Economy Trump can't stop U.S. coal plants from retiring

[bobgeese]

There exists a middle ground between

“Derp, coal is the future”

“We’re gonna put a lot of mines out of business” (one of stupidest gaffes in modern political history)



Obviously coal is dying, but these industries usually are able to phase out. This allowed communities based around the industry to adjust. Without that, when a plant goes out of buisiness, the community is devastated.

Let the coal industry die a natural death.


It’s not a hard concept, but our politicians and a large portion of the electorate are sub potato intelligence sheep. They just parrot whatever their side has been payed to pretend to care about.

 

[SaiWa]

Coal is still widely used in the US and is one of our bigger exports, regardless of what people like to tell you. We also sit on one of the largest reserves of it. Not sure why people are so against us profiting off of what everyone else uses .

No one is saying that coal is suddenly going to go away but there are less and less jobs available compared to how many workers are available and the excess should be moving away from the industry, not sit around and wait for coal to come back. There was a slight uptick in coal jobs hiring in 2017 due to instabilities in the market but it was sooo minor that it meant nothing. Yes we export coal and it had an uptick in sales but that won't create a mass market of jobs. Automation is what is killing this industry (and others). Coal jobs aren't going to magically reappear and be in abundance no matter how much Asia craves for it.

What we are saying is stop hanging onto coal and move on.

 

[godking]

It's hard to believe coal miners really believed they had a future. The writing has been on the wall for years.

The economics of clean renewables backed by gas peaking plants and battery (hydro and chemical) are irrefutable.

The environmental stance questions the use of gas but even as a Greenie I support gas peaking plants.

No Trump lied to them and they lied to themselves.

There was not and there will be no scenario where coal jobs are coming back.

 

[ToxicShocker]

I wonder if anything has actually changed in Appalachia over the last few years.

 

[HIMBOB]

I can't believe there's still advocates for coal in this day and age

Hundreds of trillions in coal reserves, so it's not surprising.

What is surprising is advocates who don't have ownership in coal reserves or are paid to support such reserves.

wait wat?

CLEAN COAL isn't making a comeback!???

Clean coal never existed.

It's the alchemy of the modern era.

 

[HIMBOB]

Coal is still widely used in the US and is one of our bigger exports, regardless of what people like to tell you. We also sit on one of the largest reserves of it. Not sure why people are so against us profiting off of what everyone else uses .

Coal based power generation is still cheap so it's still widely used. But the only reason it's still cheap is because the extremely expensive plants that make it were already built.

No one wants to build a 50 year asset like a coal power plant that needs on going government support. Banking on government support for 10 years is risky, but for 50 would be insane.

Add to that concern about carbon pollution not being free forever and it's a truly terrible investment (that no one is making).

They are possible with extensive ongoing government guarantees but the level of risk such a government would bare is monumental.


Personally, I don't think governments need or should try to stop coal. I think they should just let the market kill the old dog. It's already deaf, blind, arthritic and continually shitting on the carpet it's not worth paying for a heart transplant.

 

[Higus]

Coal miners are in such denial, that when provided with free job training during lay offs many of them chose to take COAL TRAINING.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...meback-miners-reject-retraining-idUSKBN1D14G0

Sad, but not surprising.
I remember hearing a story about how former miners would not take free courses to get into health care, despite many positions being available and the wages being good. The main reason was that they felt that nursing was a woman's job, and on top of that, their wives also agreed that they would rather have their husbands wait to be miners again than to become nurses!

 

[Big Nasty Edison]

Sad, but not surprising.
I remember hearing a story about how former miners would not take free courses to get into health care, despite many positions being available and the wages being good. The main reason was that they felt that nursing was a woman's job, and on top of that, their wives also agreed that they would rather have their husbands wait to be miners again than to become nurses!

You can lead a horse to bootstraps, but you can't make him pull them

 

[Don Quixote]

Sad, but not surprising.
I remember hearing a story about how former miners would not take free courses to get into health care, despite many positions being available and the wages being good. The main reason was that they felt that nursing was a woman's job, and on top of that, their wives also agreed that they would rather have their husbands wait to be miners again than to become nurses!

That just seems so crazy. I used to be a miner, and if I was offered paid training I’d jump at the chance of a new career. Coal mining is a sucky, stressful job.

 

[deviake]

These rural folks have been giving everyone else the finger for years. Decades of taking more federal dollars than the generate only to continuously call people in the liberal coastal states stupid, gay and don't know anything.

Like I sourced earlier, even when presented with job training many miners refuse to learn new skills to integrate into a modern manufacturing economy. Now THAT is a huge middle finger imo.

That's the thing. The left (and right) have provided plenty of programs to help these people move on from coal but there's real resistance from the community and the coal industry. We pay these people to go to job fairs or do training and some of them will run back and do more coal training as if they'll be positioned better to get more coal jobs (which isn't happening). Meanwhile I went out to inspect a production line for one of our contractors because they are making improvements (automation) and the guy performing the install on the machine was Latino and had broken English (difficult to understand). I remember thinking to myself "that's a job any of these buffoons from coal country could have transitioned and learned to do." but no please... take more coal training on our (tax payer's) dime...

There are plenty of jobs out there for the taking but they're not making the efforts to do it...

Hmm. I read the article and I see what you mean. It doesn't help that Trump is giving them hope that the industry could comeback, however silly that is. It seems the workers in places where there's still surpluses of coal are the ones that have the most hope that it'll come back whereas the ones in depleted areas where the business has left are more receptive to change, because they have to be. Well, if they don't take free training programs, that's on them. They're afraid of change and are listening to the rhetoric they want to hear but they'll have to come around eventually.

 

[cincymma79]

That's awesome. It seems we're inexorably head in the right direction despite our current governance, hopefully we pick up the pace.

He cut regulation on coal butnif it can’t compete with natural gas still then we go natural gas

 

[Dragonseeker]

Coal is still widely used in the US and is one of our bigger exports, regardless of what people like to tell you. We also sit on one of the largest reserves of it. Not sure why people are so against us profiting off of what everyone else uses .

Because you are not thinking about the future. Coal doesn't move us into the future. We are basically ceding markets like solar and wind to China and along with it, new ideas, technology and development. It is like all those people bitching about electric vehicles..etc. I am not a big fan of them myself, but electric power is the future. We can help innovate it or we can fall behind. Hell, Toyota basically stated that they think the combustion engine will end in 2050.

 

[Strychnine]

It's sad that many voters fell for his sales pitch in the first place.

 

[I am your real dad]

While this is a good thing, Trump promised the opposite, and right wingers hammered Obama for saying coal was a dead end.

More U.S. coal-fired power plants were shut in President Donald Trump’s first two years than were retired in the whole of Barack Obama’s first term, despite the Republican’s efforts to prop up the industry to keep a campaign promise to coal-mining states.

In total, more than 23,400 megawatts (MW) of coal-fired generation were shut in 2017-2018 versus 14,900 MW in 2009-2012, according to data from Reuters and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Trump has tried to roll back rules on climate change and the environment adopted during the Obama administration to fulfill pledges to voters in states like West Virginia and Wyoming.


But the second highest year for coal shutdowns was in Trump’s second year, 2018, at around 14,500 megawatts, following a peak at about 17,700 megawatts in 2015 under Obama.

One megawatt can power about 1,000 U.S. homes.

The number of U.S. coal plants has continued to decline every year since coal capacity peaked at just over 317,400 MW in 2011, and is expected to keep falling as consumers demand power from cleaner and less expensive sources of energy.


Cheap natural gas and the rising use of renewable power like solar and wind have kept electric prices relatively low for years, making it uneconomic for generators to keep investing in older coal and nuclear plants.

Generators said they plan to shut around 8,422 MW of coal-fired power and 1,500 MW of nuclear in 2019, while adding 10,900 MW of wind, 8,200 MW of solar and 7,500 MW of gas, according to Reuters and EIA data.

The predictions come from estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters and U.S. Energy Information Administration data.

 

[I am your real dad]

I live in West Virginia and work in the coal mines. Since Trump has become president the coal jobs have absolutely came back, there are mines that were closed when I was 19 that are running right now. I am 31 by the way. Most coal does not go to power plants now a days, it mostly goes into making steel, and over seas. But by all means keep spreading half truths and liberal lies about things you do not understand.

 

[I am your real dad]

I live in West Virginia and work in the coal mines. Since Trump has become president the coal jobs have absolutely came back, there are mines that were closed when I was 19 that are running right now. I am 31 by the way. Most coal does not go to power plants now a days, it mostly goes into making steel, and over seas. But by all means keep spreading half truths and liberal lies about things you do not understand.

 

[Throttlehead]

I live in West Virginia and work in the coal mines. Since Trump has become president the coal jobs have absolutely came back, there are mines that were closed when I was 19 that are running right now. I am 31 by the way. Most coal does not go to power plants now a days, it mostly goes into making steel, and over seas. But by all means keep spreading half truths and liberal lies about things you do not understand.

Yeah because that Reuters report is all Liberal lies. Or do you deny the whole report? Is coal on the upswing?

 

[hillelslovak87]

Nobody ever asks the snake oil salesman how he made so much oil from snakes, or to drink a full container of his product.

 

[hillelslovak87]

I live in West Virginia and work in the coal mines. Since Trump has become president the coal jobs have absolutely came back, there are mines that were closed when I was 19 that are running right now. I am 31 by the way. Most coal does not go to power plants now a days, it mostly goes into making steel, and over seas. But by all means keep spreading half truths and liberal lies about things you do not understand.

Is it possible to see a small, anecdotal surge in your area, while the overall trend moves towards the industry being further diminished?

Your argument seems Inhoffe's snowball.

 

[HIMBOB]

I live in West Virginia and work in the coal mines. Since Trump has become president the coal jobs have absolutely came back, there are mines that were closed when I was 19 that are running right now. I am 31 by the way. Most coal does not go to power plants now a days, it mostly goes into making steel, and over seas. But by all means keep spreading half truths and liberal lies about things you do not understand.

Coking coal is different from thermal coal as you know.

Coking coal is certainly not doomed, steel isn't going anywhere.

Coking coal like any commodity is subject to the tides of commodity prices so reopening mines happens when ever the price rises sufficiently.

I do think your comments on most coal not being for energy are misleading. Maybe 10% of coal mined is for steel and the rest is for thermal generation no matter if local or abroad it is still facing the same structural decline.