The End of the “War on Coal”
Commenting on the wholesale environmental deregulation that the Trump administration has so successfully hurried along, an op-ed contributor to the Wall Street Journal notes, “Apparently, coal can be marketable, if regulators let it be.”
Wow, that’s astute.
Let’s examine what exactly this means, perhaps with an analogy. Suppose I want to be the garbage removal business, but I’m not competitive with the big boys, due to my lack of expertise, capital equipment, and the limited scale of my operations. But somehow I successfully lobby the city council here in Santa Barbara to deregulate Hendy’s beach (dog-friendly, shown above), about a mile from my house, enabling me to dump garbage without any limit, tax or legal restriction, in this extremely convenient place. Now, because my costs of doing business just went way down, I can play effectively against competitors whose business processes are less noxious to the community but whose costs may be accordingly higher.
Yes, though it may come as a surprise to some, coal turns into an immediate bonanza the very instant we say yes to all the CO2, methane, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, heavy metals, and radioactive isotopes. The same moment we’re willing to accept the increased rates of lung disease, cancer, and broad-spread environmental ruination, we can accept coal as well.
Again, to the author of that op-ed: astute observation.
Craig,
I don’t think your analogy is very fair.
The Trump Administration is simply reversing the Obama Administration’s regulations designed to eliminate the US Coal industry.
The Obama regulations had nothing to do with improving safeguards against CO2, methane, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, heavy metals, and radioactive isotopes, or preventing lung disease, cancer, and broad-spread environmental ruination.
The Obama Administration focused on eliminating a rival to to safeguard Democrat RFA supporters and lobbyists profitable investments in the heavily subsidized Wind and Solar industry. (In particular those investments by large Democrat party donors).
Most of the current increases in Coal will not be used in the US, but exported to assist energy independence for small nations currently dependent on the Russian Federation for energy.
This trade not only increases US influence and bolsters US allies, helping US trade balance, while increasing domestic US economic activity among some of the poorest and most economically deprived Americans.
Now to an one-eyed Obama/democrat advocate like yourself, what I’ve just written may seem outrageous !
Yet, if you are honest and objective you may want to pause for a moment and consider why President Obama refused to even review the law requiring oil companies to produce Marine Grade No 6 fuel oil (bunker oil) .
All the pollution created by the world’s coal industry each year, doesn’t equal the pollution caused by bunker oil, yet Obama refused to even review it’s use, (despite a request from Chevron to remove the requirement), nor would Saunders or Clinton address the subject.
Perhaps if Tom Steyer or Warren Buffet had interests in coal, the Democrats attitude may suddenly change ?
Obviously, like any resource, sensible government regulations must govern the coal industry. However, those regulations shouldn’t used to eliminate or cripple an industry which still supplies 33 % of US power generation.
Currently the US is enjoying a boom in Natural Gas production. But America shouldn’t be profligate with Natural Gas resources. The US must use this timely boon prudently.
The North American oil and gas boom is the only blessing propping up the US economy,the US must use this respite to reform and restructure the US economy.
New technology designed to mitigate pollution in the Coal industry has not been universally successful (often disappointing or uneconomic) but R&D is continuing with some promising results.
In some location around the world,(India, Netherlands) coal energy can even become “Carbon Positive”.
Coal provides over 40% of the world electricity . More importantly, Coal provides the most important power requirement, economically viable base load industrial power.
The Coal industry, especially the US coal industry, must be allowed to make sufficient profit to invest in the expensive process of researching and developing pollution mitigation technologies.
Back in New York my son has been involving some of his Wall Street colleges in helping to establish an educational scholarship foundation to assist the young of these township to study engineering, technology, environmental reclamation projects etc.
We have been holding talks with interested parties about an International research grant program for Clean(er)coal technology. (Including an annual prize).
Maybe it’s time you considered leaving the sunny Nirvana of Santa Barbara Cal. and visit 1,523 fellow Americans in Friedens, Somerset County, Pennsylvania. (the site of the new mine)
It might awaken your sense of concern for the plight of your fellow citizens.
C’mon down an have a beer with the guys at American Legion Post 849 in Johnstown Penn. (yep, the ‘Johnston Flood). Watch the effect as new highly paid employment revitalizes these townships eliminating poverty, decay and despair.
Witness for yourself how confidence and civic pride is returning since the election of President Trump. See for yourself the dramatic improvements in local education, nutrition, and mental health.
Rejoice with the locals of townships like Coaldale, Broad Top Township, Brothersvalley Township, Sommerset etc, where the flow on effect of new and renewed coal mining has raised per capita incomes from below $10,000 to $38,000. Townships where below ‘poverty line’ numbers have dropped by 80%.
Of course, like Hilary Clinton, you can tell these good folk how your vote as a Californian is worth so much more than theirs !Just do it face to face !
I’ve watched with concern at my young and enthusiastically outspoken ‘liberal’ companion, initial shock the plight of the folk we’ve met and watched her struggle to equate reality with idealism. I’ve also observed with considerable pride how she’s rapidly grown more understanding empathetic and compassionate toward the plight of these folk as we continue our Odyssey deeper into a forgotten America. This is the America that only found a voice with the election of President who at least talked their language.
Sneering at the Coal Industry with ideological purity among fellow leftist Californian green/left intellectuals, may make you feel ‘pure of heart’. ‘Outraged’ rhetoric and advocacy may earn applause from other armchair critics, but as the Germans are discovering, reality has a way of coming back to bite.