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This was great news. Another move to reign in the unconstitutional regulation of an industry.
It's always unconstitutional when the courts don't agree with your opinion. If it was inconsitutional why wasn't it challenged in the courts.
From the CAA Majority ruling.
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The CAA defines "air pollutant" as "any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, biological, radioactive . . . substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air". The majority opinion commented that "greenhouse gases fit well within the CAA’s capacious definition of air pollutant."
Maybe Trump should change the Whitehouse to a Coal Stocker for winter heating ....
But honesty, I live by the coal region in PA. Some homes still burn coal to heat them. I'm fine with that. But promoting coal that is stripped mined today? Really is the opposite of where technology is taking us.
The Obama regulations did not try to end home coal use. But just as a Auto company announced they will have THEIR OWN plans to phase out oil derivative cars? It is where it makes sense to go.
Reversing ALL Obama era bills is as a status symbol of mocking his era as President. But this really isn't bringing back coal. Perhaps wanting to sell to China again is the hope?
Do people really think coal companies are hiring a teams of people who wear miner helmets with little (or should that be Liddle?) candles attached to dig tunnels or are they being more cost efficient and using a fraction of the people to run the heavy excavation equipment as they strip mine, digging a hole from the top down?
It has been settled in the courts that it causes harm to humans in some form and subject to regulation,
The only thing that has been settled in the courts is they may regulate it under the 1990 Clean Art amendment/
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My question was more broad to the fossil fuel industry in general, coal is not subsidized as heavily as oil but it does go back almost a century.
Again subsidies given to fossil fuel industry come in the form of tax breaks, the amounts relative to production are quite small. In other words they are dependent on them to be a marketable product The renewable energy sector gets them for production and the amounts are quite large relative to production.
I wasn't trying to avoid your question because my answer is much more involved. If it were me we are going to remove all tax on business across the board which by default would eliminate the subsidies. If you want to fund R&D into energy projects I'm all for that but I'd only agree on some kind of policy that isn;t going to be picking winners and losers.
Perhaps a rewards based sytem instead, set out some criteria and whatever technology can match that criteria. $2 billion a year let it rollover every year. Any tech getting the reward would come with stipulation that any patent issued would licensed to any US company using that tech within the borders of the US free.
I keep hearing coal is dying but one very important thing to realize is BTU for BTU it is by far the largest resource we have for energy and the very cheapest to extract. That is not only true here but compared to the world. Making the assumption that it cannot be utilized going forward is a very poor one because you have no idea what technology is around the corner. One of the reasons gas is hurting coal is because of combined cycle generation which increases efficiency considerably, such tech is being developed for coal plants and if feasible would instantly put all doubts behind about what is cheaper.
As far as emissions go the way industries have handled waste products in the past is to make them profitable and this is no different. For example CO2 emissions used as a feedstock for bio fule production from algae. As another example there is this recent development.
These things aren't possible when you have the government picking winners and losers.
I can't find it but there was an excellent quote from Tillerson about a decade ago. To paraphrase the gist of what he said was "Exxon would not be entering the renewable energy market where the government can pull the rug out from under you at any moment which would be the case if Exxon entered it."
When the world's largest privately held energy company with the ridiculous amount of resources and expertise they have for R&D has decided not enter a market because they have concerns about what the government is going to do and/or have to compete against technologies picked by the government that is not a good thing at all.
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Green energy has been subsidized for only around a decade.
Solar panels have been subsidized going back to the Carter administration.
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Black lung degree is currently having a spike, why anyone would want to go back to this is beyond me.
Worker health of course is concern but this is not an issue for just the coal industry. Lung disease is a problem in many industries; any mining activity, dry wallers, bakers, mechanics, welders etc.
Most of the coal in the US is now mined from above ground mines with the operators sitting in climate controlled cabins with filtered air. There is no reason any miner should ever be afflicted by this because we have the means to protect them.
It has been settled in the courts that it causes harm to humans in some form and subject to regulation,
My question was more broad to the fossil fuel industry in general, coal is not subsidized as heavily as oil but it does go back almost a century. Green energy has been subsidized for only around a decade. Black lung degree is currently having a spike, why anyone would want to go back to this is beyond me.
Do people really think coal companies are hiring a teams of people who wear miner helmets with little (or should that be Liddle?) candles attached to dig tunnels or are they being more cost efficient and using a fraction of the people to run the heavy excavation equipment as they strip mine, digging a hole from the top down?
No, but there are smaller mines that locals do work in in even the Anthracite coal fields of PA (a unique form of the hardest coal that shines) Larger companies too that mix good coal with reclaimed waste-coal dumped on mounds in previous eras. That diminishes freshly mined coal's heating value and adds more ash-waste once burned. One mine by me use to be such highly rated quality Hard coal coal .... it burned with very little ash left. That mine has ceased.
It is just Coal is NOT the future. Subsidies trickle down much less then hoped. But if it means some jobs are spared as to not yet lose ALL? I would not say it is a waste. Coal just is not a viable source that will increase in use or should. But we need NOT LOSE IT ALL. No one can claim coal is a future commodity to invest in..... I also know waste refuse old coal fields now being reclaimed and burned for electricity. They provide employment just on former waste discarded in the past.
But medical cost from longer-term in the mins exposure is high and I know those who had to retire early due to the effects on there lungs TODAY.... that is then a disability (Black Lung) some see as handouts despite those worthy to receive it. You don't need to be on oxygen already to receive it. But the effects are not reversed.
Of course Strip-mining does not effect lungs and that is still the larger part of mining. But regulations have the land on the surface ..... restored vs the past they just moved on to the next vein to access.
Do people really think coal companies are hiring a teams of people who wear miner helmets with little (or should that be Liddle?) candles attached to dig tunnels or are they being more cost efficient and using a fraction of the people to run the heavy excavation equipment as they strip mine, digging a hole from the top down?
Here is some pictures I have of Lehigh Anthracite's strip mine operation. It's difficult to understand the scale of this but those larger rocks you see at the bottom that looked like they slid down the rock face are about the size of a bus. This about 1000 feet of rock face, the coal seam sits on top of the rock face about 10 to 20 foot thick, in this case it's the mammoth vein. It has that name because that is very thick for an anthracite vein. It extend about 1000 foot into the ground beyond what is exposed but unfeasible to mine through strip mining.
In the background is the start of the reclamation process, this hole will be completely filled. they will cap it with top soil, plant grass native trees and other plants. Mother nature will take it's course from there. In one hundred years it will be difficult to tell they were there.
While you are looking at this picture note the line that extends across the rock face. If you look up a little higher there is another one but fainter, higher up there is perhaps two more and there is going to be ones below the point they excavated
That line was created by divots in the rock face for the ties for mine track that may date back about 100 years. What they would do is first mine across the seam where the mine track is and then mine upwards directing the coal right into the mine cars.. Another way to look at this is that it would be like a grid on top of the rock face. They took very little of the coal with this process becsue they had to leave a lot of it for stability.
If you were to continue to follow that line to the right you'll come to this.
Anthracite has many seams with rock sandwiched between them that might be 50 to 100 foot thick. That hole is the means to get to the other seams further into the mountainside. They will do the same thing in other those seams, to visualize this take your grid and make it into a 3D grid.
As a side note water is always an issue in mines, especially underground ones. The way they handled this in the past was to construct the mine so it would simply drain either through the mine entrance or a drainage shaft that would make it's way into the local waterways. These abandoned mines are a very big problem across the nation and that includes any type of mine.
When they are done operating here those issues go away and any issues on the surface that were caused by previous operations such as enormous waste piles of rock will also be addressed. This mining operation will actually make improvements to the environment in the long term.
We heated our Manhattan apartment with a coal stove back in the early 50's. Mom was always yelling at me as a young child to not walk around the apartment barefoot. My feet would get so dirty I had to soak them. I can remember just touching things and my hands would get dirty. Mom was always getting down on her knees scrubbing to clean the floors. Dad was always washing down the walls. Mom got down and kissed the floor when our building put in an oil burner. Better than coal, but not great. Gas heating is much cleaner, and cheaper.
DavePa, we now live in the Poconos. Majority of people in our area have propane gas. We use a combination of propane and electricity for heating. I've seen those closed mines around the Scranton area. No, I would not want to see that coal come back, especially not for home heating.
Solar Panels? We lived in Florida for a time. I was very surprised to not see more solar panels in the Sunshine State. I saw far more homes with that in NY than in Florida.
No, but there are smaller mines that locals do work in in even the Anthracite coal fields of PA
Most of the smaller operations are gone where you might have 4 or 5 guys working a mine. There was hundreds of them that have closed since 2000. MSHA rules make it very difficult for them to operate. They came in and start demanding they do this that and the other thing including things that did not even apply to hard coal mine. It's sahme becsue these were very safe mines with 4th and 5th generation miners, often run by families and neighbors.
For example they wanted wireless communications, this works in larger soft coal mine but the cost to do this in a small scale anthracite mine is out of control. Never mind the warning on the the box of explosives that stated do use near radio frequencies.
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(a unique form of the hardest coal that shines) Larger companies too that mix good coal with reclaimed waste-coal dumped on mounds in previous eras.
Firstly if they wanted to do that they could and produce a product just as good as fresh mined coal. They don't because it's very costly. It would literally cost more using culm than fresh coal. You can't just simply dig into waste pile and sell it, the retail market which is the biggest market for anthracite is a refined product. If you are selling junk on the retail market you won't be in business for very long.
They first crush it and most of that they are putting into the crusher will be coal, if the coal being brought in has a lot of rock it will be rejected. That rock causes a lot of issues, the primary one being wear and tear on the machinery.
From there it will go into into a separation plant to remove what rock there may be. A menzies cone is one way, this uses a slurry of magnetite which allows the coal to float and the rock to sink. This is where the quality of the end product is dictated. If you have a lot of rock you'll need to process a lot of material which is why they use only fresh coal.
The only thing they may reprocess for the retail market is if they run into old waste piles of rice or smaller which is about the size of a pencil eraser. This was considered junk the early part of the last century and it was either dumped or used for thing like fill for RR tracks. It has a very high percentage of coal making it feasible and is now the most popular size.
The seam I pointed out above is the mammoth vein, that can have an ash content of about 5 to 6 percent which is extremely low. This can actually be problematic in stoker stove that wll have difficulties burning it without some adjustments. it's too good. They may mix this with a coal from different vein that has a higher ash, they try and hit around ten to 11%.
That said they do have operations cleaning up waste piles but this has nothing to do with the retail market, they do some very minimal processing and it will be used in a co-generation facility designed to burn that low quality product. The ash is used for fill in old strip mining pits and they reclaim the ground.
This is a market based solution that solves an environmental issue on many fronts and these facilitates were particularly at risk under Obama's plan....
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