Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Speakers pointed out the deficiencies of former President Obama’s clean power plan at an EPA hearing in Wyoming on Tuesday.
Speakers square off in Wyoming over Clean Power Plan repeal during final of four meetings
Heather Richards 307-266-0592, Heather.Richards@trib.com
Updated Mar 29, 2018
Miners, politicians and local business owners spoke of coal like they would an old friend, a Wyoming character both dependable and indispensable.
Biologists, environmentalists and students, on the other hand, listed coal’s sins. The industry is dying, they say, and they aren’t mourning.
After tears, speeches and emotional pleas, a Tuesday hearing on the Clean Power Plan in Gillette ended much as it began, with two sides that don’t agree.
The Gillette meeting was the final of four public listening sessions held from West Virginia to San Francisco. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were more Wyoming opponents of the Clean Power Plan than supporters.
…
Supporters of the plan argued that climate change is real and that coal is a dying industry that exacerbates global warming. Some questioned the effectiveness of the Clean Power Plan in achieving climate goals, wondering if it was worth the economic distress. Opponents of the regulation pointed to coal’s history of driving affordable electricity and jobs in places like Gillette.
Don Curtis, a manager at coal giant Peabody Energy, said his family was lucky. He and his wife have good-paying jobs in the coal industry, but both the family’s coal jobs and their private businesses in coal country were at risk from the Clean Power Plan.
“I feel it is a cost America cannot afford,” he said of the plan’s likely effects.
Meanwhile, another Wyomingite said between the Clean Power Plan’s protection of the environment and the state’s desire to hold onto the coal economy, continuing to embrace coal was the greater risk.
“Given our state’s reliance on fossil fuels, the Clean Power Plan will have consequences,” said Shannon Anderson, a lawyer with the Powder River Basin Resource Council. “But the plan also creates opportunity for coal mine reclamation jobs, renewable energy and diversifying our state’s economy and tax base.”
…
Telling proud people who have helped maintain US prosperity for decades that a mad scramble to win government handouts and find alternative means to feed their families is an “opportunity” – yeah, that will win hearts and minds.
The residents of Wyoming obviously are not silly.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
They also have no state income tax and a very traditional approach to the 2nd Amendment.
Because it’s so coaled up there …
Seams like a lot of Coal to me
I really like Wyoming and its strong, independent people – I used to have a project there.
To be clear, coal technology for electricity generation is clean right now – the only issue, which is a NON-Issue, is discharge of CO2 to the atmosphere.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/16/frigid-cold-is-why-we-need-dependable-energy/comment-page-1/#comment-2719292
The demonization of CO2 by scoundrels and imbeciles ignores the fact that ATMOSPHERIC CO2 IS NOT ALARMINGLY HIGH, IT IS ALARMINGLY LOW FOR THE CONTINUED SURVIVAL OF TERRESTRIAL CARBON-BASED LIFE ON EARTH.
Regards to all you carbon-based life forms from your most dedicated fan, Allan
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/19/storing-carbon-dioxide-underground-by-turning-it-into-rock/comment-page-1/#comment-2347545
[excerpt]
ON CO2 STARVATION
Summary
1. Atmospheric CO2 is not alarmingly high; in fact, it is dangerously low for the survival of terrestrial carbon-based life on Earth. Most plants evolved with about 4000ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, or about 10 times current CO2 concentrations.
2. In one of the next global Ice Ages, atmospheric CO2 will approach about 150ppm, a concentration at which terrestrial photosynthesis will slow and cease – and that will be the extinction event for much or all of the terrestrial carbon-based life on this planet.
3. More atmospheric CO2 is highly beneficial to all carbon-based life on Earth. Therefore, CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
4. As a devoted fan of carbon-based life on this planet, I feel the duty to advocate on our behalf. I should point out that I am not prejudiced against non-carbon-based life forms. They might be very nice, but I do not know any of them well enough to form an opinion. 🙂
_________________________________________________________________________
The global cooling period from ~1940 to 1975 (during a time of increasing atmospheric CO2) demonstrates that climate sensitivity to increased atmospheric CO2 is near-zero – so close to zero as to be insignificant.
This and other evidence strongly supports the conclusion that there is NO global warming crisis, except in the minds of warmist propagandists.
There is overwhelming evidence that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the oceans is not dangerously high – it is dangerously low, too low for the continued survival of life on Earth.
I have written about the vital issue of “CO2 starvation” since 2009 or earlier, and others including Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, have also written on this subject:
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/moore-positive-impact-of-human-co2-emissions.pdf
[end of excerpt]
Rob – how many coal plants are there worldwide? Now how many have had ash pond failures? I bet the failure rate is less than 1%, maybe less than 0.01%. Anecdotal stories like yours are not significant. Clean up the mess, pay the bills, and next time hire better engineers.
There are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths in the USA every year. That’s equal to two 9-11 events per week for 17 weeks EVERY YEAR. Raising the cost of electricity with intermittent, costly green power schemes just increases winter mortality, especially among the elderly and the poor.
If 3000 deaths on 9-11 caused the USA to bomb Iraq, what should the powers-that-be do about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths per year? Nuke the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and all fellow-travelers?
_________________________________________
“Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather”, September 4, 2015
by Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
Rob Bradley
Not true. The guaranteed random failure of wind – because its minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour actual power being pushed into the grid CANNOT be determined nor predicted – IS DESTROYING the gas turbines and steam turbines power plants because the “vagrancies” of wind are randomly and continuously forcing the big turbines to startup, run lightly then fully loaded, then forced to shutdown and restart too fast. The thousands of extra (unneeded) startup and heatup cycles are shortening their lives and causing hundreds of millions of extra maintenance and repair cost, longer outages, and more wasted fuel heating up and cooling down each day.
Barely, wind can predict regional level expected power supplies two days in advance on a broad basis: But that only tells the utilities how much more damage will occur to their fleet.
The best comparison can be made to the wear and tear on an 18 wheel 40,000 truck being forced to run cross-country in 1/4 mile drag-race intervals with 0-120 mph acceleration at each startup, instead of a steady 75 mph highway run.
rob Bradley
Obama’s deliberate actions to increase and maintain the price of gasoline to $4.00 dollar per gallon FORCED millions to choose their budgets between heating, electricity, food, transportation – NOT ALL his victims lived in cities with cheap-labor-19th century subway systems! – and their other needs. ALL prices for EVERYTHING increase when the price of electricity and gasoline are artificially driven up by the government, to make money for their carbon futures trading bankers and investors.
Rob Bradley – you are babbling a great steaming pile of BS.
Notes for “Rob the Poor” Bradley:
Non-dispatchable wind power is almost worthless when it comprises a large part of a conventional power grid, because it requires almost 100% conventional backup.
The fr@ud in wind power schemes is that warmist politicians insist that non-dispatchable wind power gets “first access” to the grid, and often gets paid more than the dispatchable power that remains in spinning reserve to back up the wind power. When there is excess wind power generated into the grid, the wind power producer gets paid for that power, which is then often GIVEN AWAY FREE to neighbouring grids – sometimes they are even paid to take it.
Only a warmist politician could insist on a scheme that is this ridiculous and fundamentally corrupt.
“Wind power – it doesn’t just blow, it sucks!”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/22/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-288/comment-page-1/#comment-2643835
[excerpt]
WHAT IS GRID-CONNECTED WIND POWER REALLY WORTH?
Wind power is intermittent and non-dispatchable and therefore should be valued much lower than the reliable, dispatchable power typically available from conventional electric power sources such as fossil fuels, hydro and nuclear.
In practice, one should assume the need for almost 100% conventional backup for wind power (in the absence of a hypothetical grid-scale “super-battery”, which does not exist in practical reality). When wind dies, typically on very hot or very cold days, the amount of wind power generated approaches zero.
Capacity Factor equals {total actual power output)/(total rated capacity assuming 100% utilization). The Capacity Factor of wind power in Germany equals about 28%*. However, Capacity Factor is not a true measure of actual usefulness of grid-connected wind power. The following paragraph explains why:
Current government regulations typically force wind power into the grid ahead of conventional power, and pay the wind power producer equal of greater sums for wind power versus conventional power, which artificially makes wind power appear more economic. This practice typically requires spinning backup of conventional power to be instantly available, since wind power fluctuates wildly, at the cube of the wind speed. The cost of this spinning backup is typically not deducted from the price paid to the wind power producer.
The true factor that reflects the intermittency of wind power Is the Substitution Capacity*, which is about 5% in Germany – a large grid with a large wind power component. Substitution Capacity is the amount of dispatchable (conventional) power you can permanently retire when you add more wind power to the grid. In Germany they have to add ~20 units of wind power to replace 1 unit of dispatchable power. This is extremely uneconomic.
I SUGGEST THAT THE SUBSTITUTION CAPACITY OF ~5% IS A REASONABLE FIRST APPROXIMATION FOR WHAT WIND POWER IS REALLY WORTH – that is 1/20th of the value of reliable, dispatchable power from conventional sources. Anything above that 5% requires spinning conventional backup, which makes the remaining wind power redundant and essentially worthless.
This is a before-coffee first-approximation of the subject. Improvements are welcomed, provided they are well-researched and logical.
Regards, Allan
* Reference:
“E.On Netz excellent Wind Report 2005” at
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
Just leaving a note for those on this thread. We have a case study in what having a wind-driven power grid does to a state and those around it. Can you say South Australia. Just read about it if you aren’t aware of the insanity and its end consequences. Those fools have just started to realize maybe they should elect anybody who is not a greenie. Slow learners. There are many WUWT articles about the consequences.
ALLAN, you have stumbled onto the secret of Rob’s success.
He rambles on and on until everyone gives up on him. Then he declares success because everyone is ignoring him.
True, Obama can’t use executive orders to set gasoline prices.
However, via the use of regulations he has a great deal of control over the costs oil companies have to pay in order to produce their products.
Nukes should not be necessary. I’m sure conventional ordinance would do the job.
Lives are ruined, public funds are wasted, real issues are ignored. This entire climate change is a huge waste of time, money and effort.
Trillions of Dollars Wasted on a False Alarm and Fr@ud
One of the poster children of global warming is the island nation of Tuvalu, an island selected because it was claimed that it would be the first nation to disappear from the map. A new Atlantis? Maybe. But not all scientists agree that Tuvalu’s future is underwater. Some critics have branded island leaders as opportunists … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/trillions-of-dollars-wasted-on-a-false-alarm-and-fraud/
TRILLIONS of PUBLIC Dollars Spent on Conclusions Reached Based Upon “Made Up Data.”
According to the IPCC, the oceans are by far the most “dominant” influence on global climate energy balance. No other influence even comes close. Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence), with only about 1% stored … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/05/14/trillions-of-public-dollars-spent-on-conclusions-reached-based-upon-made-up-data/
I would like to see someone commenting on the work of the Clean Coal Technology Research being done at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-03-15-op-ed-clean-coal-is-the-way-to-power-africa-and-sa-academics-know-how/#.WsAqgojwaUk
Need more technical details. Certainly coal can be cleaned through various pretreatments and emission controls. https://www.wits.ac.za/chemmet/research/research-chairs/clean-coal-technology-research/
I worked on many clean coal technology projects in the US. Technically there are many ways to cleanly use coal as a fuel for a boiler. However most are not economical. A great example is coal glassification. This removes a lot of the pollutants before it is burned. There were several successful plants built with government subsidies. It was announced that it was ready for commercial application. However none were built without the government subsidies. One plant was announced and as soon as the price of natural gas dropped the project was cancelled.
So, just stating the clean coal is achievable is a fact. How much it costs is the determinant if it will be commercially viable. The articles linked above are lacking any technical information that could be useful in what they are proposing. If they do not use the massive amount of data and information that the CCT program in the U.S. generated it will just be another way to spend money on something that most likely will never be commercially viable. Or, it will be viable when electricity becomes prohibitively expensive.
Paul Homewood posted this:
GO HERE
March 18, with some comments. Paul did a good summary.
A good article John and Paul. It’s truly a shame that even a fraction of the trillion$ that have been wasted on the non problem of alarmist climate catastrophe couldn’t be diverted to real science like this.
Nice one John and Paul.
Mmmm.
Where are George and (Sir) Ringo?
Auto
Clean enough coal has already been achieved.
But, sadly, not all the residents understand the importance of this wonderful, cheap, energy resource. How anybody who just survived the rigours of winter up in the northern states could believe that “climate change” represents a greater danger than feeezing to death is beyond me! Wyoming is fortunate to have coal, oil & gas and should continue to use all three to power its industry, support its economy & enrich its citizens while also benefiting the planet by returning some much-needed CO2 to the atmosphere.
It was cold, rainy, and miserable here today. I am so grateful for my cozy, warm, well lit home. I would not trade places with any of my ancestors.
Some folks are waking up to the fact that most of us live in Heaven on Earth (compared with what went before). Steven Pinker’s new book “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, and why right now is a wonderful time to be alive” nails it. I found this CBC interview heartening. Significantly, he didn’t get a lot of push back from the interviewer.
I am sick and tired of being fed a constant stream of doom, gloom, ‘social justice’, and guilt. Our western civilization has had a wonderful effect on the world. I was really happy to hear Pinker take a swipe at the postmodern ‘scholars’ (sic) who have polluted a generation of college students with their neo-Marxian down-with-the-west crap.
The effect that coal has had on the world is overwhelmingly beneficial. Pinker provides the evidence and is part of a growing movement against those who seek to undermine the west.
Part of why Pinker doesn’t get much push back is his towering intellect and his fame. Despite that he and I had a little disagreement about a decade or so ago. I maintained drugs didn’t cause addiction. He said they did. After about a week of back and forth (e-mail) we let it go. About five years later he came around to my point of view. So he can change his mind despite the current orthodoxy. Often a sign of a person with integrity. I’ll shorten the many proofs I have him to one fact.
Addiction is a symptom of PTSD.
Quick Question M Simon: Do you consider alcohol a drug? I have known a few addicted alcoholics without PTSD.
I’m looking for help……..
Question:
Einstein: “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right. A single experiment can prove me wrong.”
Yet, didn’t that one experiment prove him right on the Special theory of Relativity? Where he got one picture when the clouds miraculously parted of the celestial body (don’t remember the details).
Don’t we use experiment to prove a theory?
Or is it that we do the experiment which temporarily proves the theory and then we give the data to all to prove the experiment was either right via replication or wrong.
I don’t have a clear understanding
thanx
Einstein’s quote is an excessive emphasis. Generally, multiple experiments of diverse nature supporting a theory are desired before the theory is fully accepted. One reason for this is that a single experiment may show the theory correct in certain conditions, but it might be wrong in other conditions — i.e., an incomplete theory.
Experimental results that disagree with theoretical predictions might indicate the theory is wrong or incomplete. Alternatively, the experiment might have been poorly conceived or conducted, so the results are flawed. One should NEVER assume that the results of a single experiment are absolute true.
Scientists who practice either theory or experiment often do not understand limitations of the opposite approach. Einstein was a theoretician.
For a NEW theory to accepted it must make a prediction the old theory did not.
Otherwise the old theory holds and the new theory is ignored.
The ‘proof’ of a new theory is the demonstration of the a new prediction.
Thus the new theory is proven to be a better theory, not correct, just better.
Proof is math, not science.
A theory works until it doesn’t.
That’s about where we are with general relativity. One thing not known at the time he proposed that star test is that the sun has an atmosphere, which will also bend light. This theory could easily be tested continuously by orbiting telescopes and the space station, but it is not really that important
The promised ‘green’ jobs are a lie and ‘they’ know it. Ontario’s experience
Under Obama it is still OK to mine WY coal, send it by diesel power to Los Angles, CA and export it to China by diesel power where it is still burned in coal fired power plants (built by the IMF) with less pollution controls, profit margins are increased for the lucky few who tell the rest of us what to do…but of course at the expense of more CO2 that gets zero coverage by the MSM. If coal is bad, make it illegal to mine it in the USA, thus eliminating the temptation to export it let alone use it here at home.
Meigs
Coal is not bad. It just took some time to develop the technologies that were needed to remove the CO2 out of the combusted coal exhaust affordably, and transform the captured CO2 into useful saleable products. The scientists are telling us that increased CO2 levels are creating sea level rise.
Lets build sea walls to protect our coastlines with the product that is causing this situation ~ CO2.
The White Cliffs of Dover is Calcium Carbonate. It has stood the test of time. Lets protect the shores of America with this CO2 produced product.
Could you tell me what the correct amount of CO2 in the atmosphere should be?
Also the correct temperature for planet Earth.
Once we have those numbers we can put engineers on it. Once we have the costs we can collect the funds.
Sea levels have been rising for some odd 10 thousand years. Anyway, where is you pilot and/or demo plant? Where is the heat and material balance based on these?
Your entire premise is that co2 needs to be mitigated. A premise which is questionable at best.
Round about 1:40 in the video there is a description of the retort in which CO2 is dealt with. A green sludge at the bottom, CO2 pumped in and a liquid dripping in from the top. This mysteriously produces Calcium Carbonate! Now I am sure you will have noticed the problem – to produce Calcium Carbonate one needs Calcium. This could be metallic Calcium, though undoubtedly this would be expensive. Alternatively,one uses quick lime (CaO), or slaked lime (CaOH). How does one get the lime? By heating Calcium Carbonate to destruction – residue is CaO and CO2!
This is a nice circular process – start with CaCO3, turn into CaO and CO2, and use the CaO to absorb the CO2 and create CaCO3. Very good business if you can con a government to give you oodles of money to build an experimental plant – you can keep this going for years before you will have to admit it does not work. Just keep on coming back for another grant to fix a flaw in the process.
In the meantime you will have carved out a very good lifestyle for yourself, and you can enjoy turning up at Climate Change Conferences to push your barrow and ask for more grants from other sucker governments. Pity that real scientists will give you the cold shoulder – but you did not expect to be popular by solving a problem which does not exist!
With every molecule of carbon dioxide sequestered, two atoms of oxygen are removed from the atmosphere as opposed to only one atom of carbon. Don’t human breathe oxygen to survive? Why remove the stuff of life?
I wonder how much Sid gets paid each time he posts this same nonsense.
Between 1000 and 1500 parts per million. 1200 seems ideal. This of course comes from the amount that most plants are ideally suited to, or are ‘evolved’ to.
And we would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for the meddling Thermo2 taxman!
You leave an open question, Meigs: “If coal is bad…”
Do you have any evidence that the problems outweigh the benefits when mining, transporting, or burning coal, especially considering the advanced technology now applied to the industry?
I’m a power plant engineer. I’ve been involved in the design, construction and commissioning of several large scale coal projects…including a large scale super critical coal fired unit that featured large scale carbon capture that was not built after Obama got in and reneged on his “Clean Coal” support. By me saying “IF coal is bad” I am pointing out the hypocrisy of an administration that condones mining coal that other countries get to burn…IF it’s bad don’t mine it…IF coal mined here in the USA is OK for use abroad then it should be OK for use at home!
That said, I think the cement industry puts out lots of CO2 but yet the do gooders have not gone after it in the MSM just like they have not gone after peoples cars…that strikes too close to home and they know it will cost votes….people see and understand concrete and cars….they do not see or understand power plants and the role they play in their luxurious low cost lifestyles…after all if you buy an electric car…there is no pollution cuz the electric comes out of plug in the wall…clean as can be!
I’m a geologist and mining engineer. Thanks for your work in building coal power plants.
It isn’t the mining or transport of coal that’s bad, it’s the way it is burned. We should pressure foreign countries that burn coal to meet minimal standards.
At the same time, I don’t see where foreign pollution from burning coal is that much of an issue–certainly carbon capture is silly, and there’s evidence that particulates generated in the process are beneficial in the weather cycle (droplet nuclei and sun shading), although sulfur and other effluents are a concern.
I agree that any entity that burns US coal in a foreign power plant can be pressured to apply similar technological measures that are applied domestically. It’s something to push for politically.
I saw the quote about another Wyomingite saying that continuing to embrace coal was the greater risk and I thought – HUH? Then and looked further and saw that the person was a lawyer for the Powder River Basin Resource Council and it all became clear. That person was speaking as a lawyer – and it is my observation that in public, lawyers say whatever their clients want them to say and that has no direct relationship to the facts.
All lawyers have fools for clients and a lot of clients have fools for lawyers. Money savvy fools though, not complete inbeciles. Money savvy fools pitching their services to complete imbeciles is unfortunately a very solid business proposition.
That’s good.
In Canada, Alberta had been conservative since it became a province until just a couple of years ago. Because of its booming oil industry, it’s demand for labor brought workers and families from Atlantic Canada, Ontario and Quebec. Left leaning folk made up the vast majority of this steady flux.
Now they’ve voted in a socialist government which in a few short years has taken the reins of government. Now, I know there were other factors – a drop in oil prices, US stall on a pipeline, stupidity of two conservative parties splitting the vote etc, but what did the marxbrothers do? Well struggling under some economic problems they decided to hit Albertans with a big carbon tax and shut down major coal fired gen plant and I guess they’re going to tuft the vast grazing lands with windmills. Oh they talk about building pipelines East and West but these are already contested by the social8sts on the Left Coast who make Jerry Brown to the south look like a Reaganite.
Where do these self-destructrive people get confidence in the perennially failing soshulist way of doing things? I think Karl M even would have thrown in the towel had he seen the history of his invention.
If a superbly educated Russian population couldn’t make a go of it, then the dumbed down West, currently presiding over the ruination of the most remarkable civilization ever known, would wipe us all out in a couple of years if they ever got their plan off and running.
I agree Gary. I wrote this some time ago:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/25/al-gore-bilks-people-at-christmas-asking-for-climate-crisis-money/comment-page-1/#comment-2701695
[excerpt]
Marxism made simple!
The Groucho Marxists are the leaders – they want power for its own sake at any cost, and typically are sociopaths or psychopaths. The great killers of recent history, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot. etc. were of this odious ilk – first they get power, then they implement their crazy schemes that do not work and too often kill everyone who opposes them.
The Harpo Marxists are the followers – the “sheeple” – these are people of less-than-average intelligence who are easily duped and follow the Groucho’s until it is too late, their rights are lost and their society destroyed. They are attracted to simplistic concepts that “feel good” but rarely “do good”.
George Carlin said: “You know how stupid the average person is, right? Well, half of them are stupider than that!”
One can easily identify many members of these two groups in the global warming debate – and none of them are ”climate skeptics”.
Funny that Carlin misused the term ‘average’ in that famous quote. He should have used ‘median’, although I suspect the ‘average’ person would not know what he meant.
“Now they’ve voted in a socialist government which in a few short years has taken the reins of government.”
To be fair, only about 40% of those voting voted for the NDP. They’ll be kicked out at the next election.
But you’re correct, the flood of east-coast liberals to the conservative West is likely to be disastrous in the long run. After liberals destroy their own economy, they move on to the nearest viable economy and destroy that.
Another cause of socialist voting to NDP or Liberal voting is ethnic immigration. Newly arrived immigrants who gain Canadian citizenship tend to vote centre left, at least in their first years having newly arrived. Especially if they are union workers working for a pay cheque as many do. I think the immigrants who start their own business probably vote conservative a lot quicker. Alberta has also had a lot of ethnic migration and immigration over the years, being the land of milk and honey and opportunity. Or used to be before oil crashed, and NDP and Liberals were voted in.
This was how in part the federal liberals held power for so long was the immigration policy and change that was initiated by PM Trudeau Sr. from the late 1960’s through the early 1980’s with his massive change of immigration to non Eurocentric. The massive child tax credit per child in large families is also a big vote getter for the federal liberals, (especially this last election) as immigrants tend to have 2-3 times as many children as later generations. And those kids tend to vote the way their parents did. If I had 7-8 kids, I would be tempted to vote liberal too, and semi retire on the child tax credit.
MarkG – You report what I’m afraid is happening in Nevada. Californians are leaving the state, but frequently just make it over the border into Arizona or Nevada. Immediately they start lobbying for the same stupidities that destroyed California.
If it was great in California, why didn’t they stay there?
I keep smiling at the sign in the local Pack ‘n Post: “We don’t care how they do it in California”. Amen to that.
I keep wondering how governments keep getting away with raising taxes just because the population has grown. In business, when you get more customers, you realize an economy of scale, allowing you produce the same product for less.
Maybe we need to undergo a “reorganization” in Government. Not just throw the bums out, but completely revamp all the departments, administrations, etc.
Coal industry dying is one thing. Pushing it off a cliff is another.
Or in the case of South Australia: Dynamiting it to Destruction.
They are about to pay for that one. Winter is coming. Smart folk have already bought noisy, nasty, diesel generators. And of course the windmills also have backup diesel power.
“In all likelihood, the United States will live up to its Paris commitment, not because of the White House, but because of the private sector.”
Erik Solheim, UN Energy Program chief
Had he wanted to really annoy the greens he would have mentioned fracking.
CLEAN coal (stripped of S02 & particulates)
should still be used. It poses no threat to our
ever naturally changing climate and supports
many jobs in surface mining and power stations.The only other reliable source is nuclear which could be installed next to it
ready to take over when supplies run out.
300 years from now
The reports of Coal’s death are premature. Barack and Hillary tried to kill it in the U.S., but were not successful.
There is a coal-fired powerplant right here in my hometown. There was talk of coverting it to burn natural gas a couple of years ago, but that seems to be off the table now and it continues to burn coal.
The conversion to natural gas would have caused our electricity rates to increase, which is the main reason it was not done, although had Hillary been elected she would have continued the war on coal, and our powerplant would have probably been forced to convert to natural gas.
It’s a whole new world since Hillary lost. Just think of the disaster we avoided by electing Trump. Sometimes you get lucky in life. 🙂
Now we just have to keep it going.
If he keeps going the way he is, Trumps next election will be a landslide victory.
The only leader of a western nation with, in my opinion, the guts to stand up and say ‘enough is enough’.
I despised the man before, during and shortly following his election. Now I see him gradually ticking off his manifesto promises, unlike any British PM, certainly, and many others I can think of.
If Trump can convince me, a cynical Brit subject to our spiteful socialist media, he won’t have much problem convincing innumerable American voters who were too scared to stand up and be counted at the last election.
I’m certain they will do so next time round.
God bless America, perhaps you guys can once again help the free world come to it’s senses.
Only thing left between the globalists and genocide is the 2nd amendment. That’s why they do false flags like Florida.
Even with the bum-hurt Dems and fellow-traveller RiNOs obstructing him at every turn, he’s made remarkable progress on his campaign platform. Slower than some would like, to be sure, but let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
+10. But that’s because I’ve said the same thing many times. I love Ann Coulter (and others), but she is one to kill the great because it is not perfect.
From a recent newspaper cutting
“My name is Amber McBride and identify as ecofeminist warrior mermaid fairy princess cowgirl and my chosen name is Fanny Waterfalls”. She went on to tell the Fracking hearing in the Northern Territory how she came out as an ecosexual and married the Earth.
On another occasion McBride/Waterfalls said she and a team of artists performing in Spain all married Coal.
Whilst I am concerned this is a probable case of bigamy marrying the earth and also coal, it is very encouraging that they clearly had a great attraction to coal.
Can anyone explain why they are so attracted?
Coal is clearly part of the Earth, therefore how can marrying coal be considered bigamy? Clearly Amber is attracted to a feature of the Earth, as well as the Earth itself. Its a bit like a girl marrying a husband, then marrying the husband’s hand. A little odd, but don’t we say things like “you have lovely eyes” to our loved ones? I don’t know if I would go so far as marrying my wife’s eyes, but I certainly appreciate their beauty.
I would imagine she married coal to give everyone a guilt trip for burning her spouse.
It’s a good thing that she’s still in possession of all her faculties.
Fanny in the UK is slang for Vagina…….ahem.
same here in OZ, I strongly suspect she was aware of that when she chose the name
Once you go black …
Makes me wonder about the policy of some of our (the UK’s) – and probably also Australia’s – leading residential homes for the real-world-challenged, and their policies for early release into the community
Other may disagree – my cynicism causes my bad, I guess.
Auto
“Don Curtis, a manager at coal giant Peabody Energy, said his family was lucky. He and his wife have good-paying jobs in the coal industry…”
Rumor has it, though, that he’s secretly not very happy about how she gets coal dust all over the house after a day in the mine.
““Given our state’s reliance on fossil fuels, the Clean Power Plan will have consequences,” said Shannon Anderson, a lawyer with the Powder River Basin Resource Council. “But the plan also creates opportunity for coal mine reclamation jobs, renewable energy and diversifying our state’s economy and tax base.””
Reclamation jobs? This already is standard operating procedure. It goes on all the time. Those few jobs already exist.
Renewable energy jobs? What a joke. Where? One can count the number jobs created in those fields on one hand. And those that get those jobs are rarely locals.
Diverse tax base? With out those high paying energy sector jobs, and mineral taxes and royalties, there is no tax base in a rural state like Wyoming.
KT66
Renewable energy jobs = Taxpayer subsidised job creation schemes.
Same here in the UK. Evidently it takes one coal worker to produce as much energy as 70 renewable workers.
Job creation through enforced inefficiency is not a winning economic move.
drednicolson
The left thinks it’s a perfect economic move.
The Stone Age ended because people found a better way. Same with the Bronze Age. And the age of horses.
Coal demand will drop when something better is found and accepted as a better way.
In the USA, gas has put a dent in coal.
Neither wind nor solar is a better way.
For the next 10, 20, 30, years not much will change, unless a miracle happens.
Perhaps Trump is the start of that miracle. The majority rising up against the minority.
Obama already destroyed oil and gas in Wyoming. The day before his inauguration in 09 there was about 60 rigs operating in the Jonah and on the Mesa south of Pine Dale Wy. A few days later and there were 5 or 6. The permits were pulled within hours as one his first acts.
The same thing at Parachute Co. About 60 rigs in operation, then within a week less than ten. American exploration then shifted almost entirely to the Bakken. The Bakken is mostly under Native American lands which are technically sovereign nations. The Federal authorities did not have authority to shut it down.
Oil and gas in Wyoming suffered a setback on Federal land in Wyoming because of the Obama Administration, but these stupid rules merely moved interest onto private and state lands. The near panic to lease Niobrara shale mineral estates in the state from 2009 through 2010 brought hundreds of millions of dollars to State government and private persons in Wyoming and throughout the nation.
There was an article in the WSJ last week, i think, about two gas wells near Pinedale, Wyoming, each of which can supply demand for the entire State of Wyoming. The article was decrying how such wells keep natural gas prices depressed. Yet, such wells also demonstrate the extent to which inexpensive resources of energy are available to continue fuel wealth generation.
All true. Allow me to elaborate a little more on your points.
About 80% of the land in Wyo. and other western states is controlled by the feds.
Those wells south of Pinedale are two of many like that in that area, such is the abundance.
Eric:
“Telling proud people who have helped maintain US prosperity for decades that a mad scramble to win government handouts and find alternative means to feed their families is an “opportunity” – yeah, that will win hearts and minds.”
As usual, the article ends with ridicule and scorn, priming the comments. This is what I find wrong with the site: it consistently suggests how to think through little comments like these. The prejudice is uneven, but always there, sometimes only showing itself at odd moments.
Even if you shrug them off, they are still there, in your subconscious. And its adds up. Read some of Judith Curry’s work about bias in science – she’s read the same kinds of things I have, I think, though she doesn’t talk as much about manipulation and propaganda as about bias, groupthink, etc. – things that can be suggested with no evidence, since suggestion is not accusation. But as she knows, suggestion is enough.
This is not about what’s in the article, this is about the way it’s presented.
I could just as easily summed it up, “These people have to face reality: coal was being actively phased out before Obama. Exports are down. Mining jobs have been declining dramatically for decades, largely due to automation and gas, and now renewables. Time to get together and meet the challenge! They have a state that is chock full of natural wonders in a country that has its share, and their protection is of national and global importance. Look into bark borers and climate, and the forest destruction in the West. Phenomenal to see first hand.”
See? Different, huh?
(I love Wyoming. I was there last summer for the eclipse. Amazing!)
I[IMG]http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l288/krsilber/IMG_1860.jpg[/IMG]
Different? Yes. But hardly tells the story.
Wyoming mines were not declining before the Obama Administration. Tonnage bounced up and down from 2008 to 2012. Making permitting of power plants fired by coal difficult, and then putting what obstacles one can in the way of exports certainly does reduce production, though.
With regard to the forests: The bark borers show up every 40 years or so and are not the result of climate change. Western forests are mismanaged. The trees are too dense. A dense canopy reduces the amount of precipitation reaching the forest floor. Drought stressed trees succumb to bark borers.
Eric Worral has an opinion about something and expresses it strongly. How outrageous.
“My mum is dying therefore we should kill her off”
Yeah?
https://www.dakotagas.com/
Living here in WY for many years I have heard this all before. Coal is still very important to our economy. It still produces more electricity than anything else most places and is still growing in many Asian markets. Gas might supplant that position but its price will eventually become more than coal as it is used more and more and the greens don’t want that either. Wind and solar are worth researching but not worth attempting as replacements yet, if ever, until more progress is made on their cost and reliability. Nuclear is the future once people wake up and their heat and light won’t come on reliably. Distant future when enough pain is experienced.
The greens want to destroy the only real free economy in the world and regulations are their main weapon. Believe it. Envy, greed, political ideology, and stupidity are their main driving forces. Oil, coal and gas are the world’s energy solutions for now and the only thing that can screw that up is government.
Coal and natural gas are both byproducts of bacterial digestion. Coal comes from peat, which is plant matter that dies in swamps and marshes, which become bogs and then over a couple of years (giggle-snorrrttt!) of hardening in the earth, becomes coal.
Since they are both finite resources, my view is that a “booming” industry is not necessarily a good thing unless there is a viable alternative that will replace it when these resources run out. And logically, at some point in the future they will run out. Exporting US coal to China is, in my view, throwing money down the drain. I would argue for keeping it here. China has its own coal fields – yes, the Chinese do. They don’t need our stuff for heating. They use it to fire their steel plants to produce high quality carbon steel that they can’t make themselves. Take OUR coal away from them (and Australia’s) and they may be out of business.
Russia sits on the largest oil shale and gas reserves in the world. Putin is making money for Russia by selling that stuff. It will be fine until he runs out. You have to wonder how many people have to freeze to death before a limpid government like the UK or Germany will snap out of its coma.
Maybe the point of the ecohippies, that they themselves can’t even see, is that we need to find viable alternatives to support our energy needs so that we do NOT run out of these reserves before we have an alternative. Otherwise, we return to the marginalized living of our distant ancestors Alley Oop and Oolla.
And no, government interference and subsidies are not the answer, either. If we already have a viable replacement in molten salt reactors and they are economically sound choices to build, then why are we not using them?
I have to disagree. Such a view, if followed with policy and law, would lead to nothing ever being accomplished. It would be a self imposed disaster. Mining eventually exhausts a deposit, thus we should never open a mine, we should never irrigate with underground water, we should never use fossil fuels, and so on. Using a finite resource produces wealth in the short term, which if invested well, produces yet more wealth in the long run. It is false economics to think that foregoing wealth creation in the short term may aid our descendants. What aids descendants is a legacy of wealth and wealth creation.
I understand your take on it, but the reason I said that is that if there is a ‘boom’, there is also a ‘bust’. In this case, the ‘boom’ is fossil fuel, whereas before fossil fuel, the industry was cattle ranching (if that’s an industry). Slow, steady growth is preferable to the gold rush mentality. My grandfather spent four years in Alaska (1898 to 1902, I have his journal) panning gold and then his site ran out, so he went home. The ‘boom’ went bust for him, but he did have a great adventure.
Fossil fuels are a single resource encompassing various types of fuels. The North Sea oil field has already become not viable – played out, if you will – and there is nothing to replace it. Wyoming coal is being shipped overseas, when it should be reserved for US uses first.
I understand the economics behind exporting a product, because we’ve been the leader in that for a very long while now, but China is in its ‘boom’ industrial state now and is showing signs of losing that status. So aside from the cash influx – which is necessary to upgrade any economy – why are we exporting our resources when they are finite in volume?
Setting aside the stupid politics of the ecohippies, there is something to be said for keeping this stuff for our own uses first and foremost. While that might slow production somewhat, it would pay off in the long run.
That was my point, if it wasn’t clear.
The smartest thing to do is to use whatever you need to use in order to create wealth.
If you hoard fossil fuels, the chances are that by the time you decide to use it, something else will have come along making the fuels you have hoarded worthless.
If they were economically sound, people would be building them.
We are not building molten salt reactors for the same reason there is so much interference in developing fossil fuel resources. Our Leftist federal government does not want cheap energy available to our population because it makes us independent. They consider this dangerous. And it is — to them. This is what all of Western Socialism is about. Control of our access to resources. That is why they hate the concept of American free enterprise. Leftists have to have a population to control. It is in their very DNA it seems. Manmade Global Warming was created for that reason only. It is to deny us cheap, abundant, energy which allows us to make our own lifestyle choices.
Wyoming went Trump +48 in the last election because Hillary promised to put most people in this state out of work and onto the government payroll. No one should be fooled by the talk about better jobs coming soon once the current good jobs are destroyed. Wyoming people were not fooled in part because they have the example of the Clinton Administration, the spotted owl, and the Pacific Northwest lumber industry to point to. When good jobs leave what replaces them, in the short run at least, is despair and dysfunction.
My wife holds an M.Sc. in geology from a top tier state school. She attended a lecture last week at UW where a graduate assistant was speaking about an approach to a “science” class where she and the students explore how we will survive if world average temperature reaches plus 4C above the pre-industrial value. According to her, and now her students, we will have to find new sources of food, new building materials (because trees will be gone); and amazingly that London will be gone if the temperature increases by a few more degrees C. Faculty and other graduate students attending this lecture were nodding in agreement. As my wife said, even if one accepts that only bad things will happen with rising world temperature, there appears no recognition of the sorts of time scales involved in these processes. London may be gone if all ice on our planet melts, but the time scale is in thousands of years. Everything in North America has taken a mere 250 years to build. Surely we can move cities and facilities inland ahead of rising sea in a period 4 to 10 times as long.
I should emphasize that the graduate student teaching this class did not develop the curriculum I was criticizing, but only took it from a nationally available curriculum. In some respects higher education is making people less wise rather than more, especially in the general studies sorts of classes where there is little time to present a balanced approach to complex questions, and dogma now rules.
Just a question about this: London will be gone if the temperature increases by a few more degrees C.
Do those people understand at all what London is built OF (mostly stone and brick) and that it sits on a rather boggy estuary which floods regularly and has done so historical for many centuries, without inundating the city?
I mean no insult to your wife, K. Kilty, but does she realize that there seems to be a distinct disconnect in these people between reality/history, and what they read in research papers?
I’m having difficulty understanding how they can be so out of touch with reality. I just don’t get it. Your wife has my deepest sympathies.
You are mistaking my wife for one of these people. She has to hang out with them, and listen to their talks, but she ain’t one of them at all. She is the one decrying an ignorance about time scales.
Sorry, but I do understand that your wife is NOT one of those misguided souls. She has to deal with their pure ignorance on two levels, and for that, she gets a huge dose of sympathy from me.
“Sara April 1, 2018 at 10:19 am
…and that it sits on a rather boggy estuary which floods regularly and has done so historical for many centuries, without inundating the city?”
Too true. In fact the whole side of the country is sinking. Regardless, some parts of Westminster cathedral have been standing there for 1200 years or more. I think London is safe from being “gone” any time soon and we have seen temperatures rise since then.