.
Last time when this happened , we found ourselves fighting 2 wars.
1
Coal is a political talking point for McConnell and Trump. It's a relic of an industry on the edge of extinction. Politicians who push it should be banned from public service for malpractice.
12
The coal miners have indicated that they care nothing about the health of their fellow citizens and have become Republicans despite the fact that if wasn't for Democrats mine safety would still consist of a canary in the cage.
Perhaps someone could answer me why the rest of us should care any longer about their safety as they don't seem to care about ours. Let them have OSHA rules made by Republicans.
Perhaps someone could answer me why the rest of us should care any longer about their safety as they don't seem to care about ours. Let them have OSHA rules made by Republicans.
12
And Republican "health care."
2
Coal as a power source is outmoded - severely damaging the bodies of those who mine it and breath the air it pollutes.
When I was a medical student studying cadavers years back, I was amazed the damage that another mined product, asbestos, could do to lungs and life. Lead is another example of a product that destroyed human lives, as useful as it was in a variety of products. There were industry spokespeople and politicians who defended those, too.
The government shouldn't not to try to sustain a practice that poisons workers, communities, and the world - but rather help those displaced by the inevitable technology changes find new sources of income and purpose.
When I was a medical student studying cadavers years back, I was amazed the damage that another mined product, asbestos, could do to lungs and life. Lead is another example of a product that destroyed human lives, as useful as it was in a variety of products. There were industry spokespeople and politicians who defended those, too.
The government shouldn't not to try to sustain a practice that poisons workers, communities, and the world - but rather help those displaced by the inevitable technology changes find new sources of income and purpose.
13
The world will spend $20 trillion in alternative energy sources while the Luddite in the White House invests in buggy whips and button hooks.
23
And when these miners go to a health care facility with many respiratory diseases, they had better hope that the Republicans don't get their way and replace the health care law with preexisting health conditions. Don't they know they are just being used for a photo op? Trump doesn't care. Bringing back coal and destroying the environment is on Trumps check list...
5
Shortly before he died, Sen Robert Byrd said, "Change has been a constant throughout the history of our coal industry. West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it or resist and be overrun by it. One thing is clear: The time has arrived for the people of the Mountain State to think long and hard about which course they want to choose.” This was in response to the likelihood of carbon emission regulation and the other factors working to reduce coal as a preferred fuel. Given Senator Byrd's success in bringing new businesses to his state, I think he has a lot more credibility in showing how to help coal miners than Donald Trump ever will.
5
Given Senator Byrd's success in bringing new businesses to his state, I think he has a lot more credibility in showing how to help coal miners than Donald Trump ever will.
===============
The "new businesses" Byrd brought to his state were all government facilities paid for by us taxpayers. Did it really make sense to have Coast Guard facilities in West Virginia?
===============
The "new businesses" Byrd brought to his state were all government facilities paid for by us taxpayers. Did it really make sense to have Coast Guard facilities in West Virginia?
Anyone who has done their homework on the coal issue knows the entire "bring back coal" trump movement is not about jobs for coalworkers, it's about bring more money to the rich, corrupt coal mine owners who have taken advantage of workers for generations. When will we learn.
6
While doing little to help struggling miners, Trump's move will add to profitability for current mine owners who invariably contribute to republicans. Isn't that correct McConnell?
The Rs don't care if the well water burns, the farm animals die or the birth defects skyrocket. They already have what they wanted (votes) from the population.
I don't know how these frauds sleep at night.
The Rs don't care if the well water burns, the farm animals die or the birth defects skyrocket. They already have what they wanted (votes) from the population.
I don't know how these frauds sleep at night.
7
Trump politically capitalizes short-term on the pipe dream of a dying energy industry's employing capacity. The world suffers from its effects. Capitalists and their political surrogates will, in the long-term, direct the errant folly, as they control the political classes. If capitalists don't want it, out with what a segment of the working class wants and their demagogue. Either way, the irrationality of the drama would be humorous, if it weren't for the chillingly dire effects.
5
Trump administration: The Return of the Dinosaurs.
9
There was no need to declare a "war on coal"; it was already waning. So from a tactical point of view that was unnecessary and politically counter-productive for the Obama admin, it only invited criticism from coal states.
2
It was the GOP that invented the term, not the Obama administration.
1
Quite true.
There's still enough around to pollute our air and water. President Obama was right to try and protect our resources.
COAL IS DEAD If it's not dead it's killing us. Look at the huge numbers of deaths each year in China from the intensely toxic air, contaminated by coal. Is that really going to improve things in the US?
8
The American coal industry has largely gone bankrupt as a result of wild speculation and inflated prices during the bubble. Almost all the firms around today bought up others with what amounts to liar-loan money, paying crazy prices ... and with the reality of declining demand for coal no way the debt could be serviced, so bankruptcy.
The bankrupt mines still keep producing coal though, as long as they can operate at an incremental profit. What we see today is that the industry has entered the long tail of rope-a-dope profit extraction -- owners will put next to nothing in, extract every ounce of revenue back out until each mine can no longer make an incremental profit ... all the while structuring everything so that they can take the money and run, leaving the mess to somebody else.
The biggest fools in all of this are the states that have allowed the industry to "self bond" over clean-up costs. Read here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/business/dealbook/regulators-fear-1-b...
The idea that Trump can "grow jobs" is ridiculous; he is just giving the investors a bit more time to get more money back. But it's questionable he will even achieve that.
Put simply, coal is DOA now. Natural gas and wind-power (and solar in better resource areas) are killing it. Trump's actions, if they withstand the inevitable lawsuits from states (CA, CT, MA, NY and about a dozen more now) will only postpone the inevitable a little while.
The bankrupt mines still keep producing coal though, as long as they can operate at an incremental profit. What we see today is that the industry has entered the long tail of rope-a-dope profit extraction -- owners will put next to nothing in, extract every ounce of revenue back out until each mine can no longer make an incremental profit ... all the while structuring everything so that they can take the money and run, leaving the mess to somebody else.
The biggest fools in all of this are the states that have allowed the industry to "self bond" over clean-up costs. Read here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/business/dealbook/regulators-fear-1-b...
The idea that Trump can "grow jobs" is ridiculous; he is just giving the investors a bit more time to get more money back. But it's questionable he will even achieve that.
Put simply, coal is DOA now. Natural gas and wind-power (and solar in better resource areas) are killing it. Trump's actions, if they withstand the inevitable lawsuits from states (CA, CT, MA, NY and about a dozen more now) will only postpone the inevitable a little while.
7
Donald "The Rainmaker" Trump, selling thin air.
LBJ told a legislator "Dont pee on my leg and tell me it's rain".
GOP: you own this mess and will be held accountable.
9
The market is leaving coal behind, not just the green tree-hugging liberals.
3
Coal is dead. Now and forever. And it is disgusting to try to sell any notion of its comeback particularly to those who have the most to loose in all of this...coal miners and their families. Disgraceful fabrication taunting those who have their hopes pinned on a comeback that will never happen. When are people going to wake up and understand The Donald is not truthful.
8
He hasn't been truthful since he cut in front of me in line at studio 54 and said I was one of the little people
3
Look, this move away from coal started 30-40 years ago. It's not coming back, and anyone who believes it is has been duped by Trump's empty rhetoric.
10
A brilliant republican plan. Workers back in the mines - get lots of votes. Workers get sick from black lung. Workers have no access to health insurance. Workers die. No more workers. Coal issue goes away. Coal executives keep all the profits that have now been invested offshore. Just brilliant.
11
Coal company owners and shareholders will do very well. Everybody else will not do well at all--including especially the coal miners and their communities, which have been promised so much by this president.
President Trump has already undone President Obama's executive order that required coal companies to clean up their own water pollution. Many West Virginia coal companies declared bankruptcy in order to avoid addressing their water pollution. In West Virginia coal country, water can no longer be used for drinking or bathing. Now Trump is removing clean air protections, and permitting coal companies to desecrate federal lands. Natural gas is less expensive and cleaner, so coal sales increases are likely to be small. Because coal companies are increasingly using automation, the small gains experienced by coal companies will create few new jobs.
President Trump has already undone President Obama's executive order that required coal companies to clean up their own water pollution. Many West Virginia coal companies declared bankruptcy in order to avoid addressing their water pollution. In West Virginia coal country, water can no longer be used for drinking or bathing. Now Trump is removing clean air protections, and permitting coal companies to desecrate federal lands. Natural gas is less expensive and cleaner, so coal sales increases are likely to be small. Because coal companies are increasingly using automation, the small gains experienced by coal companies will create few new jobs.
7
An important error here. Should have said:
"Coal companies and their shareholders will do very well. As will Republican politicians like President Trump and Mr. Pruitt who receive appalling amounts of money and support from those companies. Everybody else will not do well at all--especially the coal miners and their communities, which have been promised so much by this president."
"Coal companies and their shareholders will do very well. As will Republican politicians like President Trump and Mr. Pruitt who receive appalling amounts of money and support from those companies. Everybody else will not do well at all--especially the coal miners and their communities, which have been promised so much by this president."
1
The federal government regularly subsidizes industries to distort the market for political gain. Think of all of the corn and farm subsidies to the giant agribusinesses in the low population flyover states politicians love to court. I expect we will soon be seeing large coal subsidies to try and make coal competitive with other sources.
67
This is one of the downsides of the electoral college system; get rid of the college and allow the popular vote to choose our elected officials. It's time for the rural stranglehold on our country to be eliminated!
1
The fact that coal will still have to compete with other energy sources is not the only factor that will keep from the success that Trump seems to think he can give it. There are 75,000 coal-related jobs today, and 450,000 alternative energy jobs, for one thing. The imbalance is clear.
Perhaps more importantly, unless the coal industry is run by idiots, those who might invest in coal companies and coal growth must be fully aware that what one President can do, another can undo. When we elect a sane and scientific President (and Congress) in 2020, they will be certain to put climate controls back in place, and any investment in coal will be in jeopardy. Just because our current President cannot see ahead does not mean that others cannot. Coal is not the future.
Perhaps more importantly, unless the coal industry is run by idiots, those who might invest in coal companies and coal growth must be fully aware that what one President can do, another can undo. When we elect a sane and scientific President (and Congress) in 2020, they will be certain to put climate controls back in place, and any investment in coal will be in jeopardy. Just because our current President cannot see ahead does not mean that others cannot. Coal is not the future.
4
There won't be more investment in coal. Only a fool invests new money in coal now.
This is just about giving the owners of coal more time to extract cash flow from dying mines, allow the owners of old and very dirty coal-fired power plants to do the same.
This is just about giving the owners of coal more time to extract cash flow from dying mines, allow the owners of old and very dirty coal-fired power plants to do the same.
4
It is now clear why the Trump skinny budget eliminates the Appalachian Regional commission, a safety net for the region of out of work miners and others. Not that Trump needs/wants to justify his anachronistic coal policy but when the budgeteers see the red line through the commission King Coal Trump will pont-tweet-icate: "jobs coming to coal country."
Hopefully there will be an Appalachian awakening in the affected communities when and if they realize Trump's scam of taking away much more than they will be getting. Sound familiar!
Hopefully there will be an Appalachian awakening in the affected communities when and if they realize Trump's scam of taking away much more than they will be getting. Sound familiar!
2
Coal company managers, executives and investors also have to consider the possibility that Trump will be followed by a democratic president in 4 or 8 years and that congress might swing back towards the democrats even sooner. Either event might result in environmental regulations being reimposed, even more severely than before. Rather than upping their investment in coal, they are more likely to view Trumps actions as giving them some additional breathing room in order to figure out how to cash out and transfer their liabilities onto less risk adverse or more gullible investors and shareholders, as if they were portfolios of insolvent mortgages. Sound familiar?
3
Is Trump moving the pendulum away from environmental concerns?
Not with the citizenry. He might be moving the sales pitch -- he is not moving the majority's opinion. Even conservative-leaning pollsters admit as much. There's good reason why coal executives are dampening expectations about jobs and the market. Lawmakers should take their lead, and actually do something for this segment of the population -- like job skills training and attracting new industries to coal country. Not doing anything that recognizes this just adds to the weight of GOP looking like they don't get reality -- except, the dollars part.
Not with the citizenry. He might be moving the sales pitch -- he is not moving the majority's opinion. Even conservative-leaning pollsters admit as much. There's good reason why coal executives are dampening expectations about jobs and the market. Lawmakers should take their lead, and actually do something for this segment of the population -- like job skills training and attracting new industries to coal country. Not doing anything that recognizes this just adds to the weight of GOP looking like they don't get reality -- except, the dollars part.
3
Trump announced that GE locomotive division is building steam locomotive engines that will burn coal. Next up, GM and Ford announce steam cars powered with coal.
4
Jobs, jobs, jobs! There will be new hires of those workers who once shoveled coal from the coal-car into the engine's furnace!
Optics are important to Trump - not the reality or repercussions of the issue. He's a showman - he will fill the void when Barnum and Bailey circus closes; this is a trainwreck.
7
By reinvigorating the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, Trump will in his general chaotic and essentially unplanned scatter-brained manner, actually increase jobs. As the atmosphere gets dirtier and dirtier, there will be more jobs for morticians and undertakers, industries that sell air filters, and manufacturers of breathing masks--more jobs for gravediggers and for preachers for the increased number of funerals--more jobs available for younger people as life spans shrink, more jobs in the health care sector as breathing problems for the young and old become intolerable. Also to be considered as bizarre weather becomes more and more destructive, there will more jobs in the repair of destroyed property and the building of dikes and the like. Of course if Trump's golf courses are affected, this whole analysis will be changed and climate change will become a national concern.
6
GREAT Let natural forces eliminate the use of coal
1
Hmm, in Appalachia pay miners to extract coal from an area where coal has been mined for 150 years, sort out the unusable slag and pile it somewhere, put the coal onto coal cars and haul it many miles to a power plant which burns it and then must put the ash somewhere. Mess up the environment in two areas. Compare that to natural gas-few workers, ease of extraction, no waste, send it through a pipe to power companies, no waste to deal with. No messes for the landscape. Which is more rational?
4
Do you oppose the pipelines being built to carry the natural gas?
Most of those who oppose coal also oppose fracking and pipelines.
Most of those who oppose coal also oppose fracking and pipelines.
Coal is a 19th century technology. Anthracite coal is too expensive. Trump wants to be loved by his court. He'll burn the house down first, without coal.
5
Trump's war on the environment will ultimately fail because the majority of Americans believe in the scientific proof of human-caused climate change. They see the evidence before their eyes and feeling the impact of increasing droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes.
And when these shameful policies are rejected by Americans at the polls in November 2018, like the recent healthcare initiative (aka $600 billion taxcut for the 1%), it is Republicans who will get hammered for deliberately undermining the well-being of the people.
And when these shameful policies are rejected by Americans at the polls in November 2018, like the recent healthcare initiative (aka $600 billion taxcut for the 1%), it is Republicans who will get hammered for deliberately undermining the well-being of the people.
4
Are we as a nation going backward? Are we crazy ? What is "clean coal" as our president was talking? Is he making the coal miners fool again? I think the president can do better something like investing there other industries and retrain them for new jobs. He is destroying the environment, keeping people unhealthy and not going forward in 21 st century for those people. Is it "Make America Backward Again" ? or keeping those coal states poorer? Wake up please. Trump makes fool you again and again, then shame on them.
5
Coal miners deserver our respect, but sadly they do not really have the respect of 45, he is simply using them as he has used and continues to use anyone who can help him get what he wants. What he wants here is yet another step in his overall effort to delegitimize a man of such high integrity that 45 could never understand...President Obama. He could not succeed in delegitimizing the President with the innane birther issue, so now he is simply intent to undo every single thing President Obama did. I fondly recall being at my grandmother's house when coal was delivered, down the chute into the basement. This is a sentimental perspective but not a rational one. Coal is being replaced for good reason...it is bad for us, bad for our planet...so is 45.
18
It is baffling how this will create jobs. this is nothing more than another Trump's empty decisions since we all know what he is. I do feel sorry for the coal miners trying to hang on to the dying jobs. I was surprised to see some of the coal miners standing next to Trump when he signed this executive order were quite young. Deregulation may give a hope to these deluded coal miners, but the demand for coal is dead. Perhaps they should consider convincing the government or Trump, if that is possible, to provide education so that they start new. Or find a job somewhere else, like working in oil mine in Alaska. Even if this stupid decision by Trump works, it extends the lifeline of coal miners for another several years at best. So what are you or your children going to do after that?
7
Make America Great again.
In India even a Homeless who sleep on street and have no food to eat Knows how terrible the weather is becoming with time.
I told my company not to process My H1B extension, its better i build my startup in India one day.
Cause when i came here its for Future... But now it going backward.
How do you justify these stuffs when India Building Solar trains, runs Solar airports and making largest Solar plants.. and America going for Coal and destroying climate rules.
Why the World will see America for examples ?
this man not making America great again, he is setting bad example.
when ever there is some Good people used to say.... In AMERICA they do it like this.
No the situation are changing.. People Use AMRICA to as example for bad stuffs.
Oblivious this 70 year old thinking of himself... cause he don't care if America get destroyed. he will not be there.
In India even a Homeless who sleep on street and have no food to eat Knows how terrible the weather is becoming with time.
I told my company not to process My H1B extension, its better i build my startup in India one day.
Cause when i came here its for Future... But now it going backward.
How do you justify these stuffs when India Building Solar trains, runs Solar airports and making largest Solar plants.. and America going for Coal and destroying climate rules.
Why the World will see America for examples ?
this man not making America great again, he is setting bad example.
when ever there is some Good people used to say.... In AMERICA they do it like this.
No the situation are changing.. People Use AMRICA to as example for bad stuffs.
Oblivious this 70 year old thinking of himself... cause he don't care if America get destroyed. he will not be there.
7
It is pitiful what Trump is attempting to do; there are 10x more jobs in clean energy field than there are in coal. New technologies and new industries should be the focus point for America, not protecting the industries that costing the society more than they contribute. When there is no demand for coal, we cannot keep digging it and this heating technology is hundreds of years old. The world is moving forward without Trump and he has missed the train.
6
More fake ideas from the weak president. The new president in 2020 is going to have a busy couple of days rescinding all this fakeness.
9
Too bad some of that $50-100 billion The Wall will likely cost won't be available for clean coal technology research or job retraining. Or lots of other things.
5
Strangely this news coincides with Westinghouse - nuclear power generating - filing for bankruptcy. What is current administrations vision for US energy? Not only for 4 years but for next 20-50 years? Are we going back to burning coal? Is this the best we can do?
3
Finally, Trump’s promise to restore (coal) mining and manufacturing jobs represents an even more fantastical bubble. In response to a New York Times article on support for Trump in West Virginia, Dean Baker, co-director of the Center on Economic Policy Research asked “How Far Back Does He Want to Take West Virginia?” The mining jobs there have been gone for a very long time: Employment in coal mining had fallen from a peak of more than 130,000 in 1940 to just over 21,000 in 2000, roughly its current level. Employment ion USA did rise somewhat in the last decade, reaching 35,700 in December of 2011. (This was a bit less than 5.0 percent of total employment in the state.) However, it began to decline back to its current level the following year, largely due to the availability of cheap natural gas from fracking.
There are two fundamental truths here: first, coal is a sector in long-term decline, and second, Trump’s bubble enthusiasm for fossil fuels isn’t even likely to help people who work in fossil fuel industries. His over-enthusiasm for blindly pushing competition helped to destroy the United States Football League (a 1980s rival of the NFL), as well as his New Jersey casino holdings. The same sort of blindness is at work here. Unregulated fracking has only made matters worse for coal generally and coal miners in particular.
There are two fundamental truths here: first, coal is a sector in long-term decline, and second, Trump’s bubble enthusiasm for fossil fuels isn’t even likely to help people who work in fossil fuel industries. His over-enthusiasm for blindly pushing competition helped to destroy the United States Football League (a 1980s rival of the NFL), as well as his New Jersey casino holdings. The same sort of blindness is at work here. Unregulated fracking has only made matters worse for coal generally and coal miners in particular.
6
I don't know any consumer who wants coal used near them. Natural gas is the fuel of choice, and renewable energy is the future choice. Sending a miner down a shaft is not going to be cost effective, when big machines can open up quarries and mine with a minimum amount of labor. There may be some temporary market wins with this bad decision, but in the long run, he is trying to protect the iceman, when refrigerators have hit town.
11
The coal industry cannot be revived. It is not and will never be clean. It kills its workers, it kills those who breathe the air it pollutes and it degrades the environment.
The coal industry has been irresponsible (like big tobacco) in not reinvesting in clean energy; and in not investing in the education of its workforce to move on to other careers.
We need to:
--invest in the education of the coal mining communities -- the children of coal miners -- to go on to other vocations
--invest heavily in vocational and technical education from K-12 and in community colleges -- every child should be exposed to 'the way things work"
and practice in using their hands in building and fixing things...we need to inspire vocational and technical skill building; and we need to pay high wages to skilled labor
--pay the existing and out-of-work coal miners a living wage until they retire; and provide them with excellent health care -- this is the cost of exploiting these workers in the face of the (long-known) knowledge that this industry is in demise -- we owe it to them
-- and close down the coal industry permanently
The coal industry has been irresponsible (like big tobacco) in not reinvesting in clean energy; and in not investing in the education of its workforce to move on to other careers.
We need to:
--invest in the education of the coal mining communities -- the children of coal miners -- to go on to other vocations
--invest heavily in vocational and technical education from K-12 and in community colleges -- every child should be exposed to 'the way things work"
and practice in using their hands in building and fixing things...we need to inspire vocational and technical skill building; and we need to pay high wages to skilled labor
--pay the existing and out-of-work coal miners a living wage until they retire; and provide them with excellent health care -- this is the cost of exploiting these workers in the face of the (long-known) knowledge that this industry is in demise -- we owe it to them
-- and close down the coal industry permanently
7
trump is cockeyed. There is something askew about the guy. Strange orange hairdo, obese gut camouflaged with a long tie, daily dose of Proscar to to keep the mane from falling out, and let's not forget his self-proclaimed 'big brain.'
However, the worst is his abject ignorance on any subject -global warming, health care issues, ISIS, tweet, tweet, tweet- except tabloid news, branding, and signing his name 'bigly' on pieces of paper with words that he does not understand and has not written.
So why are we surprised that this man-choid likes coal and oil, two of the left overs from the industrial revolution?
However, the worst is his abject ignorance on any subject -global warming, health care issues, ISIS, tweet, tweet, tweet- except tabloid news, branding, and signing his name 'bigly' on pieces of paper with words that he does not understand and has not written.
So why are we surprised that this man-choid likes coal and oil, two of the left overs from the industrial revolution?
12
To much time and energy is wasted on the argument of climate change and the newer model, is climate change a human construct. The bottom line should be about clean air clean water ect...
I do feel for the coal miners. A job with no college degree that pays 40-50 thousand a year is tough to give up. It can't keep going and it shouldn't continue. My father was a type writer repair man he saw the decline coming and looked for job training in other things.
I do feel for the coal miners. A job with no college degree that pays 40-50 thousand a year is tough to give up. It can't keep going and it shouldn't continue. My father was a type writer repair man he saw the decline coming and looked for job training in other things.
10
Once you realize that Trump is evil incarnate, understanding his policies is much easier.
11
You literally degraded evil.
You may say that for Dick Cheney, but Trump is a snake oil sales man in the wild west, he believes what he sells and 37% gullible is willing to participate his delusions.
You may say that for Dick Cheney, but Trump is a snake oil sales man in the wild west, he believes what he sells and 37% gullible is willing to participate his delusions.
Addressing this passive aggressive assertion of a fallacy “And with the government pendulum swinging from environmental concerns back to job creation and energy independence….”
This implies environmental regs do not create jobs and lack of them does. That is a fallacy the reverse is in fact the truth.
Safety and environmental regulations create jobs and improve the lives of all. The lack of them leads to job losses and harm to all. Those regulations require investment (something capitalists should be happy to engage in) but that investment does not remove all profit, as is alleged and long term it increases profitability while making life better for all.
The decline of coal is not due to regulations it is due to “market forces” that chose better cleaner fuels. You’d think the republicans would like that since allowing market forces to have their effect is one of the phony excuses they like to use to pass their market rigging rules, regs and laws like this move.
This “policy shift” is just the pretty girl distracting us as the magician does the trick. The purpose is to win support by telling lies and wasting taxpayer money and time rolling out policies that have no chance of accomplishing what they claim to intend to accomplish to win the support of the people they are lying to.
When Trump told that miner he was going back to work he should have asked if Trump was dispatching him. I advise not counting on that dispatch coming from the Hall.
This implies environmental regs do not create jobs and lack of them does. That is a fallacy the reverse is in fact the truth.
Safety and environmental regulations create jobs and improve the lives of all. The lack of them leads to job losses and harm to all. Those regulations require investment (something capitalists should be happy to engage in) but that investment does not remove all profit, as is alleged and long term it increases profitability while making life better for all.
The decline of coal is not due to regulations it is due to “market forces” that chose better cleaner fuels. You’d think the republicans would like that since allowing market forces to have their effect is one of the phony excuses they like to use to pass their market rigging rules, regs and laws like this move.
This “policy shift” is just the pretty girl distracting us as the magician does the trick. The purpose is to win support by telling lies and wasting taxpayer money and time rolling out policies that have no chance of accomplishing what they claim to intend to accomplish to win the support of the people they are lying to.
When Trump told that miner he was going back to work he should have asked if Trump was dispatching him. I advise not counting on that dispatch coming from the Hall.
10
"This implies environmental regs do not create jobs and lack of them does."
Of course environmental regulations create jobs for the useless, parasitic, self-serving government bureaucrats who enforce them.
Of course environmental regulations create jobs for the useless, parasitic, self-serving government bureaucrats who enforce them.
1
No they create the jobs that build the new equipment and machinery and operate the new standards of control over the process that the regulations require to clean up or make safe the industry in question.
The regulatory imposed construction I made much of my living on in the 90's was due to environmental rules imposed on industry. One of them Oil. Chevron made profits in the billions every year from before then until right now and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. So will every other oil company that isn't a tax dodge being made to fail intentionally.
The regulatory imposed construction I made much of my living on in the 90's was due to environmental rules imposed on industry. One of them Oil. Chevron made profits in the billions every year from before then until right now and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. So will every other oil company that isn't a tax dodge being made to fail intentionally.
Charles W. - Which of these regulations would you like to see eliminated, the ones that keep your food safe or perhaps the ones that regulate your medication?
Another absurd move from a so far inept and obtuse administration. West Virginia for one could end its unemployment crises easily by the training and hiring of thousands of former coal miners to build solar collectors and wind turbines. Not only would they harvest clean energy but would probably be cheaper to build their using the locally abundant raw materials/natural resources available . Instead, we carelessly fritter resources into a dirty and dying industry that is as antiquated as it is dangerous. Don't be surprised if Trump reintroduces the horse and buggy to combat the "Job killing" Model T. Unbelievable.....
11
This morning the EU and China both reaffirmed their commitments to move forward with Carbon Reduction initiatives and programs…translation, this is a huge growth industry with good paying jobs and huge potential to create hundreds of thousands more jobs, while also helping solve the greatest threat to our planet and children.
Meanwhile the Trump child and his Republican backers are all but halting those same initiatives and programs in the US, so he can at best bring back perhaps 10,000 good paying jobs that are have huge health and environmental impacts, which the taxpayers will be on the hook for downstream.
At what point is American going to wake up to the fact they are being conned
Meanwhile the Trump child and his Republican backers are all but halting those same initiatives and programs in the US, so he can at best bring back perhaps 10,000 good paying jobs that are have huge health and environmental impacts, which the taxpayers will be on the hook for downstream.
At what point is American going to wake up to the fact they are being conned
6
And now for another distraction that wil help destroy our planet.
The Russian collusion of the GOP can't come soon enough.
Keep the focus there folks...this is just more nonsense.
The Russian collusion of the GOP can't come soon enough.
Keep the focus there folks...this is just more nonsense.
9
Trump's energy directive contains many elements that would allow the energy industry to resume wanton pollution, including greenhouse gases. This is par for the course for Republican industry tools. However, Trump is also forbidding the government, including the military, from planning to deal with the effects of climate change. This is even more irresponsible, and in the case of the military, which has identified climate change as a significant security threat, treasonous.
3
Corporate America probably sees stupid moves when they occur, such the case of our despicable willfully ignorant monster-in-chief, who is trying to revive a dying coal industry, by dismantling the safeguards to 'guarantee' out survival by protecting Earth (from man-made climate change). Renewable energy is here to stay, and the rise in investing in this industry is proof there are smart minds behind. Do we have to wait for an ignoramus to be convinced of his folly only after his golf courses (Florida) are under water?
2
I used to live near Danbury CT. Years ago it was known as "Hat City' as many hats were manufactured there. Back in the days when my father commuted to New York in the 50's and 60's everyone, men and women wore hats, everyday. But things changed, and people stopped wearing hats. Markets for products change, and such is the case for coal. Adapt and move forward, or risk missing the obvious signals, and wondering "what happened'?
7
Sometimes I think these right-wingers undertake these actions not even because they necessarily believe in them, but just to spite liberals.
6
Scott Pruitt, like all the other cabinet choices policies may work in their hick states, or industries but it's not going to fly with the country or the world! We will suffer because of our ignorance to the facts!! goodness the whole world is moving forward and we're going backward!
3
This continues the metaphor of the Trump presidency. He's going to drain (rollback) the swamp, rollback Obamacare (repeal) and now regulations that have little force and effect upon the realities of the energy industry.
It seems insufficient for Mr. Trump just to place climate change deniers in charge of the Energy Department and the EPA. Continuing to provide false hopes to the very voters that trusted Mr. Trump allows him to place yet another brick in the glass house he's built, all to shore up some support, any support, from those who still need/want to believe.
At a time when oil and gas prices are lowered, our energy dependence on the Middle East has been minimized and our energy surpluses are at record levels, Trump has reached a new low in making a promise to coal miners that he (knowingly) cannot keep. The swamp keeps expanding and gets murkier every day.
It seems insufficient for Mr. Trump just to place climate change deniers in charge of the Energy Department and the EPA. Continuing to provide false hopes to the very voters that trusted Mr. Trump allows him to place yet another brick in the glass house he's built, all to shore up some support, any support, from those who still need/want to believe.
At a time when oil and gas prices are lowered, our energy dependence on the Middle East has been minimized and our energy surpluses are at record levels, Trump has reached a new low in making a promise to coal miners that he (knowingly) cannot keep. The swamp keeps expanding and gets murkier every day.
4
Once again I am blown away by Trump's ignorance.
"Clean coal! We're gonna have clean coal!"
In practical terms, Mr. Trump, there's no such thing.
I doubt that Mr. Trump knows the difference between hard and soft coal or any more than very general information about coal production, coal fired power plants, and the comprehensive cost of coal.
I am from southern Illinois, which once had a booming coal mining economy. Mines closed because quality of their coal declined over the years. All the cleaner coal was mined out and only dirty, high sulfur coal was left. That part of Illinois, like much of West Virginia, is now badly economically depressed. For years, the great Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL) pushed research on clean coal to help revive the industry in southern Illinois. Even today it's still highly experimental technology and more importantly very expensive to do. Nearly all those counties voted for Trump. Sorry, he's not bringing their jobs back.
My father was the head construction engineer for a regional power company. He spent most of his career on retrofitting coal fired power plants with scrubbers to remove the sulfur emissions that caused the acid rain crisis. In a very direct way, EPA regulations created his work and work for many others-- people who built the scrubbers, men on my father's work crews. Power companies kicked and screamed, but as a nation, we stopped the acid rain that was killing forests and lakes. It's a lesson.
You know nothing, Mr. Trump.
"Clean coal! We're gonna have clean coal!"
In practical terms, Mr. Trump, there's no such thing.
I doubt that Mr. Trump knows the difference between hard and soft coal or any more than very general information about coal production, coal fired power plants, and the comprehensive cost of coal.
I am from southern Illinois, which once had a booming coal mining economy. Mines closed because quality of their coal declined over the years. All the cleaner coal was mined out and only dirty, high sulfur coal was left. That part of Illinois, like much of West Virginia, is now badly economically depressed. For years, the great Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL) pushed research on clean coal to help revive the industry in southern Illinois. Even today it's still highly experimental technology and more importantly very expensive to do. Nearly all those counties voted for Trump. Sorry, he's not bringing their jobs back.
My father was the head construction engineer for a regional power company. He spent most of his career on retrofitting coal fired power plants with scrubbers to remove the sulfur emissions that caused the acid rain crisis. In a very direct way, EPA regulations created his work and work for many others-- people who built the scrubbers, men on my father's work crews. Power companies kicked and screamed, but as a nation, we stopped the acid rain that was killing forests and lakes. It's a lesson.
You know nothing, Mr. Trump.
15
Would it be possible to investigate how much DJT, his high ranking "aides" and his cabinet profited directly from the soaring energy stocks this morning? I can't imagine a greater conflict of interest than a president and his administration directly profiting from an executive order. This is not creating jobs or helping coal miners. I would gamble to say that he is lining his own pockets and those pockets closest to him. The American public will suffer the consequences of his actions while he profits from the stroke of his own pen, on our paper.
2
The one thing that would bring jobs back to coal country is environmental clean-up. Yet they voted for The Con Don and his Robber Baron/Radical Religion Party/Corporate Cabal who is de-funding everything environmental in America so they can use the money to start WW3 and start a dictatorship in OUR country.
Are we dumber than 5th graders? WE must stop them NOW!
Are we dumber than 5th graders? WE must stop them NOW!
5
Coal has its place, but not anything like what Trump is predicting. For example, there may be coal fired power plants in the United Sates (in Wisconsin there are six), but a more telling notion is coal exports. They dropped by 50%, from a 2012 record high, for the fourth consecutive year mainly due to an increasing decline in demand worldwide and competition from coal rich countries. Coal's niche is declining (one way or another backed by the laws of supply and demand) due to cleaner, cheaper energy alternatives, with the oxymoron notion of 'clean coal' hardly holding it's own when measured against it's damning health and environmental side effects. Coal is becoming more and more UN-desirable at every turn. Coal-based jobs VS. alternative-energy jobs are declining dramatically and will continue to due to the obvious benefits to personal health and the environment, and no matter how Trump tries to spin it Coal is an aging dinosaur going the way of cigarettes.
Trump will spin a 'coal comeba
ck' but spin won't increase hiring.
Trump will spin a 'coal comeba
ck' but spin won't increase hiring.
2
I'm sorry, but I am out of sympathy for the leaders of dying industries and their workers who refuse to adjust to the world we're now living in.
This wasn't an overnight thing. The coal industry has been declining for decades. The industries of coal country and the rust belt have been drifting away since the 1980's. How long does it take to get with the program and find new avenues of employment?
And how long are we going to allow the business leaders of moribund and outdated industries to continue to hobble our nation's economic and technological progress? They couldn't read the writing on the wall either? Please. Big oil and big coal knew the reality about climate change back in the 1970's. It was only their own greed that made them refuse to innovate- after all, it was cheaper to keep the status quo.
Now, in Trump, the forces of greed, stubbornness, entitlement, and laziness have found their final champion. The rest of the world is not so blind and stupid as to ignore the reality of climate change. They will innovate, and the economic and technological success of the future will be theirs instead. All so that the sentimental tantrums of a few Americans can be coddled.
Stupid. Absolutely stupid.
This wasn't an overnight thing. The coal industry has been declining for decades. The industries of coal country and the rust belt have been drifting away since the 1980's. How long does it take to get with the program and find new avenues of employment?
And how long are we going to allow the business leaders of moribund and outdated industries to continue to hobble our nation's economic and technological progress? They couldn't read the writing on the wall either? Please. Big oil and big coal knew the reality about climate change back in the 1970's. It was only their own greed that made them refuse to innovate- after all, it was cheaper to keep the status quo.
Now, in Trump, the forces of greed, stubbornness, entitlement, and laziness have found their final champion. The rest of the world is not so blind and stupid as to ignore the reality of climate change. They will innovate, and the economic and technological success of the future will be theirs instead. All so that the sentimental tantrums of a few Americans can be coddled.
Stupid. Absolutely stupid.
16
Larger forces are at work otherwise the Detroit automakers would have actually made a better car in the early 80's when it was so clear how good the Japanese then Korean autos were.
Whomever controls the direction of the GOP and the industry most nations rely upon does not wish the US to rise again.
It wasn't just Unions the republicans wanted to break, their international friends wanted to hobble our economy and Unions because US Unions and regulations had such a huge effect on the world economy that we limited the labor and environmental abuses that now are the rule in the other countries where the GOP and their international partners moved our work.
Whomever controls the direction of the GOP and the industry most nations rely upon does not wish the US to rise again.
It wasn't just Unions the republicans wanted to break, their international friends wanted to hobble our economy and Unions because US Unions and regulations had such a huge effect on the world economy that we limited the labor and environmental abuses that now are the rule in the other countries where the GOP and their international partners moved our work.
2
To be clear they removed explicit laws against importing good made by slaves or under poor conditions. There were high standards of quality and work conditions set that most place did not care to meet because the government there did not want the people to rise.
I'm so tired of Trump using the plight of these out of work miners to
show his "compassion" and to eliminate regulations. What a shame!
show his "compassion" and to eliminate regulations. What a shame!
8
Expect an Executive Order regarding buggy whips any day now. How much longer ?
6
I was thinking he would bring back whaling and the use of ambergris.
Ambergris is still used when it is found.
Perhaps President Trump could create some jobs by reviving the kerosene lamp industry.
7
Coal is dumb. People who think coal is coming back are dumber. Trump is their king. The rest of us could use some good government right now.
6
The irony for coal miners is that the only way coal remains a competitive fuel source is if the coal mining becomes completely mechanized.
2
There may always be some market for coal. Its chances improve with any breakthroughs on how to improve efficiency and cleaner burning. Since Trump wants to eviscerate scientific research progress will have to be made by the companies, something they don't have an interest in. It is "burn baby, burn", and "dig baby big" to paraphrase that other far-seeing losing vp candidate. To prepare for the inevitable the government and the companies should create a "Miners Bill of Rights" where every dollar set aside by the companies for miner education will be matched by the US government, to at least encourage an education path out rather than simply descending into the bowels of the earth. That would benefit the environment s well.
2
Ed .. .there always will be "some market" for coal -- basic steel production for instance (needs metalurgical-grade coal). But that market will be very small.
The problem of "improve efficiency and cleaner burning" has run up against fundamental laws of physics: the laws of Thermodynamics, together with it appears you-can't-beat-them realities of chemical-engineering.
Coal's fundamental problems are that it is a very dirty fuel, not even considering CO2. The costs to deal with the ash, mercury, sulfur are so high that the reality we have today is that even if the coal were free AND CO2 is not a problem, coal-fired power plants are not competitive with natural gas & wind ... and solar in better resource areas.
"Clean coal" is an empty buzzword right now, at any rational price. There's a good reason the power industry has built next-to-zero new coal plants, and is closing down old ones at a great rate -- MONEY. The rare efforts to achieve "clean coal" are debacles, e.g. the Kemper plant, where
http://tinyurl.com/lt8ophj
"Southern Company chief executive officer Tom Fanning admitted this week that the Kemper plant is not economically viable as a coal-burning power plant."
Coal is dead -- the rentiers are still extracting money from its carcass and Trump is giving them longer to feed -- nothing more.
The problem of "improve efficiency and cleaner burning" has run up against fundamental laws of physics: the laws of Thermodynamics, together with it appears you-can't-beat-them realities of chemical-engineering.
Coal's fundamental problems are that it is a very dirty fuel, not even considering CO2. The costs to deal with the ash, mercury, sulfur are so high that the reality we have today is that even if the coal were free AND CO2 is not a problem, coal-fired power plants are not competitive with natural gas & wind ... and solar in better resource areas.
"Clean coal" is an empty buzzword right now, at any rational price. There's a good reason the power industry has built next-to-zero new coal plants, and is closing down old ones at a great rate -- MONEY. The rare efforts to achieve "clean coal" are debacles, e.g. the Kemper plant, where
http://tinyurl.com/lt8ophj
"Southern Company chief executive officer Tom Fanning admitted this week that the Kemper plant is not economically viable as a coal-burning power plant."
Coal is dead -- the rentiers are still extracting money from its carcass and Trump is giving them longer to feed -- nothing more.
Only in Trump's America would we be celebrating the elevation of another entitled special interest group: the coal miner.
3
Which is why he will be re-elected and serve 8 years.
1
@ Senate: Only if he also restores the jobs of cowboys and stagecoach drivers.
Have you looked at his approval numbers across the board? No, he will not be re-elected.
2
Never argue with your customer.
Utilities long-term decision are also based on what their customers want. Many consumers have a choice and this bad PR will increase the number of customers who ask where the power is coming from, and if it is coal: demand an alternative.
The idea that every consumer makes decisions based only on economics is absurd.
Utilities long-term decision are also based on what their customers want. Many consumers have a choice and this bad PR will increase the number of customers who ask where the power is coming from, and if it is coal: demand an alternative.
The idea that every consumer makes decisions based only on economics is absurd.
3
The fair-minded pundits keep telling us to "Give the new administration a chance." Well, sorry, NO! Trump has proven unworthy of any more consideration. In addition to proving himself a serial liar, incompetent statesman, self inflated buffoon, & misogynist, we can now add eco-terrorist to his resume.
It's painfully obvious he cares very little (if at all) about anything but profits - how long will it take for him to realize there's money to be made by eliminating all of the remaining regulations put in place to keep us healthy?
Sometimes painful decisions need to be made to save us from ourselves. Unfortunately, that can mean some people get hurt. A compassionate society tries to help those folks into something better.
In other words, when a smoker gets diagnosed with lung cancer, we shouldn't offer a pack of cigarettes. The net effect of this latest executive order is doing just that - offering a carton of Camels to a planet with severe emphysema.
We can do better than this "Fake President."
It's painfully obvious he cares very little (if at all) about anything but profits - how long will it take for him to realize there's money to be made by eliminating all of the remaining regulations put in place to keep us healthy?
Sometimes painful decisions need to be made to save us from ourselves. Unfortunately, that can mean some people get hurt. A compassionate society tries to help those folks into something better.
In other words, when a smoker gets diagnosed with lung cancer, we shouldn't offer a pack of cigarettes. The net effect of this latest executive order is doing just that - offering a carton of Camels to a planet with severe emphysema.
We can do better than this "Fake President."
5
Many of us are, unfortunately so alternately confused and angered, by the apparent undoing of many of Mr. Obamas attempts at (our words) "bringing us into a leadership role" regarding the myriad of environmental challenges facing the world. And as we stumble around in this IMPOSED confusion we are torn between making forceful statements defending the Obama admins. efforts which we regard as at least a starting point or perhaps adding to the confusion and anger by asking even more questions. When making a point do we lose "credibility" by asking questions that we all know the answer to. Didn't China sign some sort of an accord along with us?, I think India was on there also and i'm sure others, that was at least a beginning to limiting damage caused to our world by hydrocarbon emissions for example..by all of us. Going further does any one doubt, again in example, that allowing federal lands to be further exploited for oil, minerals or timber?. Lastly, is rolling back clean air and water standards long established by multiple admins. really the direction we want to go heading deeper into the 21st century. My point with these sorts of questions, limited as they are is this. Continuing to show others even of similar dispositions by posing these "questions"..really does help. By commenting among one another we become emboldened to make stands that should become important to our children and, using the words of Graham Nash, "..teach your children well..".
2
Trump and the Republican Party, taking us back to horse shoes and livery stables. There is a reason the wagon wheel makers are unemployed.
4
Trump hasn't given miners a lifeline. He has thrown them an anchor which they are eagerly grabbing simply delaying the inevitable continued decline in miners job. There will be a little improvement for them just from the adrenalin of the announcement, but net/net, coal is doomed. I travel in business and always ask the people I see how their manpower situation is, and all say they could do more if they had people to work. Miners know how to work. There is work. Move the miners to the work, or better yet. Miners move to the work!
121
Ironically, if the miners were non-white no one would be trying to "save" their jobs (or giving the appearance there of). They would be scoffed at as welfare queens and lazy. But since they are largely white they are seen as "hard working, Christian" folks who have been dealt a bad break.
1
We have the same problem with Native villages in the N.W. of
Alaska. There is no work other than fishing for the most part, and people up here conservatives mostly say the same thing move to the work. But if your born and raised in a place and that is all you know it's a hard thing to do. Luckily for most of them they live almost completely off subsistence. And a lot of the young people will move. But we need to understand how they feel about it.
Alaska. There is no work other than fishing for the most part, and people up here conservatives mostly say the same thing move to the work. But if your born and raised in a place and that is all you know it's a hard thing to do. Luckily for most of them they live almost completely off subsistence. And a lot of the young people will move. But we need to understand how they feel about it.
We can see how Donald Trump envisions Barron's future.....agricultural worker or coal miner. One can see how deeply he was wounded by Barack Obama's needling some years ago. His agenda is all about trashing what Obama promoted no matter how beneficial those policies might be.Protect privacy? Not if Obama protected it! Combat environmental deterioration? Obama did so Trump is against the environment. Support scientific research? If Obama believed in science Trump will embrace fairies and unicorns. Obama valued NATO? Trump will trash it. One suspects he stalks through the White House at 3 a.m., watching the shadowy figure of Barack Obama disappearing down hallways and shrieking "Who will rid me of this perfidious predecessor?" No, we know he would not use language like that. Really surprising Donald Trump can only define himself as the Anti'bama.
5
Today coal industry employment is reported to be approximately 65,000 workers. Each month the government releases a report on new jobs added and anything under 180,000 - 200,000 is considered to be a weak number. Even if trump's "plan" exceeds beyond all expectations and doubles the number of coal industry jobs, it will be less than a drop in the bucket in terms of overall US employment. In the 80's, we did not try to keep a dwindling number of typewriter assemblers and repair people employed in the face of the personal computer revolution so why are we now trying to preserve a few thousand backbreaking, injury-prone jobs when renewable energy, which already employs substantially more people than the coal industry, offers a much brighter future?
17
Where is the town hall meeting on this repeal? Opening public lands to coal mining and reintroducing the filthy skies of the 1960's should be met with massive resistance. We also forget the long history of trying to eliminate lead from gasoline. Industry and government were in denial on that one.
The anti-science, alt fact mentality of this administration that is killing regulations that give us a cleaner environment is what will make this country insecure.
The anti-science, alt fact mentality of this administration that is killing regulations that give us a cleaner environment is what will make this country insecure.
2
Putting aside all the environemental and health reasons why this doesnt make sense, where besides coal country are municipalities goiing to allow coal burning power plants to be built. Why dont you lead by eaxample President Ttrump ? Have one of your family companies buy some land near Mar a Lago, and start with a coal burning power plant there.
5
Let's just give all these displaced coal workers and all the other uneducated neanderthals who won't adapt $1500 a month, no questions asked, to buy their cigs, their Mountain Dew, their DirectTv subscription, and call it a day. Anything to get them to back off leave those of us with actual brain cells to address climate change. Just make it contingent on a vasectomy or Norplant.
To me, saving a single polar bear (whale, elephant, rhino, dolphin etc etc) or preventing further devastation to the Great Barrier Reef or the polar ice, is far more important than the fate of 10,000 hillbillies who want more money with no intellectual effort, just so they can buy bigger teevees at Walmart or jack up the tires on their confedrut-flag-clad F150.
Sorry, but that's the way it is. I and millions like me are FAR more concerned about the environment and other species than we are about entitled obsolete people who keep breeding and replicating themselves but are not willing to adapt to the 21st century.
To me, saving a single polar bear (whale, elephant, rhino, dolphin etc etc) or preventing further devastation to the Great Barrier Reef or the polar ice, is far more important than the fate of 10,000 hillbillies who want more money with no intellectual effort, just so they can buy bigger teevees at Walmart or jack up the tires on their confedrut-flag-clad F150.
Sorry, but that's the way it is. I and millions like me are FAR more concerned about the environment and other species than we are about entitled obsolete people who keep breeding and replicating themselves but are not willing to adapt to the 21st century.
11
Reality check emagin how much electric power is wasted in usa on devices arent even on .The add the power wasted by computors servers around the world are on 24 hours a day. Add in the use of energy wasted by lighting around entire world which can bbe seen from space station. Enough power plants run by coal for thousand years . We need smart people in washington to clean up the planet an wasted energy we use
1
Sure, coal made America an industrial giant, and so did the steam engine. Are there any plans to revive THAT industry? Come on people, we should be way beyond seriously talking about the continued use of coal. Economically and environmentally it makes no sense, not to mention the dangers and health issues miners are exposed to. When conservatives (ha, what a misnomer) tout the improved emissions of coal fired power plants I want to vomit – as if that would ever have happened without government regulation. The other mind boggling aspect of them calling for putting more coal on the fire is don't they want to breathe clean air too?
5
With thinking like this we should still be making wagon wheels and buggy whips.
4
Trump's signature on a piece of paper isn't going to help Appalachian coal miners. Sorry, guys, Trump doesn't help anyone but himself and the super-rich. So guys, please don't get lost in wishful thinking about the return of coal. Because coal mining jobs are going away, and you will have to find something else to do.
If Trump had really wanted to help miners, he could have done a lot of things: promoted job training and relocation, provided funds for small business loans in Appalachia, even pensioned all the miners off. Coal mining is brutally hard work; it's dangerous, and it takes years off the lives of miners. It would be simple justice if miners were awarded pensions for supplying the energy needs of the nation, before we realized how harmful it was to put so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
But bringing coal mining jobs back to the mountains, for everyone who wants a job? This simply isn't going to happen.
If Trump had really wanted to help miners, he could have done a lot of things: promoted job training and relocation, provided funds for small business loans in Appalachia, even pensioned all the miners off. Coal mining is brutally hard work; it's dangerous, and it takes years off the lives of miners. It would be simple justice if miners were awarded pensions for supplying the energy needs of the nation, before we realized how harmful it was to put so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
But bringing coal mining jobs back to the mountains, for everyone who wants a job? This simply isn't going to happen.
8
Whatever happened to the Republican dogma about the sanctity of free market and that the government should not be choosing the economy's winners and losers?
172
That is exactly what is happening. This is less government interference and more free market.
Did you post on the wrong topic?
Did you post on the wrong topic?
1
Oh, Matt, that obviously only holds true if Republicans are the winners. Once they start losing, well, you can see what happens.
2
Because of pollution (negative externalities in economic parlance) the government does have a rightful role, a responsibility even, to regulate the polluting industry in question. Also, due to positive externalities, government should be supporting sustainable less polluting industries even if that means subsidizing them.
From a federal cost benefit analysis point of view, it is really difficult to justify allowing more pollution and unsafe working conditions to save a few hundred or even a few thousand jobs for a decade or so.
From a federal cost benefit analysis point of view, it is really difficult to justify allowing more pollution and unsafe working conditions to save a few hundred or even a few thousand jobs for a decade or so.
No coal miner will blame Trump is the jobs don't return because of market competition. It is one thing for impersonal market forces to cause your job to be lost through fair competition it is quite another to have one man take your jobs away with a "pen and a phone" based on phony and ginned up justifications that you are "killing the planet"!
It is a fact, admitted to be the Obama administration, that all his co2 regs were just virtue signaling and that they were not going to make any discernible difference on the climate. If everyone of his restrictions was implemented it would have, using IPCC calculations, resulted in temperatures being less than 3 one hundredths of a degree lower in 2100! 0.03 degrees! Less than the ability to measure. And for this we would impoverish millions of Americans and kill untold millions of desperately poor people around the world as we artificially and intentionally caused energy prices to skyrocket.
How can people on the left have so little compassion for the poor and why do they ignore the scientific evidence when it disagrees with their cherished beliefs??
It is a fact, admitted to be the Obama administration, that all his co2 regs were just virtue signaling and that they were not going to make any discernible difference on the climate. If everyone of his restrictions was implemented it would have, using IPCC calculations, resulted in temperatures being less than 3 one hundredths of a degree lower in 2100! 0.03 degrees! Less than the ability to measure. And for this we would impoverish millions of Americans and kill untold millions of desperately poor people around the world as we artificially and intentionally caused energy prices to skyrocket.
How can people on the left have so little compassion for the poor and why do they ignore the scientific evidence when it disagrees with their cherished beliefs??
1
75,000 jobs in the coal industry vs 650,000 in the renewables sector. One's declining and the other growing. Guess which is which?
Seems like some investments in the coal mining areas hardest hit by the decline in coal employment might yield some big dividends.
Seems like some investments in the coal mining areas hardest hit by the decline in coal employment might yield some big dividends.
3
Often overlooked in the discussion is the impact of China on the global price of coal. For the last 20 years of so china has been a huge importer of thermal coal. to deal with devastating air quality issues china has moved aggressivly toward cleaner energy sources. Their autocratic government allows they to impliment change quickly, and they have.
As difficult as things are for the US coal industry they are worse in Australia, a major exporter. Coal is quite costly to ship overseas because of its bulk. falling prices have squeezed margins beyond the point of profitability.
China seems to be embracing its newfound role as carbon reduction leader, building countless new wind and solar facilities. There is no sign this will change soon. Here at home coal use is unlikely to climb for the reasons mentioned in the article.
As difficult as things are for the US coal industry they are worse in Australia, a major exporter. Coal is quite costly to ship overseas because of its bulk. falling prices have squeezed margins beyond the point of profitability.
China seems to be embracing its newfound role as carbon reduction leader, building countless new wind and solar facilities. There is no sign this will change soon. Here at home coal use is unlikely to climb for the reasons mentioned in the article.
The primary problems with coal rest in economics, health and the environment. Competition and science are merciless.
90
More snake oil. Listening to the signing yesterday, his cheerleading was met with halting, tepid applause. When a multibillionaire executive says he's going to help the little guy - and he's still in his earning years - hold on to your wallet.
1
I'll give Trump one thing: he is the undisputed king of pointless exercises. Among the many, many things his pea-sized brain doesn't understand is that the world has moved on from Dickensian coal plants, just as it's moved on from no emission controls on cars and no checks on using blood-soaked conflict gems in manufacturing. The people (remember them?) have already spoken on these issues, and unlike the great white dinosaurs in their white bathrobes in the white house, they are not afraid of the future.
5
Of course, utilities will not go back to coal. They have seen other cheaper renewable energy that can be profitable and have lower operations cost. The free market will always drive the cost of cheap fuel. This is just another play on the field of delusional dreams by King Trump. They insist we can turn back the clock. Instead Trump supporters should be transitioning to work in the new companies sprouting everywhere using renewable energy. Fracking is a cause for concern and that industry will also go. China will drive that industry out. They are desperate to look for energy that can eliminate their pollution. We are behind many nations who see the light in solar energy. We need to step up our efforts and forget fossil fuels as the primary energy source.
2
Will Trump look after the miners by maintaining safety regulations, or look after the mining companies by relaxing them?
1
Top US coal boss Robert Murray: Trump 'can't bring mining jobs back'
The guardian
While Murray said new plants using “clean coal” technologies could soon be built, he doesn’t expect that coal’s share of the market will rise significantly in the future.
(.) Trump has consistently pledged to restore mining jobs, but many of those jobs were lost to technology rather than regulation and to competition from natural gas and renewables, which makes it unlikely that he can do much to significantly grow the number of jobs in the industry, said Murray.
“I suggested that he temper his expectations. Those are my exact words,” said Murray. “He can’t bring them back.”
The guardian
While Murray said new plants using “clean coal” technologies could soon be built, he doesn’t expect that coal’s share of the market will rise significantly in the future.
(.) Trump has consistently pledged to restore mining jobs, but many of those jobs were lost to technology rather than regulation and to competition from natural gas and renewables, which makes it unlikely that he can do much to significantly grow the number of jobs in the industry, said Murray.
“I suggested that he temper his expectations. Those are my exact words,” said Murray. “He can’t bring them back.”
2
Respect the coal miners. All they got was black lung disease while the one percent owners got extremely wealthy.
"Sixteen Tons" (originally by Merle Travis)
Some people say a man is made outta' mud
A poor man's made outta' muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number 9 coal
And the store boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain
Fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebrake by an ol' mama lion
Cain't no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store .......
Groucho Marx;
Statesmanship is harder than politics. Politics is the art of getting along with people, whereas statesmanship is the art of getting along with politicians.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.
"Sixteen Tons" (originally by Merle Travis)
Some people say a man is made outta' mud
A poor man's made outta' muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number 9 coal
And the store boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain
Fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebrake by an ol' mama lion
Cain't no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store .......
Groucho Marx;
Statesmanship is harder than politics. Politics is the art of getting along with people, whereas statesmanship is the art of getting along with politicians.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.
3
There's a lot of things I'd do to help out coal miners, pay more taxes to help with training, health care, new sources of revenue. But I am not interested in breathing carcinogenic air so they have jobs. Lung cancer is a nasty disease.
4
The market has moved on. Even where coal is still ascendant, the managers have found ways to use fewer miners while doing things like mountaintop removal that blast and poison the environment for generations.
The watersheds around mines are toxic. Diseases and death are rampant and underreported.
As to "clean" coal (which doesn't exist), some efforts have been made, but they are expensive and therefore unlikely to be used by profiteers who only look at the bottom line.
Removing regulations will put populations at risk - the coal miners and their communities and families - much more.
Removing programs - and health care access - from the people who need them most will make it worse.
The stupid, it burns. All for short-term profits, our hospitable planet is only for the rich and powerful to squeeze every penny they can get.
The watersheds around mines are toxic. Diseases and death are rampant and underreported.
As to "clean" coal (which doesn't exist), some efforts have been made, but they are expensive and therefore unlikely to be used by profiteers who only look at the bottom line.
Removing regulations will put populations at risk - the coal miners and their communities and families - much more.
Removing programs - and health care access - from the people who need them most will make it worse.
The stupid, it burns. All for short-term profits, our hospitable planet is only for the rich and powerful to squeeze every penny they can get.
1
There is so much to hate about Texas, from the unqualified "Texas Pride" to the retrograde social policies and budget. But it also has a huge paradox, after a hundred years of being the petroleum business capital of the world, probably.
It is the wind capital of the United States by a huge margin. On a recent drive to Colorado, I drove through twenty miles of turbines up around Sweetwater. The latter town, in serious decline for decades has rebounded with wind. It has a state college with vocational training for wind installation and maintenance. Every megawatt of generation requires 6-10 full time workers.
The huge Dell Computer campus here in Round Rock with some 15,000 employees runs 100% on renewable energy.
Because Texas has its own power grid (like Alaska and Hawaii) it has its own regulatory body which is favorable to experimentation. One can buy electricity, choosing between several dozen resellers. I run my all electric home on 100% wind power for 8.3 cents a KW/hr.
And the blue bonnets are blooming right now. OK, there are a few things good in Texas!
It is the wind capital of the United States by a huge margin. On a recent drive to Colorado, I drove through twenty miles of turbines up around Sweetwater. The latter town, in serious decline for decades has rebounded with wind. It has a state college with vocational training for wind installation and maintenance. Every megawatt of generation requires 6-10 full time workers.
The huge Dell Computer campus here in Round Rock with some 15,000 employees runs 100% on renewable energy.
Because Texas has its own power grid (like Alaska and Hawaii) it has its own regulatory body which is favorable to experimentation. One can buy electricity, choosing between several dozen resellers. I run my all electric home on 100% wind power for 8.3 cents a KW/hr.
And the blue bonnets are blooming right now. OK, there are a few things good in Texas!
3
The picture with this story reminds me of how I pictured Tolkien's Mordor.
I am also reminded of my oilman cousin whose comment when Oklahoma started having hundreds of earthquakes/tremors: "Well, it sure ain't got nothin' to do with frackin', cause frackin' is as safe as coal."
We are so hammering in our own nails to our collective Human Coffin.Dumb and greedy, that's us.
I am also reminded of my oilman cousin whose comment when Oklahoma started having hundreds of earthquakes/tremors: "Well, it sure ain't got nothin' to do with frackin', cause frackin' is as safe as coal."
We are so hammering in our own nails to our collective Human Coffin.Dumb and greedy, that's us.
1
I see so many whimsical comments, mocking this latest move by der Donaldt and his enablers, but this is truly no laughing matter.
The only short-term *solution* is to turn out the vote in waves in 2018 and put the Democrats in the majority in *both* houses of Congress. Cut the legs out from under him; that is the only solution here. Making clever little jokes on the NYT comments is fine, but at the end of the day, if you truly want to stop this crazy man, you've got to put your money (and energy) where your mouth is.
The only short-term *solution* is to turn out the vote in waves in 2018 and put the Democrats in the majority in *both* houses of Congress. Cut the legs out from under him; that is the only solution here. Making clever little jokes on the NYT comments is fine, but at the end of the day, if you truly want to stop this crazy man, you've got to put your money (and energy) where your mouth is.
4
In Today's paper and article how China will now take the lead on renewable energy. Anybody in the red states notice this? Jobs will continue to vanish and the wall Trump will build will be keeping Americans in because no-one will want us as we sink into destitution and wallow in coal tailings and pollution. But we will have a bigger military to protect us from whom? Ourselves.
2
For a self-proclaimed genius businessman, Trump on a daily basis, does not know how markets work---those years at Wharton and running a real estate business, and still, that old supply and demand chart I studied in college, seems to mystify our White House CEO.
2
Now there's a job for you-coal mining. Really? Just don't breathe in the dust.
4
There's probably a really good chance that, other than Russian apparatchikery, the environment will prove to be Trump's Waterloo. Protecting 60,000 coal jobs makes Trumpian sense when risking 600,000 clean energy jobs. He might hope for a hole in the ozone layer so he can escape through it.
4
Improving education and helping coal state populations modernize and adapt to other energy producing industries would have really helped these people. He's just keeping their dreams of the past alive.
And it's not like mining coal is a good job. It's a terrible job. There are better ways for these people and states. If they won't change, I guess they will suffer the consequences. But I feel sorry for them, and the President is selling them a lie.
And it's not like mining coal is a good job. It's a terrible job. There are better ways for these people and states. If they won't change, I guess they will suffer the consequences. But I feel sorry for them, and the President is selling them a lie.
2
Most of these comments are kind of tiresome. Don't you get it? Our rulers DON'T CARE about the future or what kind of world is left, even to their own descendants. These people will not be changed by our wailing and gnashing of teeth (love that phrase!). They have to be replaced by people who DO care. How that may happen is rather uncertain, but we have an opportunity to start in the 2018 elections, and we should be laying the groundwork now by getting capable candidates ready to run.
3
What is so hard about us all just deciding to be the Country that solves renewable energy. It's within our power and means. Give all the new jobs to the old coal miners for all I care, but let us create a new industry and millions of jobs down the line instead of constantly propping up a century old terrible "tech" that is killing our planet. What is all this racing backwards for? To give coal execs a slightly bigger payday and a few thousand people at the end of their career a job for another 5 years?
4
The GOP is the party of backward. All these old white men want to return to the 1950s, when the rest of the world was post WWII rubble, women and gays and "colored folks" knew their place, they could burn as much fuel as they wanted in the big V8s and in general not really exert their brains very much yet still dominate the world.
"Solving" renewable energy is not within our power and means any more than solving world peace.
In 2017, after a half-century of advocacy and technological advances, the U.S. obtains slightly more than 1% of its electricity from solar panels. The false promise of "renewables" has been a death sentence for biodiversity and, due to sea-level rise, coastal populations across the globe.
In 2017, after a half-century of advocacy and technological advances, the U.S. obtains slightly more than 1% of its electricity from solar panels. The false promise of "renewables" has been a death sentence for biodiversity and, due to sea-level rise, coastal populations across the globe.
If Trump truly cared about "coal country", he would incentivize renewable energy companies--an economical and environmental certainty--to move into these states and provide free job training. Maybe Rick Perry can be useful and apply his experience growing Texas's hugely lucrative wind energy program in this situation.
5
This issue has NOTHING to do with helping miners. NOTHING. No issue with health, with jobs, energy independence (what ever that means, as everything is sold at a markets to the highest bidder).
It is all about the oligarchs in the energy extraction business.
The key word is Business. Trump is nothing more then a person who only cares about business. Environment; nope, citizens health, are you kidding me.
NO only maximize gain for The Donald and the clan.
It is all about the oligarchs in the energy extraction business.
The key word is Business. Trump is nothing more then a person who only cares about business. Environment; nope, citizens health, are you kidding me.
NO only maximize gain for The Donald and the clan.
1
Trump's accession to the presidency is a tragedy, on many fronts, for America, Americans, and the world. On the environmental front, it is doubly so, because it threatens progress in curbing climate change, and constitutes a Grand Hoodwink of coal miners and their families who voted for this Snake Oil Salesman-Liar.
Trump's war against the earth not only confronts scientific facts, it also threatens our welfare and quality of life -- in a world where weather events are getting increasingly hostile -- and mocks business. For the coal industry to seriously believe that Trump will restore its relevance and profits, is to write another tale of gullibility and ignorance.
How ironic that this president, who makes billions of dollars, is about to wipe out the whole financial infrastructure of an industry that is not only obsolete -- given the sensible swing toward wind, solar, and other clean energy alternatives -- but has been failing for years, and will continue to, every day.
Trump's smoke-and-mirror promise to coal miners that he will prop up their industry makes about as much sense as had President Teddy Roosevelt promised the horse and buggy industry that he would keep them in business forever.
Wake up coal industry. You've been duped.
Trump's war against the earth not only confronts scientific facts, it also threatens our welfare and quality of life -- in a world where weather events are getting increasingly hostile -- and mocks business. For the coal industry to seriously believe that Trump will restore its relevance and profits, is to write another tale of gullibility and ignorance.
How ironic that this president, who makes billions of dollars, is about to wipe out the whole financial infrastructure of an industry that is not only obsolete -- given the sensible swing toward wind, solar, and other clean energy alternatives -- but has been failing for years, and will continue to, every day.
Trump's smoke-and-mirror promise to coal miners that he will prop up their industry makes about as much sense as had President Teddy Roosevelt promised the horse and buggy industry that he would keep them in business forever.
Wake up coal industry. You've been duped.
1
This was the TRUMP promise for Coal Miner work force.
1- Bring back Coal mining
2- Repeal Obama care
3- Die with Coal lung disease without health insurance.
At least second one didn't happened , so Those Trump voter can still hope that 1 and 3 can be realized.
1- Bring back Coal mining
2- Repeal Obama care
3- Die with Coal lung disease without health insurance.
At least second one didn't happened , so Those Trump voter can still hope that 1 and 3 can be realized.
Its ironic that many of these miners so reluctant to adapt to the reality of the modern world are descendants of pioneer immigrants who, rather than accept an impoverished life at home, had the gumption to strike out into a hostile wilderness and build something for themselves and the nation.
A real leader would inspire these people to be the change makers their forefathers were. That is what it takes to make America great again.
A real leader would inspire these people to be the change makers their forefathers were. That is what it takes to make America great again.
2
Another stroke of the pen not given much thought. "Nice" move Donald. You have no idea what you're doing.
2
Some coal miners may get a job back into coal mining industry, but all coal miners and rest of us will not have money to pay for our weak health due to polluted planet.
2
More dangerous than coal is the ill-informed notion "renewables" can possibly serve as a viable subsitute for the use of fossil fuels in global energy. Fossil-fuel giants are well aware of that physical truth, and exploit it - using the convenient myth to guarantee a market for their climate-destroying products.
What can? Nuclear energy.
France derives 75% of its electricity from nuclear, and has the lowest per-capita carbon emissions of any industrialized country in the world. Contrary to the perception fostered by sensationalist media reports (and fossil fuel giants), on a per-unit-of-energy basis it's also the safest method of generating electricity.
James Hansen, Ken Caldeira, and other top climatologists agree: the current attack on carbon-free nuclear energy is the equivalent of ecological suicide.
What can? Nuclear energy.
France derives 75% of its electricity from nuclear, and has the lowest per-capita carbon emissions of any industrialized country in the world. Contrary to the perception fostered by sensationalist media reports (and fossil fuel giants), on a per-unit-of-energy basis it's also the safest method of generating electricity.
James Hansen, Ken Caldeira, and other top climatologists agree: the current attack on carbon-free nuclear energy is the equivalent of ecological suicide.
I recommend that former coal miners transition to the installation of solar panels and wind turbines!
3
Trump know darn well that coal is dead and no new jobs will be created. He's just playing for votes. He'll say he tried but the Dems are to blame for no new jobs and no healthcare. The blue collar guys wearing red Trump hats will agree despite the fact that their own situation will be worse. Bigly.
Nobody wants this except for coal mine owners and 58,000 people working the mines. The rest of America wants cleaner air, water, and earth and this policy change provides worst conditions then the alternatives. Rather then provide a series of opportunities, like scholarships for the kids of miners and younger miners themselves, and jobs to clean up mine sites that probably provide good jobs for 30 years for the older miners, they push a really bad idea. This is so doable but as usual the politicians refuse to make the leap.
1
Sorry....Did I hear something about a new department of American Innovation...Kushner in charge. Can he let us know how coal mining fits into all that?
3
Coal miners welfare, I recall the Senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell holding up funding for long-term pensions or some long term health care issues for miners, I believe in 2015 or so, Mitch was helping the coal mining companies at the expense of the coal miners.
I shall research this to find a link, but Mitch was responsible, and got re-elected despite the actions...so going backwards to help is not the answer
I shall research this to find a link, but Mitch was responsible, and got re-elected despite the actions...so going backwards to help is not the answer
2
It is the oil and gas industry that us behind the return if coal, in my opinion, because the industry learned along with lightning scientists in 2008 that methane us the gas of the ice age. Due to massive methane leakage we are threatened with an ice age and will need all the energy we can get. Methane us also the gas of extinction more than half of it oxidizes to formaldehyde and sticks around where we live and breath for years. Excess methane us also the source if excess carbon dioxide as that is what it becomes.
“Many fossil fuel executives are celebrating President Trump’s move to dismantle the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan”. “We think the rule went beyond E.P.A.’s statutory authority and infringed on the rights of the states to manage the generating fleet,”
Infuriating! With all the scientific studies / facts (no fake news) regarding Global Warming and the poisonous / irreparable effects of carbon dioxide emissions on the planet, in this country and the world……this president and administration gleefully decide to ignore them and proceed to do more damage with the stroke of pen. No man (not even the President) should have this much power to nonchalantly dictate the future of the environment and planet. The signing of this bill also sends message to other countries in the world that America thinks Global Warming is a joke…..other countries may soon follow suit. The saddest part of it all is that President Trump and his cronies are doing this in the guise of jobs which is the farthest from the truth.
We’ll see how many executives celebrate and how many rights were infringed upon when Mother Earth finally decides to fight back with a vengeance.
Infuriating! With all the scientific studies / facts (no fake news) regarding Global Warming and the poisonous / irreparable effects of carbon dioxide emissions on the planet, in this country and the world……this president and administration gleefully decide to ignore them and proceed to do more damage with the stroke of pen. No man (not even the President) should have this much power to nonchalantly dictate the future of the environment and planet. The signing of this bill also sends message to other countries in the world that America thinks Global Warming is a joke…..other countries may soon follow suit. The saddest part of it all is that President Trump and his cronies are doing this in the guise of jobs which is the farthest from the truth.
We’ll see how many executives celebrate and how many rights were infringed upon when Mother Earth finally decides to fight back with a vengeance.
1
Coal is a dinosaur, both literally and figuratively. It has always been a finite resource that also pollutes the planet and causes climate change. If you work in the coal industry the asteroid is approaching.
1
Gutting Obama's clean power plan, eliminating Energy Star, and canning the improved MG standards serve a simple goal: increase the need for energy, which will create jobs getting that energy. Dumb, but really quite simple. Sure, eggheads will lose jobs engineering all that new energy efficient stuff, but egghead scientists aren't Trump's base. Sure, liberals will buy energy efficient imports, but Trump has a plan for that too, right?
It would be very nice to go back to steam engine trains , they were nice.........
Two tickets to Yuman please.
Our president vision for American citizens sending them to deep underground coal tunnels like 19th century Dickensian world, instead sending up to wind turbine engine maintenance and construction.
Hey Blue collar person who voted for Trump.
which one do you want.
1- High paying, high tech future energy solar-wind etc , job
2- high paying (?) low tech , no future, but sure coal miner lung ending job.
it is your decision,
actually you already choose your side
2
Two tickets to Yuman please.
Our president vision for American citizens sending them to deep underground coal tunnels like 19th century Dickensian world, instead sending up to wind turbine engine maintenance and construction.
Hey Blue collar person who voted for Trump.
which one do you want.
1- High paying, high tech future energy solar-wind etc , job
2- high paying (?) low tech , no future, but sure coal miner lung ending job.
it is your decision,
actually you already choose your side
2
1
No human should be condemned to a life in a coal mine. Their entire job can and will be done by robots. A coal mine is a horrible place to spend one's life. They can never escape the pollutants that surround them and the horror of life in a mine tunnel. And the communities, awash in dust, silica particles, mountains of slag polluting their water and land. The damage is not limited to the miners, it pollutes all, not only them, but also people that live around them. Coal mining country is no place to live. Look at the health of the population, life expectancy, IQs and any other parameters you can name. And this President thinks "Clean Coal" is the way to go, yes,all the way back to the early 20th century. For what? Cheaper electricity and hydrocarbons Try it for a second, our wise Pres Trump and even you might understand. A miners life is a life of trouble. The closest you've go to a mine is in the board room.
2
Black lung disease AND no health care! The Republicans are genius, ardent Trump supporters foolish. At least they will have gotten rid of all the brown people. Phew! Well, when everyone is covered in soot...you won't be able to tell a person's color! The other consolation is that brown people will not want to work in a coal mine...the white Appalachia folks can keep those outdated and risky jobs! :)
1
Can't wait to put a coal bin back in my cellar! That coupled with the emissions coming out of that local trash-to-energy plant will really improve my quality of life. Thanks Don the Con, you are my hero!
3
Coal is a historic addiction that must be ended. It seems so typical of Republicans to try and impede this country's progress out of the era of fossil fuel dominance. Instead of embracing the future, they will only drive those who dig coal back under ground, making them and everybody else including our planet, sicker.
1
Keeping his promise to the coal miners is Trump's small-mindedness once again. What about all the rest of us who have to breathe that polluted air and get sick from it? And suffer the consequences of dirty water from the mining process? And reclamation of the scarred land is not cheap. If he is such a good 'businessman' how can he pay this bill just to keep the miners employed for a few more years? A true statesman/woman endeavors to ensure that the future is better for all citizens, with policies that move towards that goal, not away from it. Does Trump not ever consider his legacy? He will have one, and it does not look good, it looks smoggy.
1
Attention: New Yorkers are able to choose their electricity and natural gas providers. Now, more than ever, it is important to choose energy options that are as clean as possible. It's worth it in the long term, even if it ends up costing an extra $5-$10/month. And it's easy - Google how.
2
While we're at it, let's bring back the horse and carriage. Blacksmiths have been ignored by our politicians for many, many years, we need to do what we can to revive this vital industry!
3
“Utilities’ long-term decisions are based on economics and the need for long-term certainty.”
Utilities and other companies are thinking of long term solutions and coal is not it. This will do nothing to bring back jobs. Most companies have already changed their infrastructures and made investments in clean energy. They are not now going to dismantle that infrastructure. Most large companies have invested in solar fields or wind turbines in order to be good corporate citizens, whether it's lip service or marketing, they like to brag about doing their share to use clean energy. DT is just a spiteful man who wants to undo everything that the previous president, you know, the guy from Kenya put in place. Frankly, I think Donald Trump must have been born in Africa, because he is certainly acting like an African dictator who cares nothing about his people and only wants to line his own and his friend's pockets.
Utilities and other companies are thinking of long term solutions and coal is not it. This will do nothing to bring back jobs. Most companies have already changed their infrastructures and made investments in clean energy. They are not now going to dismantle that infrastructure. Most large companies have invested in solar fields or wind turbines in order to be good corporate citizens, whether it's lip service or marketing, they like to brag about doing their share to use clean energy. DT is just a spiteful man who wants to undo everything that the previous president, you know, the guy from Kenya put in place. Frankly, I think Donald Trump must have been born in Africa, because he is certainly acting like an African dictator who cares nothing about his people and only wants to line his own and his friend's pockets.
1
It is comforting to believe that what has happened to the coal miners and to the coal mining states is the result of impersonal and inexorable market forces---as opposed, say, to public policy choices that our leaders made.
3
Cheap oil, clean gas, and even cleaner wind power are dirty coal worse enemies. The industry will NEVER be the same no matter what the clueless megalomaniac promised the poor, uneducated miners. It would be a good lesson in economics and history if miners would visit Manchester, England, once the backbone of the English steel industry. Although coal is still a necessary ingredient in the steel industry, it is not the main element in the production of energy, residential or industrial.
The question is, what will happen to those displaced miners and their families when dreams promised by a clueless ignorant president do not materialize? Will they be given jobs at Trump Tower?
The question is, what will happen to those displaced miners and their families when dreams promised by a clueless ignorant president do not materialize? Will they be given jobs at Trump Tower?
5
Automation and natural gas caused the demise of coal use and coal mining jobs. Trump lives in a gold plated penthouse and cares as much for coal miners as he does for the victims murdered by Dillon Roof in Charleston, SC.
A sucker is born every minute and Trump seems to have cornered the market.
A sucker is born every minute and Trump seems to have cornered the market.
6
What’s really stupid here is the abandonment of leadership on the world stage. China will lead on the energy transition. That’s the biggest task facing humanity, and it’s the one that will be the most profitable going forward. China will get that money, and we won’t.
It’s not just this piece, though. Under Trump the U.S. is rushing to become smaller and less significant by most measures. Everything except the production of weapons, perhaps. Of course, that’s not a given either. He hasn’t delivered on much of his “agenda” so far, so we can hope the plan to increase defense spending by $54 billion won’t amount to anything either.
It’s not just this piece, though. Under Trump the U.S. is rushing to become smaller and less significant by most measures. Everything except the production of weapons, perhaps. Of course, that’s not a given either. He hasn’t delivered on much of his “agenda” so far, so we can hope the plan to increase defense spending by $54 billion won’t amount to anything either.
7
Trumps initiatives:
Steam locomotives.
Smoking in the workplace.
Black lung disease.
Rampant species extinctions
No more glaciers - rather more flooding and disastrous storms.
Make the world flat again!
Steam locomotives.
Smoking in the workplace.
Black lung disease.
Rampant species extinctions
No more glaciers - rather more flooding and disastrous storms.
Make the world flat again!
2
This is nothing more than a photo op and does nothing but delays the US move to a more efficient and stable energy economy and also rape of more federal lands. The world is moving forward some are trying to keep the US stuck in time.
2
Funny, I could have sworn I heard his supporters make the same claim he does, that he is a smart businessman.
What century was he referring to?
What century was he referring to?
3
Snake oil selling business century.
2
Absolutely no one is going to invest in a new coal fired power plant. The added costs associated with the scrubbers and fly ash disposal far out weigh that of gas fired turbine generator sets with combined cycle steamers. As far back as 1990 there were no generators on the books at GE or any of the other manufacturers involved with U.S. based power installations. Coal is as dead as the proverbial dodo bird. At best easing regulations will only extend the life of existing plants that really should be shutdown.
2
This president is a total hypocrite. He indulges in all the vast riches of his so called "empire", uses modern technology such as a cell phone and twitter yet he still jumps on the coal bandwagon (or should I say covered wagon). There is not a progressive thought that comes out of his so called business mind. The time is right for new ideas and enterprises to be developed that can spur our economy and world standing forward. And he thinks coal is the answer. SAD!
4
Trump's support for what he calls "clean coal" and opening federal lands to coal mining was, according to him, for the purpose of providing work to coal miners. What this plan failed to address is where all the additional coal is going to go, and who is going to be buying it.
We can presume that any energy producer who is using coal to produce the power they will sell is not experiencing any shortage of coal. In addition the reason that new coal burning plants are not being built is because we are living in the 21st century and not in the 1950's. It has nothing to do with any supposed shortage in the current coal supply.
But Trump speaks of opening up new areas to coal mining as if it were oil and not coal which is available in abundance both in currently operating mines, in addition to other areas that are known to hold huge amounts of coal.
In short yesterday's speech about giving the coal miners work by opening new areas to mining made no sense to anyone who gave it a drop of thought. The only possible conclusion is that Trump himself didn't put a drop of thought into his new proposal, and this is because it was not stated for the purpose of carrying it out.
Trump made that speech for one reason only. And that was because of his new tendency to go out and speak to his supporters in a campaign rally mode. It seems that this is what he does to escape the miserable experience he is having in Washington in particular, and with the American public in general.
We can presume that any energy producer who is using coal to produce the power they will sell is not experiencing any shortage of coal. In addition the reason that new coal burning plants are not being built is because we are living in the 21st century and not in the 1950's. It has nothing to do with any supposed shortage in the current coal supply.
But Trump speaks of opening up new areas to coal mining as if it were oil and not coal which is available in abundance both in currently operating mines, in addition to other areas that are known to hold huge amounts of coal.
In short yesterday's speech about giving the coal miners work by opening new areas to mining made no sense to anyone who gave it a drop of thought. The only possible conclusion is that Trump himself didn't put a drop of thought into his new proposal, and this is because it was not stated for the purpose of carrying it out.
Trump made that speech for one reason only. And that was because of his new tendency to go out and speak to his supporters in a campaign rally mode. It seems that this is what he does to escape the miserable experience he is having in Washington in particular, and with the American public in general.
1
Trump's "War on Climate Change" should be the talking point.
2
No one will give up their horse and buggy for those newfangled horseless carriages.
4
An extensive study by a hedge fund reported on in Bloomberg determines that by the early 2020s--five years from now--electric vehicles will be cheaper to buy and cheaper to operate than internal combustion vehicles. Not as cheap as. Cheaper.
Half the worlds PhDs in chemistry are working on battery technology. Half. It's a gold rush. Utilities are already installing battery storage for renewable energy because it's already cost-effective. Further large drops in price and improvements in efficiency are immanent.
Today there are nine times as many renewable energy jobs in the US as coal mining jobs. Real jobs that pay money.
Late last year China announced a three year, 300 billion dollar investment in developing renewable energy products for domestic and export. They are investing in solar and wind, not coal.
These facts are not kumbaya butterfly and tree-hugger wishes.
All these are hard business facts, the kind the GOP purports to love.
Trump's rollback is purely payback to a handful of oligarchs providing financing for GOP candidates. It's not about making America stronger. It's not about American jobs.
Half the worlds PhDs in chemistry are working on battery technology. Half. It's a gold rush. Utilities are already installing battery storage for renewable energy because it's already cost-effective. Further large drops in price and improvements in efficiency are immanent.
Today there are nine times as many renewable energy jobs in the US as coal mining jobs. Real jobs that pay money.
Late last year China announced a three year, 300 billion dollar investment in developing renewable energy products for domestic and export. They are investing in solar and wind, not coal.
These facts are not kumbaya butterfly and tree-hugger wishes.
All these are hard business facts, the kind the GOP purports to love.
Trump's rollback is purely payback to a handful of oligarchs providing financing for GOP candidates. It's not about making America stronger. It's not about American jobs.
5
We have a President whose main life success , cheating banks and creditors for his failing and bankrupting business and while they try to save their money, they carry on President's business too. Trump's all bravado based on this particular hustle how he forced to banks rescue his business.
We are expecting from this president visionary things.
I believe we are really drinking too much kool aid.
We are expecting from this president visionary things.
I believe we are really drinking too much kool aid.
1
I spent 2 months in the heart of Yorkshire UK, coal country, in the late 80s,shorly after Margaret Thatcher broke the back of the British coal industry. The demise was pure economics - cheaper, cleaner energy sources were grabbing the market. (sound familiar ?) Thatcher was not going to subsidize miners (or anybody else.) Collieries were closed. Forever.
Arthur Scargill, the brave, esteemed leader of the miners union suffered agonizing defeat. People in the north freaked out (as much as the English can actually freak out)
Guess what happened after that ?
The air got way cleaner in the north, The tough miners found different ways to make a living. The world didn't end. England carried on.
Arthur Scargill, the brave, esteemed leader of the miners union suffered agonizing defeat. People in the north freaked out (as much as the English can actually freak out)
Guess what happened after that ?
The air got way cleaner in the north, The tough miners found different ways to make a living. The world didn't end. England carried on.
9
A few thousand jobs created at the sake of long term damage to the planet and its inhabitants. Mega profits for the coal industry, its lobbyists and crooked politicians. I'd say it's a great deal to be had if you're insane.
2
Yes, let's all get in a time machine. We can bring back segregation, and black lung disease, and polio, and the Shirtwaist Factory, and Amos and Andy, and let's bring back Goering, and Mussolini, and shall we go further back? Horse drawn carriages, the black plague? The Crusades?
3
i would like to propose a change in language. eliminate the phrase "believe in climate change". several commenters have used it regarding this article. to me belief has nothing to do with it..... we understand the science. we also understand what science is and we know that if you get 99% of all climate scientists agreeing? thats as close to certainty as science will ever get since science is constantly evolving and expanding. the deniers may default to their belief systems but that dies not make for a valid argument against the science of climate change.
3
At least market forces, and not the government's heavy and misguided hand, will come into play with the coal industry now.
It's appalling how news media reacted instantly of the death of Obama's energy "legacy".
In fact, that legacy was the finest example of how a few speeches, some cabinet appointments and a handful of conferences attended signaled to some people that Obama actually was doing something. Chief among these illusionist sleight-of-hand tricks was the hallowed Paris Agreement. This cornerstone to Obama's "legacy" was only ratified and became a reality four months ago. It has achieved nothing, much like the Obama mirage of energy policies.
It's appalling how news media reacted instantly of the death of Obama's energy "legacy".
In fact, that legacy was the finest example of how a few speeches, some cabinet appointments and a handful of conferences attended signaled to some people that Obama actually was doing something. Chief among these illusionist sleight-of-hand tricks was the hallowed Paris Agreement. This cornerstone to Obama's "legacy" was only ratified and became a reality four months ago. It has achieved nothing, much like the Obama mirage of energy policies.
Trump has done a disservice to the coal miners by creating a false hope and a diversion from dealing with the need to bring new industries and education to these economically devastated regions. His proposals and promises would be as unrealistic as bringing back kerosene lamps at the dawn of the invention of electricity. The energy industry ha moved on. Let's start producing wind turbines in Kentucky and West Virginia. Coal miners have the talent and tenacity to learn to build whatever is placed before them. Give them and the next generation a future. Don't send them back into the mines.
6
Perhaps Trump is our modern day Sisyphus -- absurd, deceitful, and self-aggrandizing. If there a god, and that god is both fair and witty, Trump will spend his eternity pushing coal up a mine shaft.
3
I'm afraid that the coal miners are going to find that there are other forces involved in the drop in coal jobs and this really is not going to help them. Perhaps they can benefit when Trump works on bringing back the buggy-whip industry.
5
Trump can pander to the coal industry all he wants, his roll back wont save or produce a single job.
The fact is that the coal industry has been on the decline for nearly 20 years as more energy is being produced from efficient, cheaper and cleaner natural gas. This disruption will continue. Coal is an inefficient energy source when compared to other resources and this is the cause of the industry's decline.
The fact is that the coal industry has been on the decline for nearly 20 years as more energy is being produced from efficient, cheaper and cleaner natural gas. This disruption will continue. Coal is an inefficient energy source when compared to other resources and this is the cause of the industry's decline.
5
Add this to the list of cruel, pathetic hoaxes promoted by America's latest entertainment industry president. Given the economic dynamics of cheap natural gas versus coal which investment bank or other financial backer is going to make a long term, significant investment in coal? None!
Why doesn't Trump put his money where his mouth is? That's also not going to happen.
How long can this country function with a government that fails to address real problems and operates on the basis on daily re-election campaign stunts?
A follow-up question. How soon before Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway start speaking in tongues? They are certainly edging closer by the minute.
Why doesn't Trump put his money where his mouth is? That's also not going to happen.
How long can this country function with a government that fails to address real problems and operates on the basis on daily re-election campaign stunts?
A follow-up question. How soon before Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway start speaking in tongues? They are certainly edging closer by the minute.
5
Just another object lesson to people that they are being lied to. The regulations will diminish and so will the coal sales. People in the industry or observing the industry will see that Trump and big business were wrong, and Obama had nothing to do with it. There will be industry-wide losses in transporting coal to power plants and homes, making machines that dig coal, making those little trains that carry it form the mines, making the tracks for those little trains, making the elevators, making the air-scrubbers at power plants, making headlamps, making picks and shovels, dynamite sales, fans, filters...
Who knew energy was complicated?
Who knew energy was complicated?
4
nuclear and coal (burned in the most modern plants, or at the least, with scrubbers of the most harmful pollutants) still make the most sense for the major baseload of american electric power production.
natural gas, largely fracked these days, may be the cleanest burning fossil fuel, but i sense that its production will drop off sharply within a few years. the discovery and production of frackable natural gas is very much a red queen's race. and although clean-burning at the end-point, it wreaks havoc to the land and water at its source.
while wind and solar have a certain limited place in the power supply, they are, due to their intermittency alone, quite grid unfriendly.
and every one of the above power sources has serious environmental trade-offs, that must be weighed and balanced against their benefits.
natural gas, largely fracked these days, may be the cleanest burning fossil fuel, but i sense that its production will drop off sharply within a few years. the discovery and production of frackable natural gas is very much a red queen's race. and although clean-burning at the end-point, it wreaks havoc to the land and water at its source.
while wind and solar have a certain limited place in the power supply, they are, due to their intermittency alone, quite grid unfriendly.
and every one of the above power sources has serious environmental trade-offs, that must be weighed and balanced against their benefits.
1
"while wind and solar have a certain limited place in the power supply, they are, due to their intermittency alone, quite grid unfriendly."
It's called "a battery". Keep up.
It's called "a battery". Keep up.
all batteries are not equal, maisany:
"There have been 200 million E.V.s sold in China already. They’re called electric bicycles, which cost about $400 — quiet, not contributing to congestion or pollution, and affordable.”
i've got one. with the current available battery technology, electric bicyles -- both pedal assist and full throttle -- are still the best transport innovation of the early 21st century.
"There have been 200 million E.V.s sold in China already. They’re called electric bicycles, which cost about $400 — quiet, not contributing to congestion or pollution, and affordable.”
i've got one. with the current available battery technology, electric bicyles -- both pedal assist and full throttle -- are still the best transport innovation of the early 21st century.
1
One major issues mpact of the effort to restore coal is a tremendous loss of US competitiveness in the near, medium and long term.
Technology advances and systemic innovation will proceed elsewhere and America will grow increasingly in irrelevant. Change is accelerating and even a small gap is difficult to overcome.
Technology advances and systemic innovation will proceed elsewhere and America will grow increasingly in irrelevant. Change is accelerating and even a small gap is difficult to overcome.
2
Now for mass transit: it's time to bring back the steam locomotive!
8
The WSJ had a better article along this line yesterday, so you're late with the news. The process of moving from coal to nat gas/renewables started over a decade ago and it is gradually working its way through the energy sector just fine, and likely, irrevocably. So we don't need draconian federal mandates, the market is fuctioning quite nicely, thank you.
Yes, government has no appreciable effect on markets or the economy. That's why private entities, including all sorts of industries from fossil fuels to pharmaceuticals and technology all spend millions lobbying in DC year after year.
Government has driven commerce and innovation throughout the history of this country, from the Erie Canal to the transcontinental railroad and space exploration and the development of the Internet. This is no different.
Government has driven commerce and innovation throughout the history of this country, from the Erie Canal to the transcontinental railroad and space exploration and the development of the Internet. This is no different.
If the US is now such a train wreck why is everyone and their dog still trying to get in? Why are people from all over the world risking life and limb to make the journey? The real story is not about clean or dirty coal it is about unfettered illegal immigration. It is not about air quality it is about American sovereignty. It won't be coal that brings the house down.
1 has nothing to do with the other!
Climate change has been going on for the past 30 million years in 30.000 year cycles of 18,000 cold, dry infertile years when glaciers 2 miles thick have covered most of the northern half of the Earth, and 12,000 warm, wet, years when those glaciers melt away and the Earth is fertile.
Of course, taking away enough heat from the Earth to cause such glaciers to form, and then producing enough heat to melt them away, takes an enormous amount of energy. There are 4 natural phenomena powerful to do that; they are the prime causes of Earth's climate change. Climate scientists have known and quantified these four causes for the past century. None of them is carbon dioxide. The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an agency of the UN that won the Nobel Prize in 2009 for this work, makes that clear on their web page.
Of course, in those thousand-year cycles are smaller, shorter hundred-year cycles that go either way. A thousand years ago, Leif Erikson named Greenland green because it was. The Earth was in a warmer mini-cycle that ended after about 400 years. In the 17th Century, Hans Brinker used his silver skates on Dutch canals that froze solid every winter. It was the 300 year Little Ice Age. It ended. They don't freeze that way any more.
We have been in one of the warm, wet, fertile Interglacials for about the last 12,000 years. It's going to end soon. Then a cold, infertile Earth will kill most of mankind, and most of our troubles will be over.
Of course, taking away enough heat from the Earth to cause such glaciers to form, and then producing enough heat to melt them away, takes an enormous amount of energy. There are 4 natural phenomena powerful to do that; they are the prime causes of Earth's climate change. Climate scientists have known and quantified these four causes for the past century. None of them is carbon dioxide. The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an agency of the UN that won the Nobel Prize in 2009 for this work, makes that clear on their web page.
Of course, in those thousand-year cycles are smaller, shorter hundred-year cycles that go either way. A thousand years ago, Leif Erikson named Greenland green because it was. The Earth was in a warmer mini-cycle that ended after about 400 years. In the 17th Century, Hans Brinker used his silver skates on Dutch canals that froze solid every winter. It was the 300 year Little Ice Age. It ended. They don't freeze that way any more.
We have been in one of the warm, wet, fertile Interglacials for about the last 12,000 years. It's going to end soon. Then a cold, infertile Earth will kill most of mankind, and most of our troubles will be over.
There has not been the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere for over 400,000 years https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Rob Godby, director of the Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy at the University of Wyoming, spoke on NPR about a month ago. He predicted that coal industry, at best, would increase production about 5%. Natural gas is cheaper and cleaner. The Appalachian coal is very expensive to mine and any increase in jobs (~600) would occur in the West, probably Wyoming and Appalachia could actually lose jobs.
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/20/516292269/as-trump-vows-to-grow-industry-c...
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/20/516292269/as-trump-vows-to-grow-industry-c...
5
Trump should have been born 200 years ago when coal and steam engines were cutting edge technology. Wake up, the world has moved on to cheaper, more efficient sources of energy. How about instead of walking backwards into the future, we implement a program to retrain former coal workers to be solar/wind farm techs and natural gas field workers. They'd probably get paid more and could avoid the health concerns that go along with being a coal miner.
4
I'm was lifted this morning when I opened the NYT Online front page to see the wall of coverage on energy and climate change policy. It was a breath of fresh air (hopefully more to come). This set of issues needs more authoritative main-stream coverage with the tone of importance that politics has recently enjoyed. Please continue to display energy and climate headlines on your front page on a daily basis.
3
I don't understand this obsession with coal and coal workers. Are we in the 19th century?
10
False promises to desperate miners equals votes. It is that simple. Deceit has always provided certain benefits to our President, and he has been granted a license to deceive thus far.
1
I have an idea. No more cellphones. Let's go back to switchboard operators.
2
Trump recommends using messengers to deliver things by hand.
I'm reminded of a bumper sticker from back in the 80s: "Earth First! ...we'll mine the other planets later."
Perhaps the biggest irony of DJT's idiotic move is that not only will it matter little in terms of bringing back coal-mining jobs, but it also means the US is acceeding whatever technological and industrial advantage we might have had in clean-energy sectors to our competitors. The Dumpster's frequent bellowing about China is all a bunch of hot air: China will be the biggest winner in this battle, and DJT just gave them all the ammunition they'll need.
Perhaps the biggest irony of DJT's idiotic move is that not only will it matter little in terms of bringing back coal-mining jobs, but it also means the US is acceeding whatever technological and industrial advantage we might have had in clean-energy sectors to our competitors. The Dumpster's frequent bellowing about China is all a bunch of hot air: China will be the biggest winner in this battle, and DJT just gave them all the ammunition they'll need.
5
What's next for Mr. Trump after bringing back coal jobs? The horse and buggy industry seems ripe for the picking!
4
Most politicians favor policies that promise immediate, positive results over longer-run, less dramatic, but more beneficial ones. Trump is no different. He seems to have a check list of simple but crude promises made to supporters that he is methodically trying to implement no matter the longer-run costs.
Compare his agenda and style with that of President Carter who forced through the Panama Canal Treaty and installed solar panels on the White House. The first was unpopular, the second was considered quixotic at the time.
President Carter never let his ego come between him and his job to the ultimate benefit of the American people.
Compare his agenda and style with that of President Carter who forced through the Panama Canal Treaty and installed solar panels on the White House. The first was unpopular, the second was considered quixotic at the time.
President Carter never let his ego come between him and his job to the ultimate benefit of the American people.
Hey, Second, where is the benefit to the American people of Carter's give-away of the Panama Canal?
I've been through the Canal dozens of times. It's expansion was scheduled to be opened in August, 2014, the hundredth anniversary of the first one. It still isn't finished. The first construction came in $50 million under budget. This one is billions over. Under US management, not a dollar of money was or could be diverted to anything other than canal operations, maintenance, or expansion. Now, Panama is taking hundreds of millions out for who knows what else. Not the canal.
Just how is that benefitting the American people?
Diogenes searched for the truth. What are you searching for?
I've been through the Canal dozens of times. It's expansion was scheduled to be opened in August, 2014, the hundredth anniversary of the first one. It still isn't finished. The first construction came in $50 million under budget. This one is billions over. Under US management, not a dollar of money was or could be diverted to anything other than canal operations, maintenance, or expansion. Now, Panama is taking hundreds of millions out for who knows what else. Not the canal.
Just how is that benefitting the American people?
Diogenes searched for the truth. What are you searching for?
Sooner or later we have to ask ourselves what can we do to reduce carbon burning. How many people campaign against fossil fuel and fly private jets? I made a decision to go solar on my house and produce 70% of my energy. What are you doing?
106
Agree. We have to walk the walk. I have a 5.7 kw system going up in a few weeks. We have to be the change we want to see.
2
I'm sitting in my house in Puerto Rico with no heating but the tropic sun and no air conditioning but the trade winds blowing through the screened windows. A blissful way to conserve energy!
1
what are they supposed to do? ride bikes across country to the gatherings? reduction is reduction, you don't have to cut the power to your house to work to reduce carbon emissions.
A few questions...
Why is it that large numbers of people, including most of the "governing" party and the chief executive, claim to disbelieve the settled scientific knowledge regarding global warming, aka climate change? Do they disbelieve the rest of scientific knowledge that has given us everything, for better or for worse, from MRIs to smart bombs? Do they believe the World is flat, or that mice are spontaneously generated by dirty old rags? Do they think we would be better off without science at all?
Reason itself is under attack, and as a result we are all at risk. What will Trump do if the EU decides to apply punitive tariffs to US products unless we live up to our responsibilities under the Paris agreement? Who will want to visit an America run by imbeciles? What leader will take our government seriously?
Trump's childish behavior in chosing to follow through on ill-considered campaign pledges rather than addressing the real needs of the nation is appalling. And the Republicans? Are they all cowards, every last one of them?
Why is it that large numbers of people, including most of the "governing" party and the chief executive, claim to disbelieve the settled scientific knowledge regarding global warming, aka climate change? Do they disbelieve the rest of scientific knowledge that has given us everything, for better or for worse, from MRIs to smart bombs? Do they believe the World is flat, or that mice are spontaneously generated by dirty old rags? Do they think we would be better off without science at all?
Reason itself is under attack, and as a result we are all at risk. What will Trump do if the EU decides to apply punitive tariffs to US products unless we live up to our responsibilities under the Paris agreement? Who will want to visit an America run by imbeciles? What leader will take our government seriously?
Trump's childish behavior in chosing to follow through on ill-considered campaign pledges rather than addressing the real needs of the nation is appalling. And the Republicans? Are they all cowards, every last one of them?
3
Let's just all make a commitment to live life backwards. It might make living under Trump easier. Wouldn't he love that? Surely that's what he's waiting for...
2
It's pretty simple. Over the past10 years renewable energy has grown 10x while coal has pulled back. Coal is far more expensive than Nat Gas, wind and solar and far more dangerous to extract. We should (as HRC correctly pointed out months ago) retrain the states involved in energy production to focus on alternative sources for creating new jobs.
This administration is dead set on turning back every dial in our collective national progress. It's not just climate change. It's social equality, education, tax reform, human rights and military.
We can only hope that Congress somehow changes in 2018 and we can claw back some oversight of the current operation in the WH. Granted, Trump and his family will have stolen billions by then but perhaps we can still save the Republic.
Dare to dream.
This administration is dead set on turning back every dial in our collective national progress. It's not just climate change. It's social equality, education, tax reform, human rights and military.
We can only hope that Congress somehow changes in 2018 and we can claw back some oversight of the current operation in the WH. Granted, Trump and his family will have stolen billions by then but perhaps we can still save the Republic.
Dare to dream.
4
Donald Trump is turning our country into a big joke! The coal industry is over and alternative energy is our future. Trump's actions will not bring back jobs to coal miners. He wanted their votes so he lied because that's what Trump does - he lies. America has almost always been the first to discover new innovations and has profited handsomely from that ability. This clown is now determined to tear down everything that President Obama achieved during his administrations and he doesn't care who or what his actions destroy. I only hope that the people who voted for Trump climb back up to reality and the republican politicians grow a conscience before he is allowed to do any more damage to our country and the planet.
2
We could throw stats up here all day. Nothing is more obvious than this: the jobs are in renewable energy now, and will most certainly be in renewable energy tomorrow.
But of course these policies are not about jobs. They're about rewarding the fossil fuel industry for helping the GOP win elections and entrench their majorities by championing gerrymandering and systematic disenfranchisement of certain demographics. This is cynical, cynical stuff - a tragic lack of perspective that is already destabilizing the very climate that enabled humanity to flourish.
For shame.
But of course these policies are not about jobs. They're about rewarding the fossil fuel industry for helping the GOP win elections and entrench their majorities by championing gerrymandering and systematic disenfranchisement of certain demographics. This is cynical, cynical stuff - a tragic lack of perspective that is already destabilizing the very climate that enabled humanity to flourish.
For shame.
364
Indeed, for shame, if, indeed, these people had any sense of shame. It seems they don't. All they know is greed.
Back in the 1970s, I took a class in the history of the union movement. The professor pointed out that John L. Lewis, the head of the United Mine Workers union, never fought to keep his slots the way other union leaders did (notably the Pullman workers who kept the slot long after the jobs ceased to exist). Lewis responded that his goal was to get every single worker OUT of the mines, even as he worked to protect his members and get them a living wage. Mining is dangerous work on every level. There has to be a way to train these men to do something safer with a higher salary.
1
The term "energy independence " is farcical. Independent from what? Prices are set globally. Because an energy company is U.S. based their level of production and pricing is somehow different? They base their decisions on some patriotic metric is delusional.
1
Coal is never coming back, nor are the jobs that go with it. The idea that it was regulatory overload that caused coal to decline is, moreover, a ridiculous fallacy. Coal has been declining for 50 years, due to cheaper fuels, automation and coal seams being played out. Why are we even talking about this? It's all smoke and mirrors. http://www.ohio.com/editorial/james-a-haught-what-really-happened-in-coa...
2
Why in 2017 does Donald Trump think that reviving the coal industry is good for America's economy? Surely he can't be so ignorant of current energy technology that he thinks coal has a future. It doesn't, at least not with the currently available technology. Even natural gas, which is so abundant today, will not be a major energy source at the end of this century. Coal is dead, and should remain so as long as it adds to greenhouse gases. The real source of economic opportunity is in the development of CLEAN energy that produces no greenhouse gases or nuclear waste. America will not be great with a president who wants to drag us back to the 19th Century. How could we have elected such an ignorant boob as the President?
The picture says a thousand words, mostly unsaid during the campaign. It isn't the evil government regulations that closed the Appalachian coal mines. The principal cause is cheaper alternative fuels among them surface mined coal from the Powder River Basin. The elimination of any number of government regulations by the Trump Administration isn't going to appreciably alter coal's economics. Appalachian mining will remain an expensive, dangerous endeavor and the unemployed miners will remain unemployed. And we will all have to suffer the consequences of a more compromised environment.
1
Just like the snake oil salesman that he is, Trump continues to play these miners for their support, knowing full well that these steps will restore only a handful of jobs at best. At some point the reality of their situation will hit them like a ton of coal. The longer Trump plays them along, the harder it will be when they have to find new work.
2
The miners have no one but themselves to blame. They could spend an hour or two a week reading or watching some actual news and educating themselves about their industry but they choose not to.
1
Trump is king of the modern American Luddites. They created a lot of drama storming the scary new factories in England and dismantling the new-fangled machinery that shifted England from an agrarian to an industrial giant, and that left jobs and lifestyles in its wake. But in time they were a passing news headline, its acolytes presumably having found other work, or resigned to grumbling in the pub. History remembers them as an annoying, but ultimately feckless, group that refused to accept change and was terrified of the future.
2
The picture of a line of coal-filled rail cars tells a truth that should awaken individuals in every state where they use electricity from coal fired plants, heat their homes with oil or natural gas, and know nothing about alternatives to these for whatever reason, unknown to me, alternatives also unknown to the Times.
Briefly: Those coal cars and the similar oil tanker cars should wake people up. Why transport all this stuff all over the USA?
Want to heat and cool: Choose heat pumps including Ground source geothermal (GSG) wherever possible.
Want to produce electricity? A natural resource is close by, solid waste, used as fuel in every city in Sweden as a renewable energy source better even than natural gas.
Put solar on top of every new apartment building, common in Sweden and in Australia a friend tells me. And keep trying to be a little bit more Denmark where wind turbines produce 42% of the electricity used in a year.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
Writing from a home heated by solid-waste incineration, next door to one heated by GSG, going to one heated by mostly by air-air heat pump all superior to your oil and natural gas systems.
Briefly: Those coal cars and the similar oil tanker cars should wake people up. Why transport all this stuff all over the USA?
Want to heat and cool: Choose heat pumps including Ground source geothermal (GSG) wherever possible.
Want to produce electricity? A natural resource is close by, solid waste, used as fuel in every city in Sweden as a renewable energy source better even than natural gas.
Put solar on top of every new apartment building, common in Sweden and in Australia a friend tells me. And keep trying to be a little bit more Denmark where wind turbines produce 42% of the electricity used in a year.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
Writing from a home heated by solid-waste incineration, next door to one heated by GSG, going to one heated by mostly by air-air heat pump all superior to your oil and natural gas systems.
4
Will Trump sign an EO on whale oil next week? I have a few nice oil lamps I've been waiting to use. And we don't need to save the whales, do we?
And the race to the bottom continues.
And the race to the bottom continues.
4
we should let whale hunting starts , I want my whale oil lamp again.
Make America Light with Whale Oil Lamps Again.
Make America Light with Whale Oil Lamps Again.
3
There are so many problems here. Do any of these coal mines worry about health insurance to treat the myriad of health problems connected to mining? Coal is not renewable so what future options are they setting up for their children and grandchildren when the coal is gone? They would be better off learning a new skill connected to clean energy, but they are too uneducated to see that as their best hope. Trump's "promise" is an empty one and they will continue to suffer, and to blame someone else for their misfortunes.
171
Back in the sixties I was employed in the Financial Aids Office of an Ivy League University. One day a distraught student, who had a full scholarship, came in to say that his father, who was a Pennsylvania coal miner, was urging him to give up his scholarship and return home and work in the coal mines one day a week! This was astounding! How could the father be so short-sighted and ignorant! Unfortunately, such thinking is still out there in Pennsylvania and other states! Fortunately the student did not give up his scholarship.
3
These *are* stubborn, uneducated people who would claim the real terms to describe them are "proud" and "patriotic." The truth? They are "dead men walking." Many of them are ill due to the occupation and hanging on by a thread -- that will break if a Trumpcare plan goes through -- and others have no options because they refuse to take other opportunities, move on, move out.
2
Coal is essentially dead, as are the jobs once associated with this particularly polluting industry.
Jobs in wind and solar are the driving force for the 21st century, far surpassing any "hope" of returning to coal. Good for us.
The larger issue is to be sure that President has demonstrated time and again that he is mentally incompetent. Yesterday at the White House, speaking to a collection of congressional members, he schizophrenically declared his intention to "reach out" and "work with Democrats" in an effort to "make America great again." He said this, after eight weeks of attempting to dismantle every policy implemented by Democrats for the last 20 years. He said this while feebly smiling and say "Hi, Chuck" to Senator Schumer as if they were fast friends.
There is something seriously wrong with this man.
There appears to be no specific Constitutional egress from this awful situation, there may be some targeted and novel legal approaches to undoing his authority.
Surely there are legal minds working in this regard, though there has been little media attention, particularly television media, to the glaring problem of this man's mental instability.
Please challenge the crazy, along with the complicity of Republicans in the United States House of Representatives.
Jobs in wind and solar are the driving force for the 21st century, far surpassing any "hope" of returning to coal. Good for us.
The larger issue is to be sure that President has demonstrated time and again that he is mentally incompetent. Yesterday at the White House, speaking to a collection of congressional members, he schizophrenically declared his intention to "reach out" and "work with Democrats" in an effort to "make America great again." He said this, after eight weeks of attempting to dismantle every policy implemented by Democrats for the last 20 years. He said this while feebly smiling and say "Hi, Chuck" to Senator Schumer as if they were fast friends.
There is something seriously wrong with this man.
There appears to be no specific Constitutional egress from this awful situation, there may be some targeted and novel legal approaches to undoing his authority.
Surely there are legal minds working in this regard, though there has been little media attention, particularly television media, to the glaring problem of this man's mental instability.
Please challenge the crazy, along with the complicity of Republicans in the United States House of Representatives.
3
I'd like to see the US create a Manhattan-style research/development project to bring back widespread use of horse carriages. Seems like it well past time to look to the past as we spin and twirl backwards into the future.
4
I forgot that before steam engine there were horses, that would be awesome.
2
Somebody help me: do we import coal? Because if we don't (and I'm pretty sure we don't), I don't know how Trump can say that boosting coal will lead to "energy independence." It's not like we're dependent on Saudi Arabia for the stuff, and, let's face it, it's not going to replace any other source of energy.
I feel sorry for coal miners in the same way that I feel sorry for people who made their living driving horse carriages or operating telegraph machines. But times change, technology advances, etc. We've got to advance, too. It's totally backwards to hold the rest of the world back because a relative handful of coal miners are bummed about losing their jobs.
I feel sorry for coal miners in the same way that I feel sorry for people who made their living driving horse carriages or operating telegraph machines. But times change, technology advances, etc. We've got to advance, too. It's totally backwards to hold the rest of the world back because a relative handful of coal miners are bummed about losing their jobs.
323
We do not import coal. We are even producing so much oil and gas that the energy companies want to export product. The path to total energy independence is to use less of it and move to renewables. Trump is against both of these paths.
2
Maybe they can get together with a few unemployed loggers from Aberdeen and sing Kumbaya.
I don't feel sorry for them at all anymore. They put this madman in office and they are the ones who refuse to find new careers.
3
Short term and outdated vision for Trump regarding energy policies. Long term consequences for the rest of us. Bad example for the rest of the world. This guy is so old school.
1
Senator Manchin is willing to make West Virginia a garbage dump.
Have you seen photos of mountaintop mining? - in which the entire tops of those beautiful West Virginia mountains is sheared off; giant open mines replace nature. In Southern West Virginia, where people are still waiting after fifty years for dirty coal to "come back," there is trash in the streams, heaps of mining waste that were never reclaimed, it's a big mess. the people don't own the land - outside companies do - and now those people have zero pride. they cling to some belief that they are "free," but their freedom is freedom from a good education, freedom from a good job, and freedom to pollute an otherwise absolutely gorgeous place.
They will get what they asked for, and they may never feel the loss, as they wait and wait for the mines to reopen, but it is a terrible loss. Trump is a terrible man, only interested in making a dollar for himself and his friends, kowtowing to the wealthy, and betraying the poor suckers who hoped he would help them.
Have you seen photos of mountaintop mining? - in which the entire tops of those beautiful West Virginia mountains is sheared off; giant open mines replace nature. In Southern West Virginia, where people are still waiting after fifty years for dirty coal to "come back," there is trash in the streams, heaps of mining waste that were never reclaimed, it's a big mess. the people don't own the land - outside companies do - and now those people have zero pride. they cling to some belief that they are "free," but their freedom is freedom from a good education, freedom from a good job, and freedom to pollute an otherwise absolutely gorgeous place.
They will get what they asked for, and they may never feel the loss, as they wait and wait for the mines to reopen, but it is a terrible loss. Trump is a terrible man, only interested in making a dollar for himself and his friends, kowtowing to the wealthy, and betraying the poor suckers who hoped he would help them.
4
I have heard that behind the scenes the Trump family is looking into coal fired cars and commercial vehicles. They are also looking into the process as a means to an entirely new job market. All those new coal fueled cars will need coal tenders to keep them supplied while on the road. Plus it will increase the demand for steam specialists skilled in steam driven vehicles. Not to mention the increase in smog related illness should be a huge boon to the medical industry.
1
Most people, including Republicans, know climate change is real. Most people understand that carbon in the atmosphere causes heat to be held in, instead of radiating back out into space. And lastly, most people know that at this time in the history of the Earth, humans are creating most of the carbon that is going into the atmosphere. By calling climate change a hoax, all trump is doing is placating a small segment of society, that in another era, would also swear that the earth is flat, Witches are real, and two of every animal actually did fit on one boat and there was a world wide flood.
The real reason for trump's attitude is the fossil fuel industry and its deep pockets. By relaxing regulations, these industries do not have to modernize or invest in clean technology. Therefore, the CEO's of these fossil fuel companies will get bigger bonuses. In return, these same industries will line the pockets of trump and congress.
It is my hope that most people will see these roll backs of the Paris accords for the blatant, hypocritical moves they are. Most people do not want their children to grow up in a world where the only blue skies and clean water are pictures in history books.
If you agree...ORGANIZE AND VOTE IN 2018 & 2020.
The real reason for trump's attitude is the fossil fuel industry and its deep pockets. By relaxing regulations, these industries do not have to modernize or invest in clean technology. Therefore, the CEO's of these fossil fuel companies will get bigger bonuses. In return, these same industries will line the pockets of trump and congress.
It is my hope that most people will see these roll backs of the Paris accords for the blatant, hypocritical moves they are. Most people do not want their children to grow up in a world where the only blue skies and clean water are pictures in history books.
If you agree...ORGANIZE AND VOTE IN 2018 & 2020.
4
Here in my home county, we have two power plants. One is a Depression-era coal fired plant. The coal is mined in southeast Ohio, a dirty, dangerous job. It is sent by train to the plant where it must be cleaned, sorted and crushed before being fed to the boilers. It produces significant air pollution and leaves toxic fly ash which must be disposed of. The other plant is fired by natural gas from a well on site. The gas travels via a short pipe to four gas turbine engines (similar to aircraft engines) and produces very little air pollution and no other byproducts. Which of these plants have a future?
5
If Trump wants to help coal miners and their families, protect their healthcare ensuring Big Coal provides them with medical insurance and retired health benefits and protect their pensions. None of which Big Coal has done for the last fifteen years, or longer.
5
Yes, Donald we are going to repeal; suspend; exorcise all of the evil rules enacted by Obama. Yes, we are going to allow coal mines to contaminate our drinking water and the air we breathe. All of this action is a sop the that boob from Kentucky Mitch McConnell so he can obtain huge payoffs from the coal companies in the guise of campaign donations. What amazes me it that the cola miners themselves fall for the glop. Who is drinking the water the mines contaminate, they are of course. Between the water and Mountain Dew most of their children will have no teeth by the time they are twelve. Coal is finished as a means of producing power in the United States. Miners, get over it, get Mitch M. to lobby for some job training programs to prepare you for working at Walmart.
3
Perhaps Trump can bring back lead in gasoline and lead in paint. Think how many lead mining and lead processing jobs would be created.
4
Money has no conscience. And neither does Trump.
4
If company profits are the goal of the Trump administration, why would anyone invest in an industry that will not yield high profits in a long term investment. Costs are high in coal mining. Profit, not so high. "As of January 1, 2016, EIA estimated that the remaining U.S. recoverable coal reserves totaled over 255 billion short tons, from a DRB of 477 billion short tons." Unknown costs to miners, their children, and to the environment are astronomical.
Gee it's too bad those Trump supporting miners don't bother to read any actual news.
2
We have to be more sympathetic to the coal miners, Trump supporters or not. They are being duped, just like the people who were swindled under the Trump University scam. They are desperate people being hoodwinked by this con man.
maisany - No, I don't have to be sympathetic to them. My parents lived through the great depression, they never used poverty as an excuse to be intellectually lazy or uninformed and they certainly never used it as an excuse to be ignorant bigots.
Trump supporters are happy to spend time and money watching Fox News and online right wing conspiracy theories, they could be using that time to educate themselves on the issues that impact them and their families.
Trump supporters are happy to spend time and money watching Fox News and online right wing conspiracy theories, they could be using that time to educate themselves on the issues that impact them and their families.
1
Wind power is already competitive with coal. The glorious market that the Republicans worship is driving the installation of wind generation. Solar panels continue to drop in price and are down to about $1 per watt. Tidal power is beginning to be developed as is offshore wind power. It's happening.
The last bridge to build is energy storage and there are promising technologies in the works. Lithium Ion batteries continue to improve and drop in price. The big breakthrough in utility class storage may come from what are called flow batteries. This is where huge tanks of water based chemicals are mixed in a device that produces electricity. Need more power, use bigger tanks. The chemicals don't wear out. This is the future.
Trump knows nothing of this and Pruitt probably doesn't either. They are stuck inside a Charles Dickens novel in 19th century England run by aristocrats and powered by coal. If they would watch PBS they would know about flow batteries but I'm sure they would rather die than do that.
Battery research is the holy grail of energy independence, not coal. No utility will build a new coal plant with gas so cheap and abundant. Coal has has its day and the market is replacing it. Now we have to wait for Trump to have had his day so we can let the markets push us forward.
The last bridge to build is energy storage and there are promising technologies in the works. Lithium Ion batteries continue to improve and drop in price. The big breakthrough in utility class storage may come from what are called flow batteries. This is where huge tanks of water based chemicals are mixed in a device that produces electricity. Need more power, use bigger tanks. The chemicals don't wear out. This is the future.
Trump knows nothing of this and Pruitt probably doesn't either. They are stuck inside a Charles Dickens novel in 19th century England run by aristocrats and powered by coal. If they would watch PBS they would know about flow batteries but I'm sure they would rather die than do that.
Battery research is the holy grail of energy independence, not coal. No utility will build a new coal plant with gas so cheap and abundant. Coal has has its day and the market is replacing it. Now we have to wait for Trump to have had his day so we can let the markets push us forward.
1
Three things have killed coal.
1. Natural gas a byproduct of fracking is cheaper, cleaner and can be moved at low risk and cheaply through pipelines.
2. There is no such thing as clean coal, unless the term is used to describe coal left in the ground undisturbed. It is dirty and dangerous to mine. It has associated gas which can lead to explosions while mining. In powdered form it add to mine explosions. Both ways it has killed many miners especially in underfunded mines that break safety rules. It contains trace amounts of heavy metals which are released on burning. It creates a toxic ash which must be stored forever, containing significant heavy metals. Clean coal is a branding and not a product.
3. Who wants to invest in either coal mines or generating plants that burn coal with these handicaps.
1. Natural gas a byproduct of fracking is cheaper, cleaner and can be moved at low risk and cheaply through pipelines.
2. There is no such thing as clean coal, unless the term is used to describe coal left in the ground undisturbed. It is dirty and dangerous to mine. It has associated gas which can lead to explosions while mining. In powdered form it add to mine explosions. Both ways it has killed many miners especially in underfunded mines that break safety rules. It contains trace amounts of heavy metals which are released on burning. It creates a toxic ash which must be stored forever, containing significant heavy metals. Clean coal is a branding and not a product.
3. Who wants to invest in either coal mines or generating plants that burn coal with these handicaps.
198
No one will invest in coal mining - especially not the 1%ers who are running our government now. As far as I know, Trump is the only government administrator wanting to revive the coal industry. Without any other input, it won't take long for the reality of a naturally dying coal industry to sink in... and it will happen long before midterms. There aren't enough coal miners to form a significant voting bloc... Trump's sole purpose for doing this is to get cheers at his coal country rallies.
1
Evidently one of trumps cabinet members is.
Follow the money. One of Trump's billionaire "no salary" advisors is set to make a ton of money from the regulations lift. I'm blanking out on his name unfortunately. So in a nutshell, this is all about Trump lining the pockets of one of his friends (again) and not about jobs or the environment.
1
The problem with the US coal miners is the competition from alternate energy sources and automation. Here is aninteresting (crazy) idea: how about converting the US navy ships to coal? But seriously, like Trump's other campaign promises, this one will end in a disappointing disaster.
1
Gee, thanks, so called "Green Party".
Your ego driven self importance takes priority over the planet in every election.
Shame.
Your ego driven self importance takes priority over the planet in every election.
Shame.
3
Trump needed the votes so he callously promised to return coal jobs. He cares not a bit about the coal miners and to act as if he does shows how how uses people for his own good. He revels in the cheers and attention. To lie to these desperate miners and their families is beyond the pale.
1
A few jobs for a little while, but at what cost? I hope those miners' employers offer health insurance. They are going to need it and we all know Trump won't help them.
2
This is a "going backwards" regime, as an uninformed candidate, Trump spouted about anything and everything, he is now trying to make these promises good. It's noble, but most if not all of his goals are 25 yrs old, have been tried, failed or have been bypassed, thus rendering the current effort void
It sounds great, keeps your ego in check, but its entirely for nothing.
Only Trump benefits, no one else.......
Too bad for us, when he leaves office, taxpayers will have to foot the bill to fix everything, funding that could have gone into a workable "new" idea
It sounds great, keeps your ego in check, but its entirely for nothing.
Only Trump benefits, no one else.......
Too bad for us, when he leaves office, taxpayers will have to foot the bill to fix everything, funding that could have gone into a workable "new" idea
2
Let's get serious about promoting coal: tax credits for residential coal furnaces.
I'm sure every suburban neighborhood will look forward to dump trucks delivering the coal, a coal pile in the backyard, and soot covering their patios and the cars in their driveways.
As an added bonus, that soot might also cover up a few nearby solar panels.
Full speed back to the 19th century!
I'm sure every suburban neighborhood will look forward to dump trucks delivering the coal, a coal pile in the backyard, and soot covering their patios and the cars in their driveways.
As an added bonus, that soot might also cover up a few nearby solar panels.
Full speed back to the 19th century!
Trump is guilty of crimes against humanity. He is destroying our children's future, he is devastating our beautiful planet.
4
This effort is about as useful as investing in the cotton gin. For somebody who claims to be the pinnacle of success in business, he doesn't seem to study trends... maybe he doesn't read anything.
2
I wonder if Trump and his advisors ever though of the fact that by pulling back these regulations, they are effecting the air and water of their children and grandchildren. Do they even care?? It's appalling. Not to mention, it won't bring that many jobs because machines are doing a lot of the work for coal miners nowadays.
198
They don't care one iota. Never will.
4
They don't care. What happens to the next generation is of no concern.
4
Their children and grandchildren will not be affected by bad air and water. They'll drink water imported from Fiji and they will live in areas far from any industrial zones. They can always arrange for them to live in a plastic, airconditioned bubble! The rest of us? Not so much.
2
Well dear folks, the effects of rapid climate change have been marching steadily and destructively forward with each passing year. Crazy winter storms in the west. Record rainfall in Oregon with no end in sight. Wildfires burning earlier in the South and elsewhere. Tornado season starting earlier and earlier. Record high temps starting earlier throughout the country. Miami going full speed ahead with plans for huge city pumps to keep the ocean out. And these things are just the updates from the US. Imagine the rest of the world.
I don't care what kind of hyperbole TrumpThink is pushing. If we don't act to change most of our old ways no amount of political grandstanding to the
ill-informed will save us.
I don't care what kind of hyperbole TrumpThink is pushing. If we don't act to change most of our old ways no amount of political grandstanding to the
ill-informed will save us.
8
Some other factors regarding the forces against coal that reinforce this article.
1. Following are trends of generation by fuel from 2007-2016. Coal -40%, Oil -75%, Natural Gas +65%, Nuclear NC, Solar +6,000%.
2. Coal plants are closing because of age, and cost to maintain.
3. Combined Cycle plants (Natural Gas) are the go to power plant, relatively easy to license and build.
4. Solar is still in the first gear but is making great strides. And utilities are acquiring them.
5. Utilities are always skeptical to build coal or nuclear. Regulatory bodies are constantly changing the rules. It’s happening right now and when the Democrats get back in power, it will change again.
6. According to the National Energy Test Lab (NETL) a department of EPA; no coal fired facilities are forecast between 2018-2035
Coal is on its way out in the U.S. and no rollback of the Clean Power Plan is going to ever change that.
1. Following are trends of generation by fuel from 2007-2016. Coal -40%, Oil -75%, Natural Gas +65%, Nuclear NC, Solar +6,000%.
2. Coal plants are closing because of age, and cost to maintain.
3. Combined Cycle plants (Natural Gas) are the go to power plant, relatively easy to license and build.
4. Solar is still in the first gear but is making great strides. And utilities are acquiring them.
5. Utilities are always skeptical to build coal or nuclear. Regulatory bodies are constantly changing the rules. It’s happening right now and when the Democrats get back in power, it will change again.
6. According to the National Energy Test Lab (NETL) a department of EPA; no coal fired facilities are forecast between 2018-2035
Coal is on its way out in the U.S. and no rollback of the Clean Power Plan is going to ever change that.
5
The fires of hell will consume this country because those who believe the way to protect their precious 20th Century way of life are the policies of Trump & Bannon.
I believe Trump's doing these destructive things to wipe out Obama's legacy because Obama humiliated him at the W.H. Correspondents Dinner. When Richard Branson had lunch w/ Trump years ago, Trump spent the whole time telling Branson (who he'd never met) he was going to spend the rest of his life 'destroying' the 5 people who wouldn't loan him money when he was bankrupt. Branson was appalled at Trump's rage.
Everyone says Trump's no idealogue. He's busy monetizing the presidency so he can rake in $$$ at his cheesy resorts. Beyond that, what motivates Trump?
Trump's insane. REALLY insane. & he has nothing better to do than wipe out any trace Obama was ever president.
Trump's spent his life stealing from & punishing people, suing & defrauding. For months he used NYC tabloids to publicly humiliate his 1st wife when he got mad at her. He didn't care the scandal traumatized his young children.
That tweet last month? Wait & see if Trump tries to put Obama in prison. Trump told Hillary to her face on live tv that he was going to put her in prison. People apparently didn't take that seriously. They should have.
If we don't get rid of him, Trump will destroy this country.
Don't doubt it. The horse is out of the barn.
I believe Trump's doing these destructive things to wipe out Obama's legacy because Obama humiliated him at the W.H. Correspondents Dinner. When Richard Branson had lunch w/ Trump years ago, Trump spent the whole time telling Branson (who he'd never met) he was going to spend the rest of his life 'destroying' the 5 people who wouldn't loan him money when he was bankrupt. Branson was appalled at Trump's rage.
Everyone says Trump's no idealogue. He's busy monetizing the presidency so he can rake in $$$ at his cheesy resorts. Beyond that, what motivates Trump?
Trump's insane. REALLY insane. & he has nothing better to do than wipe out any trace Obama was ever president.
Trump's spent his life stealing from & punishing people, suing & defrauding. For months he used NYC tabloids to publicly humiliate his 1st wife when he got mad at her. He didn't care the scandal traumatized his young children.
That tweet last month? Wait & see if Trump tries to put Obama in prison. Trump told Hillary to her face on live tv that he was going to put her in prison. People apparently didn't take that seriously. They should have.
If we don't get rid of him, Trump will destroy this country.
Don't doubt it. The horse is out of the barn.
8
I have a message for coal industry employees, the businesses involved in coal mining, processing, transporting coal burning coal for energy, investment bankers on Wall Street and investors in the coal industry:
You are involved in an environmental criminal enterprise. With the exception of certain aspects of the coal tar based petrochemical products that cannot be otherwise accomplished there is no excuse for the use of any form of coal or coal byproducts for the production of energy or chemical in today's world.
Coal mining is dangerous to the physical and mental health of its practitioner, economicly unsustainable and tremendously environmentally distructive. Distructive not only to the local environment (coal miners look around you, you cannot deny you are destroy your own environment) but destructive to the stability of the global climate.
In my opinion President Trump and the Republican Congress are guilty of being complicit in the coal industry's environmental crimes and should be impeached and removed from public office for their criminal actions.
You are involved in an environmental criminal enterprise. With the exception of certain aspects of the coal tar based petrochemical products that cannot be otherwise accomplished there is no excuse for the use of any form of coal or coal byproducts for the production of energy or chemical in today's world.
Coal mining is dangerous to the physical and mental health of its practitioner, economicly unsustainable and tremendously environmentally distructive. Distructive not only to the local environment (coal miners look around you, you cannot deny you are destroy your own environment) but destructive to the stability of the global climate.
In my opinion President Trump and the Republican Congress are guilty of being complicit in the coal industry's environmental crimes and should be impeached and removed from public office for their criminal actions.
4
How refreshing that in an era when knowledge is so readily available we have a President so opposed to enlightenment. Market forces have repeatedly demonstrated a gross reluctance to affect change that protects our environment. When the EPA was created 45 years ago the vision and the justification were clear. People were dying, rivers had caught fire, cities were choking in smog. Positive changes were realized because the federal government drove them. Today, in the name of climate change denial, our air, water, soil and overall health are in danger. President Trump is beating his chest espousing job creation and energy independence as magical elixirs. They are not. Coal mining is a perilous profession that no one should be promoting as a "good job". And "energy independence" is another meaningless Trump abstraction meant to curry favor with his nationalist base. This is what happens when a child is elected President. Childish actions are taken. Not just by our President, but by the fools who are presently driving up coal stocks. We are our own worst enemy.
7
Please define clean coal - old coal fired plants won't be shutting down - their pollution including mercury will continue to pollute. The pollution is carried north to Canada . The pall that covers the continent comes from human pollution. Trump is contributing to that. Incidentally Wyoming, Paul Ryan's home state, is the largest producer of coal. Fortunately utility companies will be driven by economical concerns. States will be driven by environmental concerns and the losers will be the miners. No retraining, no education, no jobs!
4
Tell the miners what they want to hear, get their votes, and then pick their wallets clean on behalf of the billionaire class, all the while paternalistically patting their heads and whispering, "It's all coming back, you'll see," privately marveling at how easy it is to get away with it all.
Coal country is measurably, demonstrably lacking in literacy levels, while excelling at teen pregnancy, obesity, and smoking rates, and Republicans are taking full advantage of the lack of intellectual evolution in the "hollers" and company towns.
Meanwhile, the miners sneer and scorn Hillary Clinton's plans for free college and free job training in renewable energy sectors as they wait in pathetic earnest for coal to stick around indefinitely, as though it went away only by some mean-spirited revenge wave of a liberal magic wand, and is about to be brought back by the wave of a wand from a billionaire who hasn't ever had to draw his own bath or drive himself anywhere.
You really have to kind of hand it to the Republicans Party for successfully convincing the miners that their plight is a priority of the billionaire class, and that anything socialized is the work of the Devil.
Coal country is measurably, demonstrably lacking in literacy levels, while excelling at teen pregnancy, obesity, and smoking rates, and Republicans are taking full advantage of the lack of intellectual evolution in the "hollers" and company towns.
Meanwhile, the miners sneer and scorn Hillary Clinton's plans for free college and free job training in renewable energy sectors as they wait in pathetic earnest for coal to stick around indefinitely, as though it went away only by some mean-spirited revenge wave of a liberal magic wand, and is about to be brought back by the wave of a wand from a billionaire who hasn't ever had to draw his own bath or drive himself anywhere.
You really have to kind of hand it to the Republicans Party for successfully convincing the miners that their plight is a priority of the billionaire class, and that anything socialized is the work of the Devil.
921
On the Bill Maher show last week, Bill showed a photograph of an ordinary looking "Joe" holding a sign that read "I made a huge mistake" - referring to his vote for Trump. That guy should be applauded to have the courage to come forward and admit something that no one can easily admit - an embarrassing fact, that they have been conned by a huckster like Trump and his flunkies like Paul Ryan.
6
Trump has used this issue to show his "compassion" from the star of his campaign. The coal miners problems are the rallying cry for all the other rednecks in America.
3
I would think coal miners would want better jobs for future generations. I didn't agree with Clinton's plan for FREE education to retrain them (people tend to take advantage of anything "free"), but would have welcomed the opportunity if I was a coal miner.
Coal is archaic, literally and figuratively. Our political environment has kept state and federal elected officials from being honest with miners. Coal is in its death throws and has been for some time. We waste billions on unjustified wars when we could have been retraining workers, bringing infrastructure and the where-with-all to create new industries in the coal regions, but for a lack of political courage. There may be some restarting for coal, but there will be about as much chance of full coal revival as there is of cotton becoming "King" again here in the South.
279
The rich backer Koch brothers and their slimy ilk, the spineless greedy toads in the republican congress and the idiotic red state voters that think this will help them are responsible. Hillary in her often quoted "deplorables" speech, taken out of context, said if elected she would retrain all the coal workers so they could be part of a 21st century economy. But greed and stupidity rules out! Trump will be the ruination of us all.
6
Trying to bring back the coal industry could be considered "the buggy whip of the 21st century", or like giving a shot of morphine to a patient in hospice. What's painful is that the affected areas of the country need educational/training opportunities, and job investment by corporations, and these appear nowhere to be seen.
2
Look up "throes"
1
What it is is a pointless, short-sighted political distraction with the potential to slow and disrupt progress toward a greener future. Thanks for nothing Trumpsters.
6
The idea that we have to invest in an antiquated, dirty source of energy simply because coal miners need jobs is ridiculous. It's time to move on and into the future, not backwards. The energy industry would like to hold us all hostage because they can't easily make a quick buck by investing in cleaner sources of fuel and energy. They want to prolong the status quo for their own selfish interests.
5
West Virginia encompasses many areas of stunning scenic and natural beauty. Investment in tourism and hospitality that could bring in money and jobs, rather than placating a giant waning industry and a few thousand workers for a relatively brief period of time, might be a prudent move towards the state's future.
4
As long as fossils remain in positions of governance, we can expect them to cling to the fossils of the past. Let this be a call to our young innovators and thinkers to opt for positions of local and federal leadership. If you want a planet in your future, you had better get involved now.
I am just concerned by our optimism for consumer solar. It is NOT comparably priced yet, communities are not wired to share, and Trump will cut back on needed infrastructure and tax incentives. As a young GenX homeowner, I cannot say with confidence that I will be in my house for a decade, so don't come at me with the "it pays for itself in 10-15yrs" argument. We went with gas. Yes, we WANT renewable energy. Demand is high, but market forces in energy have always had the government thumb on the scale, picking winners and losers. With a coal president, this is a defeat. I don't understand why we're gloating unless our states on the coast step up.
Coal miners: better get your opioid orders in now. You're going to need them.
5
45 governs as if he's on a permanent campaign.
As for the miners surrounding him yesterday - do you realize how manipulated you were?
As for the miners surrounding him yesterday - do you realize how manipulated you were?
6
No, stupid is as stupid does.
3
"Policy Shift Helps Coal, but Other Forces May Limit Effect" and by 'other forces' you mean reality?
12
Easy makes you stupid. Coal is easy. Trump is stupid.
6
Destroy the earth to prop up a few coal miners in wVA, makes sense. Duh.
6
Message to Mr. Trump and his followers - "It's 2017....wish you were here."
18
The Emperor has no clothes!
~ Cue laugh line~
~ Cue laugh line~
2
Are there that many coal miners (RE: votes) in this country that this administration is willing to risk the PLANET for?
5
Next he will endorse the buggy whip makers, coopers, and adding machine repairmen. Economics drives all decisions, and the future of coal is bleak regardless of NOT MY PRESIDENT's actions.
11
Make America POLLUTED Again?
What a horrible, horrible president.
For the sake of a few (unproven) jobs he is gutting our protections, when our 'green' jobs were growing.
He'll see to that our air & water is polluted and wants belching-Sulphur spewing factories.
This is a NIGHTMARE of historic proportions.
What a horrible, horrible president.
For the sake of a few (unproven) jobs he is gutting our protections, when our 'green' jobs were growing.
He'll see to that our air & water is polluted and wants belching-Sulphur spewing factories.
This is a NIGHTMARE of historic proportions.
7
No worries - everything is wonderful, everything is great, everyone will have a job, everyone will have healthcare, great healthcare...
===================
Your friends at Creedmoor....
===================
Your friends at Creedmoor....
2
"Make America Dirty Again" seems to have become Mr. Trump's new slogan. My father, who grew up in pre-World War II NYC, used to reminisce about how dirty the city was, with coal soot everywhere, the smell of horse manure, dirty water, etc. And I remember in my own lifetime when a river caught fire, and when even as late as the 1970s we had regular pollution alerts in the summer and warnings to stay indoors with air conditioning running. This is the coal-fueled world our retrogressive "leader" would return us to.
436
And while we breathe the toxic air. Trump will be golfing at his summer white house. What is wrong with this picture?
2
let's party like it's 1899! there are only a few things that matter to the fake president and his immoral political party: personal glorification, personal profit, power, and dismantling every trace of "the black guy." the rest of the country that doesn't fulfill those goals can go to hell.
6
So ridiculous. Automation is killing coal mining jobs, just as it is in other industries. Wax and whale oil became obsolete, and we moved on. Green renewable energy is here. It's accessible, and you can't halt progress. Sadly, DT's budget proposal would cut programs intended to retrain people for future jobs. Meanwhile, we know that burning fossil fuels has a horrible impact on the environment.
7
What an incredibly sad time this is. Depressing just to get up in the morning and read the news.
11
This is like the emperor's clothes, he was naked. COAL MINERS, COAL IS NOT COMING BACK IN THE U.S. What you should be fighting for is training and education for new jobs and opportunities. Yes, you may have to leave West Virginia. We have all made compromises. I am so confused. Why do these people not understand this? Don't they want their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren to have more opportunities than they had? Black lung for everyone! Yay!
13
And when the mines collapse and they are trapped, we can just say life is like a metaphor....You reap what you sow.
1
Remember when trump told Al Gore that he would be open minded about climate change? By now, there shouldn't be one person in the United States, the English speaking world and beyond, who believes anything, ANYTHING, he says.
9
This was the most selfish act anyone could have done. The only reason for this was a photo op so that he can show his base he delivered on a campaign promise. Those jobs are never coming back. Coal is never coming back, not when renewable are exploding and companies like Tesla are offering you ways to store your electricity. I can't wait for Mar a Lago to be under water from climate change.
7
What a deal. Trump dismantles clean air and water protections, and guts US efforts to fight global warming, all to favor a dying industry. Yes, folks, this is the man who couldn't profitably run a casino.
10
Just more smoke sent up Trump and the GOP, using the romantic (pre-automation) image of coal miners as a distracting front for policies intended to benefit (Koch, Mercer, etc.) billionaires and the climate-change denial industry they fund.
2
An easy campaign promise to fulfill but in typical Republican fashion creates nothing for the future.
32
"A recent report from Morningstar, which provides investment research, concluded that state mandates would continue to push the growth of renewables, and that efficiency upgrades in technology to generate natural gas would make it even harder for aging coal plants to compete."
Thank the Lord. Ironic that the "free market" as well as state's rights might just actually mitigate the impact of a regulatory rollback that would normally strike terror in the hearts of all those who believe in climate science.
This article tells me that when it comes to green technologies and replacement of 'dirty' energy, that ship has sailed. About the only thing left that this article didn't touch on is the potential environmental impact of pipeline leaks--the very consequences so highly protested for the Dakota pipeline project.
We may be spared the greatest danger from regulatory rollback, and we may see our image as an environmental leader fail globally, but we will not be spared the inevitable consequences of continued dirty energy: leaks and oil rig accidents.
Whenever I see all those happy ads about jobs coming to the Gulf as smiling hardhats sing, all I can think of is the BP explosion and all those dead birds, along with tar, littering the Gulf shoreline.
Time will tell.
Thank the Lord. Ironic that the "free market" as well as state's rights might just actually mitigate the impact of a regulatory rollback that would normally strike terror in the hearts of all those who believe in climate science.
This article tells me that when it comes to green technologies and replacement of 'dirty' energy, that ship has sailed. About the only thing left that this article didn't touch on is the potential environmental impact of pipeline leaks--the very consequences so highly protested for the Dakota pipeline project.
We may be spared the greatest danger from regulatory rollback, and we may see our image as an environmental leader fail globally, but we will not be spared the inevitable consequences of continued dirty energy: leaks and oil rig accidents.
Whenever I see all those happy ads about jobs coming to the Gulf as smiling hardhats sing, all I can think of is the BP explosion and all those dead birds, along with tar, littering the Gulf shoreline.
Time will tell.
42
Hoping for the return of coal as a source of energy is like waiting for Trump to become a liberal.
26
Trump will be anything that strokes his ego. He only wants to be in the news. I would not be surprised if he would turn around after tearing down all rules and regulations of the Obama era and then implementing them again. Just to remain in the news.
2
Actually Trump has switched political parties back and forth about a half dozen times.
Trump is neither a conservative or a liberal. Trump is whatever is best at the moment for Trump's personal business and fortune. Nothing else matters.
2
Mr. Trump keeps saying clean coal, an oxymoron, there is yet to be such a thing, But there is methane an d other gasses in coal that can be fracked. Mr. Trump needs an education and needs to surround himself with educated people that can create programs that can help Appalachia.
Opening federal lands to more coal in the west certainly won't help miners in W.Va.
Opening federal lands to more coal in the west certainly won't help miners in W.Va.
36
NYT should have at least asked if coal companies have made strides to burn cleaner. I have been at conferences where I've been told that this is the case, but that Lisa Jackson EPA did not want to hear it. Coal is an important part of the energy mix. It's time the industry stop being demonized
The canary in the Whitehouse died weeks ago. I wonder how coal miners with long-term health issues will fare under the new administration?
667
Why, die, of course.
Black lung disease is their problem, not Trump's.
Black lung disease is their problem, not Trump's.
7
And with no healthcare.
3
Better than they will fare in hospitals powered by the wind and the sun, when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining and they are cold and dark and nothing works.
Try to be part of the real world, not your comic-book fantasy land.
Try to be part of the real world, not your comic-book fantasy land.
The eco-systems future is not assured, despite many peoples labors. Quite the opposite. Conference after conference - the future is bleak.
We need all hands to the deck. And in the white house we have a shonky salesman who doesnt read, believe in science or tell the truth.
This is the last straw the rock bottom. A switch from renewables from coal may not be enough, but to go back to coal is insanity.
We need all hands to the deck. And in the white house we have a shonky salesman who doesnt read, believe in science or tell the truth.
This is the last straw the rock bottom. A switch from renewables from coal may not be enough, but to go back to coal is insanity.
14
Coal usage in the US peaked 100 years ago, where has tRump been?
15
I can't help but think that Trump is and-American. That he is a traitor to his own country and to the world. Perhaps I am extreme, but this is how I feel and think.
11
Trump is anti humanity. He is quite possibly one of the most odious beings the world ever produced and will be remembered as such.
5
Disappointing? No this is devastating. Parents tell your toddlers they are doomed because the adults voted for a Moron
94
I don't think 'Moron' deserves to be capitalized.
1
The damage to the country and the world from having a climate change denying, uninformed, excessively profit oriented POTUS will be great; nowhere more evident than when it comes to climate change and energy policy. Trump will be dead, despised, and forgotten when the effects of his petulant decisions empact future generations. All hail the myopic Donald and his profound ignorance.
16
Bring back them good horse jobs Donny Tiny Hands!
11
I can't believe that the NYT editors permitted a news story that put in the lead whole hog the right wing narrative that the objective of the energy industry is more jobs. Did the editors miss the article in the NYT a few weeks ago about how the oil industry is cutting jobs left and right? The alternative sources of energy create just as many jobs. The NYT editors permitted one of its reporters to follow the new right narrative on Iraq WMD -- which turned out to be false -- and got us into a war on false pretenses -- which it has regretted ever since. You have to do better.
27
The human and environmental impacts on energy use are global. For example, your reporters cover the ecological and human health costs of the coal fired economy in China. A side effect of 'off-shoring' heavy industrial production has been to reduce America's need for coal and iron ore and so on.
It is equally a fantasy to talk about 'clean' energy. For twelve years I lived in the middle of an oil field in Central Texas. Subsidence was a real problem, especially with hydraulic fracking. Roads were constantly being repaved and homes experienced cracking foundations. Extracting volumes of material from beneath the surface always comes with consequences. Similarly wind turbine farms stress the surface as wind force is transmitted down the tower and into their foundations. The rotating blades are not kind to birds. Nuclear energy? Don't even go there in terms of environmental impact of nuclear waste.
Wise public policies should focus on supporting a mix of energy sources while encouraging science to find as yet unknown ways of extracting energy from our environment.
It is equally a fantasy to talk about 'clean' energy. For twelve years I lived in the middle of an oil field in Central Texas. Subsidence was a real problem, especially with hydraulic fracking. Roads were constantly being repaved and homes experienced cracking foundations. Extracting volumes of material from beneath the surface always comes with consequences. Similarly wind turbine farms stress the surface as wind force is transmitted down the tower and into their foundations. The rotating blades are not kind to birds. Nuclear energy? Don't even go there in terms of environmental impact of nuclear waste.
Wise public policies should focus on supporting a mix of energy sources while encouraging science to find as yet unknown ways of extracting energy from our environment.
2
Wind power is rather transmitted down the tower? Which types of wind turbines are you familiar with? Many of the turbines I have directly stood under (on their staircases) have had no such issue...
1
I believe you should pay for what you get. That's why extracting/burning fossil fuel should incur a tax payment--because right now, when you burn coal or whatever, you are dumping a pollutant that costs OTHER PEOPLE REAL MONEY into the common air.
PAY for what you GET. That is capitalism. Dumping CO2 for free is SOCIALISM.
PAY for what you GET. That is capitalism. Dumping CO2 for free is SOCIALISM.
41
Its like when we tried that whole automobile thing and were like nah.... bring back horses, it will be great!!!
89
Here's one view from Wyoming, by far the leading state in coal production.
Coal shipments will slowly but surely continue to decrease in volume, due mostly to regular market forces. Trump's order will have only a little effect upon the industry's long-term business decisions.
The main consequence of Trump's order? Falsely raising the expectations of miners that the industry is going to return to what it once was. It's not gonna happen.
Coal shipments will slowly but surely continue to decrease in volume, due mostly to regular market forces. Trump's order will have only a little effect upon the industry's long-term business decisions.
The main consequence of Trump's order? Falsely raising the expectations of miners that the industry is going to return to what it once was. It's not gonna happen.
107
The only ones to benefit from Trump's actions are the Wyoming coal industry and the rich people who own it. Kentucky, West Virginia, the only way the remnants of your coal industry could compete is if the federal government banned fracking completely. There wasn't a chance of that, even under Obama.
3
Trump has quite a plan. Put coal miners back to work and cut their entitlement to black lung benefits from Obamacare.
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Whatever works, amiright?
2
"Back to work" won't happen - the technology they are still waiting for after fifty years is obsolete, and the coal is too dirty for anyone but China.
3
It's brilliant really, no worries about unemployment because they'll be dead.
I hope the NYT interviews these miners in the coming years and asks them about their support for Trump and co.
I hope the NYT interviews these miners in the coming years and asks them about their support for Trump and co.
4
We now know America was great again sometime before 1950 when coal was our largest energy source. Look for deregulation of the steam industry next.
28
It would have been cheaper and much better for the miners to offer them early retirement and let the industry continue to shrink. I would gladly would have supported legislation that would allowed the miners to retire early with full benefits. All Trump has done is to prolong their agony because coal is not going to make a comeback.
86
Here here! This is not the first time I've heard this idea. I agree 100 %.
2
Exactly, Bradford. Let's just pay them off and get them out of the way so the rest of us can move on.
1
A couple hundred years ago, some of New England's forests were cut down to make charcoal for local iron smelters. When the trees and ironworks were gone, I am sure many charcoal makers rued the loss of their smoky way of life. They were forced to move on to other jobs, maybe buggy whip making or buffalo hunting or blacksmithing. Of course those ways of life didn't last forever either. As cleaner, more environmentally friendly energy becomes cheaper and cheaper, what is the argument to keep using coal, nostalgia? As a nation we need to look forward, not backward. Coal had its time, and now it is time to move on.
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And before all that the sons of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts were whalers supplying the country with whale oil for their lamps. Maybe Trump now plans to bring back all those lost whaling jobs. Good Grief!
5
Even if you don't believe in climate change, one should look at it from a different angle.
Lowing carbon emissions, pollution etc. helps with clean air. If you don't believe that go to the big cities in China or even in Europe like Warsaw, Paris etc.
Having said that, a ration policy of slowly phasing out/lowering fossil fuels and changing to renewables is the way to go.
Unfortunately in this country you have zealots on both sides that are only interested in ideology or being a demagogue like the radical tree huggers on the left or the ego maniac, pathological lying demagogue Trump.
Both sides are not interested in solving the problem.
Lowing carbon emissions, pollution etc. helps with clean air. If you don't believe that go to the big cities in China or even in Europe like Warsaw, Paris etc.
Having said that, a ration policy of slowly phasing out/lowering fossil fuels and changing to renewables is the way to go.
Unfortunately in this country you have zealots on both sides that are only interested in ideology or being a demagogue like the radical tree huggers on the left or the ego maniac, pathological lying demagogue Trump.
Both sides are not interested in solving the problem.
7
If you are talking about clean air, you're talking about carbon in the air, not carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is colorless, odorless, and tasteless, an essential part of the life-cycle on Earth. It is not a pollutant.
Carbon is. It's smoke, a part of smog, the gray grime that fills the air we have to breathe. It is the essence of the filth that blocks our sight and blocks our breathing. It also blocks the sunlight from reaching the Earth's surface.
It is filth, but it does not warm the Earth. By blocking sunlight, it cools it.
If you want clean air, carbon is your enemy. But if you want to prevent global cooling, it is not your enemy. It is your ally.
Isn't the truth an awful load?
Carbon is. It's smoke, a part of smog, the gray grime that fills the air we have to breathe. It is the essence of the filth that blocks our sight and blocks our breathing. It also blocks the sunlight from reaching the Earth's surface.
It is filth, but it does not warm the Earth. By blocking sunlight, it cools it.
If you want clean air, carbon is your enemy. But if you want to prevent global cooling, it is not your enemy. It is your ally.
Isn't the truth an awful load?
It amazes me that people have this need to talk about zealots "on both sides" as if that's a real thing. The right-wing zealotry dominates both our political landscape and our very lives. Left-wing zealotry, in contrast, is barely a gnat in the body politic, yet is the boogieman the right loves to bring out to scare the bejessuz out of their base.
But if you believe Keynsians and those working tirelessly to protect the social safety net are "zealots," you are beyond help.
But if you believe Keynsians and those working tirelessly to protect the social safety net are "zealots," you are beyond help.
6
Not true. You act as if environmental concerns are represented only by hippies. There are many well organized environmental groups working on legislation, statistical analysis, etc. It's just that the tRump supporters keep saying none of that matters, in the name of profit. Please stop the 'both sides' myth! George Soros is not an evil man.
3
You say, "with the government pendulum swinging from environmental concerns back to job creation and energy independence..."
Really? You're taking this seriously as "job creation"?!
But later you admit, "Regulatory relief could restore 10 percent of their companies’ lost market share at most, they say — nowhere near enough to return coal to its dominant position in power markets and put tens of thousands of coal miners to work."
It's a tiny sop, so that the Liar-in-Chief can pretend he's making good on his campaign promises. That's all.
Trump only pretends to do something for people who really do need help, and you report it with a straight face, as if it really is significant "job creation".
What's next, opening a plant for making buggy whips? Solar is already employing more people. But our shallow so-called President doesn't have the brain power to look forwards and do something that really might stick.
Really? You're taking this seriously as "job creation"?!
But later you admit, "Regulatory relief could restore 10 percent of their companies’ lost market share at most, they say — nowhere near enough to return coal to its dominant position in power markets and put tens of thousands of coal miners to work."
It's a tiny sop, so that the Liar-in-Chief can pretend he's making good on his campaign promises. That's all.
Trump only pretends to do something for people who really do need help, and you report it with a straight face, as if it really is significant "job creation".
What's next, opening a plant for making buggy whips? Solar is already employing more people. But our shallow so-called President doesn't have the brain power to look forwards and do something that really might stick.
141
My god. We are on the crazy train.
Coal is not going to come back in any significant way--not here, not in China--unless government heavily subsidizes it. Then the natural gas industry and the alternative energy industries will be affected, and THOSE jobs will be lost (not to mention the climate issues). Everything has a consequence.
And who was complaining not so long ago about it not being the place of government to pick winners and losers? Why, that would be Paul Ryan!
Coal is not going to come back in any significant way--not here, not in China--unless government heavily subsidizes it. Then the natural gas industry and the alternative energy industries will be affected, and THOSE jobs will be lost (not to mention the climate issues). Everything has a consequence.
And who was complaining not so long ago about it not being the place of government to pick winners and losers? Why, that would be Paul Ryan!
772
You're mistaken... China continues to flout its supposed commitment to cleaner energy. It says one thing and does another, as it has throughout most of history.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-07/china-coal-power-gene...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-07/china-coal-power-gene...
But our president specialty is conning the Banks , getting credit for surely bankrupting casino business,
what is your point.
what is your point.
1
The only place I read about increasing coal usage is India, where 20% of the population (about 240 million people) still don't have electricity. They have large coal reserves, cheap labor, little concern about environmental issues, and can probably get coal powered generators for the cost of hauling them away (maybe even get paid for doing so). Later, India will have to provide a sewer system to a population that has more cellphones than toilets. Trump is living in a third-world past.
3
Notwithstanding his ostrich like climate change denials and environment threatening myopic policy initiatives whatever President Trump offers to the fossil fuel lobby by way of state largesse would certainly be offset by the powerful market forces that have not only overshadowed the state so often when it comes to claiming primacy but have also realised the future business potential of the renewable energy, that in itself would shift the market balance in favour of the emerging clean energy giants, pushing, in turn, the polluting coal industry, and, of course, it's political patron, to insignificance if not oblivion.
5
If you were going on a one way trip to another planet in a space ship, would you want an energy source that you could only use once or one that was renewable? Would you want food and water that could only be eaten or drunken once and then would no longer be available? I think most of us would say no. We would want energy, food, and water that can be recycled and replenished as much as possible. Because there would be no opportunity to renew it as we travelled in space to another planet on ship that we cannot abandon nor obtain new resources.
And here's the scary truth, we figuretively are on a giant space ship hurling through space that we cannot escape that has limited energy, food, and water. Trying to rely exclusively on nonrenewable energy is bad, but an energy source that also makes our environment uninhabitable? It's catastrophic.
And here's the scary truth, we figuretively are on a giant space ship hurling through space that we cannot escape that has limited energy, food, and water. Trying to rely exclusively on nonrenewable energy is bad, but an energy source that also makes our environment uninhabitable? It's catastrophic.
82
Coal has as a good a chance at making a comeback as the rotary telephone, lead paint, the Rolodex, and the two-pack-a-day cigarette habit.
Most Americans have moved on from Trump's 19th and 20th century ideas, but a certain brand of calcified Know Nothing loves to stand still and stupid as the world passes them by.
Wind and solar are as competitive or cheaper than fossil fuels and they don't trash the planet.
Only a misanthrope could love filthy, fatal coal.
Donald Trump 2017: Making Himself An International Disgrace Again
Most Americans have moved on from Trump's 19th and 20th century ideas, but a certain brand of calcified Know Nothing loves to stand still and stupid as the world passes them by.
Wind and solar are as competitive or cheaper than fossil fuels and they don't trash the planet.
Only a misanthrope could love filthy, fatal coal.
Donald Trump 2017: Making Himself An International Disgrace Again
527
All those solar panels manufactured in China won't employ a single person in Kentucky. These are people who want to keep making buggy whips after the automobile is clogging the roads.
Those good paying, but terrible jobs, are soon to be gone forever. Change is constant and though we can resist it, the world moves on.
Those good paying, but terrible jobs, are soon to be gone forever. Change is constant and though we can resist it, the world moves on.
And when you flip a switch at 10 o'clock at night to make the lights come on, and the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, what is going to produce the electricity?
And how will the sun and the wind power our ships at sea? Sails? And what will power our military and civilian planes?
We live in the real world, not your make-believe play land. Until we have answers to those questions, which we do not have now, we need fossil fuels.
Maybe tomorrow. We can work toward tomorrow. But we don't live in tomorrow. We live now.
And how will the sun and the wind power our ships at sea? Sails? And what will power our military and civilian planes?
We live in the real world, not your make-believe play land. Until we have answers to those questions, which we do not have now, we need fossil fuels.
Maybe tomorrow. We can work toward tomorrow. But we don't live in tomorrow. We live now.
1
So, if market forces and demand is going to make coal go the way of the dodo, then what is the big deal? According to your line of logic, reducing these regulations will not increase coal use meaningfully, so the only thing Trump did was cut back on government intrusion in the economy. Sounds like a good thing to me.
Trump will tell people what they want to hear - not the truth! He is selling everyone a bill of goods that what he is doing will bring Coal back. Solutions to difficult problems are not usually that simple.
67
The world's most dangerous new rogue state: us.
34
16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.
Retrain and work in a safe environment.
Retrain and work in a safe environment.
166
The Trump administration could have put some money and effort into retraining those miners but that wouldn't have been harmful and destructive enough to satisfy them. Trump doesn't seem to feel good about himself unless he's conning and hurting someone.
7
In reality we can and MUST do both..... to his everlasting credit, Obama tried.
trump and the G.O.P. are determined to do one at the expense of the other.... and this is why they are wrong and I will never support them.
Leadership mandates balance.... these guys are way, way, way out of whack !!!... this tunnel vision has neo-slavery and dystopia as it focus...
trump and the G.O.P. are determined to do one at the expense of the other.... and this is why they are wrong and I will never support them.
Leadership mandates balance.... these guys are way, way, way out of whack !!!... this tunnel vision has neo-slavery and dystopia as it focus...
18
There are other considerations to using more coal than just carbon emissions. The most important one is health: coal contains a lot of heavy metals left as waste when the fuel is burned. Coal also throws much more particulate matter into the air.
Add to these effects for all of us the health effects of mining it (one of Trump's big points) to workers. The ACA made special provisions for miners' health. Now Trump and his executioners want to gut that too.
Add to these effects for all of us the health effects of mining it (one of Trump's big points) to workers. The ACA made special provisions for miners' health. Now Trump and his executioners want to gut that too.
43
More Americans work in solar ALREADY than mine coal. The JOBS angle on energy is clean energy because it is a growth industry. Coal is not just a foul pollutant, it is a declining industry and has been for half a century. China laid off more coal miners last year than the total coal mining force (66,000) in the US.
This is bad policy from any way you chose to look at it. Killing Americans with pollution in order to fall behind the world in a vibrant growth industry - - all out of spite and just because it is the opposite of President Obama's policies.
This is bad policy from any way you chose to look at it. Killing Americans with pollution in order to fall behind the world in a vibrant growth industry - - all out of spite and just because it is the opposite of President Obama's policies.
162
Trump and the Tea-Taliban-Congress don't really care about pollution or killing Americans. And Fascist Trump must know that jobs won't be coming back, but he wants to throw a bone to West Va and Kentucky. Not leadership~it is pandering-ship, something in which he is an expert.
9
I just don't know where to start! This policy shift that "helps coal", i. e. energy companies, not coal miners who will never get many jobs back; also guarantees us poorer quality air and more health problems, a degraded environment in caol mining country, fewer solar energy jobs, and most importantly a climate change crisis that is already starting and will be devastating for gerations to come.
29
Coal is dead. Good riddance! Build some factories over the coal fields to give folks jobs, or relocate the miners.
14
Coal is dead.
Don't blame me, Congress, the President, or the world. If folks started building more coal-burning power plants, industrial burners, or home-fitted furnaces, coal would still be dead. Why? New technologies and the vast abundance and long-term supplies of cheap, easy to extract and transport natural gas.
The best way for anyone to lose their money fast is to buy into coal company stock now. Down the tubes, fast, with this obsolescent industry. Coal miners and Donald Trump should read energy trade journals, talk with energy infrastructure experts, and wake up.
Don't blame me, Congress, the President, or the world. If folks started building more coal-burning power plants, industrial burners, or home-fitted furnaces, coal would still be dead. Why? New technologies and the vast abundance and long-term supplies of cheap, easy to extract and transport natural gas.
The best way for anyone to lose their money fast is to buy into coal company stock now. Down the tubes, fast, with this obsolescent industry. Coal miners and Donald Trump should read energy trade journals, talk with energy infrastructure experts, and wake up.
54
Sure, on the twelfth of never.
2
This 'plan' shows you how myopic trump is. Coal is a 'dead fuel' that is being phased out by developed countries. In an attempt to placate 60 thousand of the 'uneducated' who voted for him, trump will add poisonus pollution for ALL of us.
Is this Leadership?
No, not really.
#SAD
Is this Leadership?
No, not really.
#SAD
202