{"id":7888,"date":"2017-02-02T23:44:21","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T05:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=7888"},"modified":"2017-02-02T23:44:21","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T05:44:21","slug":"coal-digestion-ctd-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/02\/02\/coal-digestion-ctd-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Coal Digestion, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sami Grover on Treehugger.com<\/strong><\/em> reports<\/a> more abandonment of coal<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Earlier today, I reported that Deutsche Bank is going to stop financing new coal mines and power stations<\/a>, and reduce its exposure to existing coal-dependent assets too. Obviously, this move has benefits in terms of the bank’s corporate responsibility commitments, but there’s another important aspect to this tale: It just doesn’t make sense financially anymore.<\/p>\n

No sooner do I write this than I get another confirmation of the way the wind is blowing: Danish energy giant DONG (yes, snickering is allowed) has committed to phasing out coal from its energy mix by 2023<\/a>. This move probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. As the graphic above shows, DONG has already reduced its coal dependence by 73% since 2006. But the fact that they are announcing a complete phase out is still encouraging: coal’s decline isn’t likely to plateau out with a reduced market share. It’s going to go the way of whale oil and steam trains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Among his many promises, President Trump claimed he would bring work back to the coal miners, and now they’re waiting for it to happen. Congress has followed his lead in the matter, as reported<\/a> by The New York Times<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n

Republicans on Thursday took one of their first steps to officially dismantle Obama-era environmental regulations by easing restrictions on coal mining, bolstering an industry that President Trump has made a symbol of America\u2019s neglected heartland.<\/p>\n

Using an obscure law that allows Congress to review regulations before they take effect, the Senate voted to reverse the Stream Protection Rule, which seeks to protect the nation\u2019s waterways from debris generated by a practice called surface mining. The Interior Department had said the rule would protect 6,000 miles of streams and 52,000 acres of forests by keeping coal mining debris away from nearby waters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

CNN\/Money<\/strong><\/em> explains<\/a> why they think this is just shouting:<\/p>\n

Despite Trump’s best intentions and regulation-busting actions, experts don’t believe they will be enough to save coal.<\/p>\n

That’s because coal has a fierce competitor in the form of natural gas. It’s cheap, it’s clean and there’s a ton of it in the U.S. Plus, Trump himself supports expanded drilling of U.S. shale<\/a>, the chief source of the boom in natural gas.<\/p>\n

“The coal jobs aren’t coming back,” said James Van Nostrand, director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at West Virginia University College of Law.<\/p>\n

He called it “nonsense” to think lighter regulation will change that. “The coal industry is being pounded by market forces. It’s not regulation,” he said.<\/p>\n

Even Robert Murray, the CEO of the largest U.S. private coal miner, thinks Trump is going to have a hard time keeping his coal promises.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

West Virginia power plant
Source: Steam Engine Revolution<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

In a very real sense, and honestly no offense to the President or the GOP portion of Congress, but this is a betrayal of the coal-miners. Most of the out of work miners will probably never see the inside of a coal mine again, except as tourists. Coal is a dirty fuel, even without regard to climate change; I have a friend who is currently suffering from mercury poisoning, no doubt brought on by the burning of coal and its absorption into the oceanic food chain – he’s a tuna addict. There are cleaner alternatives, both fossil and renewables, that are cheaper or nearly cheaper than coal. And in the export market, the United States is not a dominant force; that position is taken up by Indonesia.<\/p>\n

This is a false hope. Rather than trying to return to a Golden Age that will never be there for them again, we should be looking at how best to take care of those who worked in the coal industry, identifying those who need retraining, and get to work on taking care of the business of taking care of Americans. It’s a technology which was very useful a century ago, when its use didn’t damage the environment in meaningful ways, but today we need better solutions – and better thinking from the President and Congress. So far, they have been very disappointing in their performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sami Grover on Treehugger.com reports more abandonment of coal: Earlier today, I reported that Deutsche Bank is going to stop financing new coal mines and power stations, and reduce its exposure to existing coal-dependent assets too. Obviously, this move has benefits in terms of the bank’s corporate responsibility commitments, but \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7888"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7892,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7888\/revisions\/7892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}