Pittsburgh Business Times: Here's what locals said about Trump's executive order on coal

[WRnative]

Higher natural gas prices (to above $4/mmbtu) may cause a spike in coal demand, but solar and wind power provides a ceiling on fossil fuel usage for electricity generation, especially as cheaper storage (organic flow) batteries are commercialized in coming years.

<<For example, even without consideration of the recently extended tax credits for renewables and the final CPP rules, new coal plants were generally not cost-competitive with either new renewables or with new natural gas capacity in EIA’s Reference case, and therefore were not projected to be built. However, with relatively low fuel and operating costs, existing coal plants were often very cost-competitive.>>

See page 10 here:

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/sup...rojections.pdf

The likelihood is that future federal administrations, not beholden to climate change deniers, will impose even stricter restrictions and/or tax burdens on fossil fuel usage. Consider this Republican proposal. Jim Baker arguably is the most important Republican statesman of the past half century.

<<Baker also met briefly with Vice President Mike Pence, as the old-guard Republicans try to persuade the Trump administration that a carbon tax imposed in exchange for abolishing a slew of environmental regulations is an insurance policy against the risks of climate change. "We know we have an uphill slog to get Republicans interested in this," Baker said before the White House meeting. But "a conservative, free-market approach is a very Republican way of approaching the problem.">>


https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...ut-regulations

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[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by erieguy

How many of those jobs exist?

Enough for Pittsburgh to have a higher per capita personal income than all but four of the 20 other MSAs with populations between, 1,500,000 and 3,000,000.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by Craziaskowboi

Enough for Pittsburgh to have a higher per capita personal income than all but four of the 20 other MSAs with populations between, 1,500,000 and 3,000,000.

Yeah, what means the most is how many of those $50,000 jobs exist.

[prnlvsxy]

Interesting quote from Ted Thomas, a former Republican legislator, and Republican political consultant:

“You want to know how you bring the coal jobs back? Ban fracking,” Thomas told me. “The chief economist of the Heritage Foundation, Steven Moore, was trying to articulate the position that the problem with coal was Obama regulations, and not gas. When you talk to utility professionals, they’re more of them who think Elvis is still alive than believe that. That shouldn’t be in the policy discussion—much less the leading voice.”

[wanderlust76]

Originally Posted by Craziaskowboi

Enough for Pittsburgh to have a higher per capita personal income than all but four of the 20 other MSAs with populations between, 1,500,000 and 3,000,000.

Hrm something doesn't smell right with that stat you posted I'm showing Pittsburgh MSA is ranked at like 150th for median household income and around 90th for per person income. Not factoring in smaller metros such as Sarasota still wouldn't make it top 5. According to the Census Bureau.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

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In regards to coal we would have to increase our exports to really give it a boost but the countries in the eastern hemisphere already get coal from Australia. It's doubtful we can export it to them cheaper than Australia can.