Guest essay by Eric Worrall
President Obama has just announced a 3 year moratorium on leasing federal land for new coal mines, pending a review of the impact of coal on the global climate.
According to Scientific American;
Obama Halts Federal Coal Leasing Citing Climate Change
The U.S. temporarily halts coal leasing on federal lands to reassess its policy in light of global warming
The Obama administration on Friday brought a temporary halt to new coal mining leases on federal lands while it conducts a three-year review meant to bring coal leasing in line with U.S. climate policy.
The moratorium comes just days after Obama said in his State of the Union Address that he would push to change the way the government manages its oil and coal resources to reflect the costs they impose on both taxpayers and the planet. The moratorium takes place immediately, but does not halt coal mining and production currently underway.
“How do we manage the program that is consistent with our climate change objective? There is no short answer,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said during a news conference. “It is also clear that we need to take into account the science we have now on the environment and climate change.”
About 40 percent of all the coal produced in the U.S. comes from mines on federal public lands, mainly in the West. As of the end of 2014, there were 308 active coal mining leases on more than 464,000 acres of public lands in Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Montana and Colorado, with an additional 10,500 acres in Kentucky, Alabama and West Virginia.
Burning coal and other fossil fuels for electricity is the largest single source of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, accounting for about 31 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gases.
Read more: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/obama-halts-federal-coal-leasing-citing-climate-change/
Obviously this is a potentially devastating development, for American families who depend on jobs in the US coal mining industry.
However there is another less obvious impact; As a result of failed green energy policies, Europe is becoming increasingly reliant on imports of cheap goal coal from America. If that supply of cheap coal is now threatened, the result might well be an economically damaging spike in already sky high European energy prices.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I wonder if the coal workers’ unions contributed to the Obama campaign.
http://www.opensecrets.org/
this link probably has that info.
Wouldn’t that be crazy if the Unions woke up and started supporting the pro-job republican candidates?
I said up-line that he’s an “idiot” because he doesn’t seem to realize that cheap energy – cheap electricity is the key to prosperity. Prosperity is something he is not in favor of. (Except maybe for Iran, and other Muslim countries for some reason.)
Prosperity in any country will counter any effects that severe weather events bestow upon the country/city/communities, etc.
Cheap energy is nice. One of the reasons the most of the public doesn’t get rattled about higher cost of energy is that they are conditioned to believe that they are a wasteful people. Safe spaces to quietly lash yourself in the darkness will be part of future LEED Gold Star awards.
And he actually believes that someday his face will be carved on Mount Rushmore. Wow.
…it already is–in the ruble at the foot of the mountain.
Well there is a mountain here in the North Cherokee National Forest named for him, Big Butt, and a portion of Norris Lake near Knoxville commemorates his administration, Do Help Me Holler (that’s Hollow for all you Yankees and other furriners).
Yeah, I can see how closing down Federal coal leasing in the US will cause 2,400 coal-fired power plants in China to clean up their environmental impact.
Or NOT!
It won’t be his face on Mt. Rushmore, it will be the other part of his anatomy to remind Americans what a Jack @ss he was !! LOL
Depending on how one interprets the “climate goals” of the Paris accord (which doesn’t even have Congressional approval), even a 3-year EIS cannot determine the global impact of any given Federal lease. The folks most immediately impacted are large Western coal mines who are close to reaching the outer limits of their current lease areas; extensions and additions to their lease areas, if they are included in this closure, would mean their closure in 2016-17. Truly, I think this administration thinks that the only jobs worth having in this country involve sitting at a Starbucks, pushing digits into the Net-sphere.
” I think this administration thinks that the only jobs worth having in this country involve sitting at a Starbucks”
There are more jobs in solar installations at the moment than in coal. Well, except Nevada thanks to their GOP legislature. A state with no coal and lots of sunshine. What a waste.
There could be lots of jobs hiring some people to go around breaking windows and others to fix the broken windows. The Nevada legislature apparently has decided that economics trumps “saving the planet”. Go figure.
I can’t have solar panels. NV Energy has contracted with reliable and continuous sources at a wholesale rate to supply my electricity. Now some rich dudes expect me to pay them retail rates for the sunshine that falls on their roofs during the day when they doesn’t need the extra electricity. And neither do I.
It costs all the ratepayers money. Think about it. Does somebody say, “Okay, everybody working in the geothermal, natural gas, and coal-fired plants, shut down and go home because the sun is shining.”
No. We end up paying duplicate for both the reliable and the unreliable energy sources.
The installers knew there was a cap, and they reached it. The solar owners will still be paid wholesale rates for the electricity they produce. Frankly, they should just be happy with their energy savings and leave it at that.
So you think we should raise taxes even more in order to create more do nothing jobs?
There is a states rights issue brewing out West. While the occupiers might have forgotten their snacks, the ranchers, miners and loggers are fed up with Federal Land Management. States are going to start challenging this Federal overreach.
A buddy of mine has said, the most renewable resource on this planet is people. Trees take 80 or more years to grow fully but people take less than 18 years (less in 3rd world countries). With this sort of turnover rate it is no wonder it is the easiest resource to cultivate (i.e. the tax payer).
This man is poison to the US economy, and the chickens are finaly coming home to roost…and we will all pay the price.
Well, not all of us. Money has been leaving the equity markets in earnest since mid 2015. Top tier investors were some of the first to get out on American markets. The casino treats its big players better.
We are killing all these jobs for this fraud? The ironly of the fact that the Modern Democratic Party was essentialy started under FDR largely due to John L Lewis of the Coal Unions. Rely on the Democrats at your own Peril.
https://youtu.be/u1rj00BoItw
John L Lewis
https://www.marxists.org/archive/braverman/1950/11/lewis.htm
Good time to buy Peabody stock. Anyone? Unless they go chaptering, it can only go up, right?
Permits for Coal mining is not the only ones delayed. All new and extended mining permits have been put on hold. The ObamaNation only has one more year to collapse the American economy. Remember; the Fundamental Change of America!…pg
From Wikipedia:
“The United States uses about 1 billion tons of coal a year, with about 40 percent of the coal currently coming from the Powder River Basin of Wyoming…Almost all of the coal in the Powder River Basin is federally owned and further mine expansions will require a series of federal and state approvals…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_River_Basin
“…ranchers, miners and loggers are fed up with Federal Land Management. States are going to start challenging this Federal overreach.”
Yeah, it’s just criminal the way the ranchers are having to pay 15% of the leasing rate charged by the private sector. How dare the federal government charge them for using public lands!
If you want an idea to stick, you have to keep at it.
Institutionalize it.
It doesn’t matter if each of your moves amount to tangible progress..
It’s the image of the thing. The brand.
They are a persistent bunch.
Reevaluating the “true” price of coal is what they want.
Thinkspeak it to be more expensive than it should be and voila’.
+ a gazillion.
“Obviously this is a potentially devastating development, for American families who depend on jobs in the US coal mining industry.”
No, it is not. Coal mining can continue under existing leases on federal lands. At current production rates of roughly 1B tons/year, there is 20 years of production still left to be mined.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal-idUSKCN0US2WB
Move along now. Nothing to see here.
We will send you our report for the new base price of a ton of the black stuff.
It will all be transparent and we will give you a public comment period.
@ur momisugly knutesea 8:43 pm, In one of those “town hall” “discussions”? ( Oh btw did you find the Chernobyl link I send you the one on BBC?)
Thanks for the followthru TS.
There seems to be a lot of confusion in that the original post headlines a moratorium on NEW COAL MINES, and the quoted Scientific American article reports a temporary halt to NEW COAL LEASES on federal lands. Big difference. In coal producing Western States, where surface mining techniques dominate (Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, for examples), mines were developed in areas with coal deposits close to the surface and the majority of available coal is on federal land. Existing mines rely on federal leases as the lifeblood of the mine for continuing operation. In short, shutting down the coal leasing program will eventually shut down the mines that need them to replenish coal that has been mined. No leases, no coal to mine, no mine. A point of information; there have been very few large scale mines developed in recent years, and that will not change until there is a change at the top.
Soros Steyn and others of that ilk already are doing that and if you want to get on the band wagon 2-3 years from now those companies will be back on their feet with different management and after the chapter 11 BS is finished, just like they did with the Auto industry. ( Oh they are still shipping coal to China and India of course). The whole thing is a game to them I can’t wait for mother nature to take it’s course with these old timers.
You’re absolutely right…there is, and will never be, any coal mining in Kalgoorle (absolutely nothing to do with whacky global warming policies though). As a geologist who has worked at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia this looks like the KCGM Superpit to me…the largest gold mine in Australia run by Newmont and Barrick Mining. The rocks in the pit formed at least 2200 million years before the first plants lived on earth and thus long before the first coal formed. Still not a big enough hole to fit all the AGW idiots into though, but not small enough for Al Gore’s ego.
The two prongs of WW IV are now in full swing.
Prong one: the propaganda war, cultural Marxism (Political Correctness) and Climate Change, the disaster movie and
Prong two: Control of Fossil energy, having seen off Nuclear by means of propaganda.
Fracking in the USA & Iran ready to pump its guts out, and who suffers? the countries we love to hate, that wear towels on their heads, drink vodka or exist on S America
Obama is a man who knows how to topple the “great Satan” – from the inside. He’s done more in 8 years to destabilize this nation than decades of cold war ever could. He showed the world that the constitutional safeguards of the three branches of government cannot stop a determined man from undoing the greatest experiment in the history of the world. I’m just left wondering what he got out of it aside from the great golf and vacations.
15 virgins !!
About a trillion, I hear. Various havens.
“Burning coal and other fossil fuels for electricity is the largest single source of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, accounting for about 31 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gases” – Scientific American
Still doesn’t prove that our emissions are behind any climate change.
True, but these greenhouse gasses directly contribute to a 15% increase in world-wide foodstuff production, valued at roughly $1.5 trillion annually.
They never admit there’s any benefit to fossil fuel emissions–if they did, they’d become the laughingstock of the world.
Oh, wait! They already are!
Cui bono? Gas.