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Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
11,974 posts, read 25,480,204 times
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US power plants aren't going to reconvert from nat gas back to coal. It is possible that we could mine coal and sell it to China though. I feel for coal country, my grandfather worked his way up to running his own mine and made a good living. Coal jobs have been declining since before Obama was born although Obama did mostly finish the industry off.
For environmentalists... remember that hybrid car sales exploded when Dubya was president. Going Green is a grassroots commonsense movement regardless of federal law.
High sulfur content is in Ohio coal but it gets blended with other coal from West Virginia,Kentucky at Norfolk Southerns coal loading plant in Wheelersburg Ohio to the power company specifications like the Killen Power station down river from me.
Appalachian coal is used to make steel and other products as well its not just for power generation.
But WV coal is on the decline. More expensive to get to. More expensive to clean and remove all of the impurities(coking) for making steel. Wyoming coal is low sulfur coal. It can be used for steel making as well as West Virginia's coal.
And something else. Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa have growing coal industries. Coal is easier to get to in those areas than in Appalachia.
US power plants aren't going to reconvert from nat gas back to coal. It is possible that we could mine coal and sell it to China though. I feel for coal country, my grandfather worked his way up to running his own mine and made a good living. Coal jobs have been declining since before Obama was born although Obama did mostly finish the industry off.
For environmentalists... remember that hybrid car sales exploded when Dubya was president. Going Green is a grassroots commonsense movement regardless of federal law.
The plants can be converted to burn powdered coal along with natural gas which will make the boiler output rise dramatically and make them more efficient.
Which will take the pressure off the natural gas infrastructure and keep those prices down as well.
As a practical matter that is irrelevant, adjusted for increased usage there might be 150 to 200 years of recoverable supply left in the US. The keyword there is recoverable. This is the current estimates by the EIA, the section marked recoverable reserves is coal that could feasibly mined using today's technology. Coal will have long been supplanted by some other source of energy before the supply runs out.
The utility that serves my area just made a big deal out of shutting down two huge, modern coal plants and replacing those gigawatts with wind and solar (pipe dream power).
Now that we have some common sense in Washington, can things like this be headed off? Might be a good time to buy stock in railroads and coal mining.
"13,000 people die each year from coal pollution--down from 24,000 in 2004, when less pollution regulation was enforced. In addition to the premature deaths, CATF estimates that every year coal pollution is responsible for 12,000 emergency room visits, 20,000 heart attacks, and over 200,000 asthma attacks." The Dirty Facts on "Clean Coal | Coal is Dirty
"Coal pollution damages plants and long-term forest health, soil nutrient deterioration, accumulation of toxics in the food chain, damage to fish and other aquatic life in lakes and streams, and nitrogen enrichment of coastal estuaries causing oxygen depletion and resulting harm to fish and other aquatic animal populations. Reducing air pollution also improves crop and timber yields, a benefit worth an estimated $5.5 billion to those industries." https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-ov...peoples-health
"13,000 people die each year from coal pollution--down from 24,000 in 2004, when less pollution regulation was enforced. In addition to the premature deaths, CATF estimates that every year coal pollution is responsible for 12,000 emergency room visits, 20,000 heart attacks, and over 200,000 asthma attacks." The Dirty Facts on "Clean Coal | Coal is Dirty
"Coal pollution damages plants and long-term forest health, soil nutrient deterioration, accumulation of toxics in the food chain, damage to fish and other aquatic life in lakes and streams, and nitrogen enrichment of coastal estuaries causing oxygen depletion and resulting harm to fish and other aquatic animal populations. Reducing air pollution also improves crop and timber yields, a benefit worth an estimated $5.5 billion to those industries." https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-ov...peoples-health
And we won't even discuss the coal ash pond collapses.
But WV coal is on the decline. More expensive to get to. More expensive to clean and remove all of the impurities(coking) for making steel. Wyoming coal is low sulfur coal. It can be used for steel making as well as West Virginia's coal.
And something else. Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa have growing coal industries. Coal is easier to get to in those areas than in Appalachia.
Dude we were doing alright before Obama came into the picture NS railroad sells that coal all over the world owns mines all over Appalachia...look at the NS pier and rail yards at Norfolk Va.black gold for export.You are just making a sale pitch for western coal well I will pitch for Ohio,WV and Kentucky coal jobs!
But the coal corporations give our politicians campaign money, then the coal politicians say good things about coal, then the voters want coal power.
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