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The number of coal jobs is overstated in many ways.
"In May 2015, there were 69,460 jobs in coal mining itself — only 15,900 of which were extraction workers or helpers, mining machine operators or earth drillers.
That’s 0.019 percent of the American workforce that month."
There are more than times as many employees working for the solar industry as there is in the coal industry. 260,000 in solar, 65,971 in coal.
"The second number -- unstated in the op-ed, but equaling 87,000 workers employed in coal mining, if you do the math -- actually overstates the number of mine workers. According to the Energy Information Administration, a part of the federal Energy Department, the number of people working at coal mines was 65,971 in 2016. The actual ratio between the two numbers would be almost four-to-one."
The report goes on to say depending on the source it could be as low as 2.3 solar jobs to every one coal job but that still makes it clear that solar employ multiples more than coal.
We know what a mining job is define what a job in the solar industry is. Do they use the same criteria as the Obama administration for green jobs?
If you want to to start adding jobs up that are directly attributable and indirectly attributable to the coal mining industry there is laundry list of them like the very well high paying jobs at a place like Caterpillar.
Those jobs are not at the expense of taxpayers and ratepayers either.
We know what a mining job is define what a job in the solar industry is. Do they use the same criteria as the Obama administration for green jobs?
If you want to to start adding jobs up that are directly attributable and indirectly attributable to the coal mining industry there is laundry list of them like the very well high paying jobs at a place like Caterpillar.
Those jobs are not at the expense of taxpayers and ratepayers either.
It must be upsetting to learn that there are far more solar jobs than coal jobs but that is where the future lies, not just here but in other countries such as China. But there is no reason to complain. Coal miners got their pollution from Trump - they should be satisfied with that, take the pollution and run along.
While these big disasters can be quite dramatic and highly publicized because they typically involve many deaths at once they are rare. Setting aside machine operator and truck it's quite a safe profession, there is higher rates of fatalities working as convenience store clerk. Machine operator and truck driver are two occupations with high fatality rates regardless of the industry.
The only cancer risk I'm aware of from coal is radon exposure in an underground mine. The majority of the coal we use is from above ground mines and those underground mines are vented.
For those that want to learn more about this, PBS is doing a documentary called War on the EPA which airs tomorrow, Wednesday October 11th. It could not be better timed.
For those that want to learn more about this, PBS is doing a documentary called War on the EPA which airs tomorrow, Wednesday October 11th. It could not be better timed.
I''l reserve judgement on this until l I see it because I have seen a few pieces from them that were not very well produced. Off the top of my head they did a piece on the NRA a few years back that didn't present them fairly IMO. "Losing Iraq" and the "The Rise of ISIS" on the other hand are great examples of excellent journalism, they pulled no punches for the Bush or Obama administrations. If you are unfamiliar with this show Seacove don't be surprised if some of the issues I've covered here with the EPA under the Obama administration come up.
You really need to read the history of this, they were sued in the early 2000's to regulate it as an "air pollutant". That lead to the SCOTUS decision. Again, it's a law from 1990 that was never intended to regulate greenhouse gases.
It has been settled in the courts that it causes harm to humans in some form and subject to regulation,
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Originally Posted by thecoalman
The primary subsidy the coal industry gets is a tx break on the costs of pollution controls, it's something like a billion or two each year. If those costs were passed onto the consumer their bill might go up something lik 30 cents per month if they were getting all their power from coal.
The tax breaks provided to the renewable sector are for production, it's something like 5 billion a year. If those costs were passed onto the consumer and they were getting all their electric from renewable resources their monthy bill goes up about $28. That's just the federal subsidies. Then there is plethora of incentives offered by the states, REC's(renewable energy credit) and there is the cost of building and maintaining idle plants they require when they are not producing electric.
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.
This is where the world is heading, granted places like Chile don't have the industry and consumption as the US and they benefit from Geothermal and wind due to location.
Quote:
Even Argentina, something of a laggard in Latin America when it comes to clean energy, last year invited foreign companies to bid on renewable energy projects and declared 2017 to be the “year of renewables,” setting a goal of relying on clean sources for 20 percent of its electricity needs by 2025, up from the current 2 percent.
Mexico is striving to rely on clean energy for 35 percent of its electricity demand by 2024, up from about 21 percent today. By 2050, it hopes to have a grid that runs on at least 50 percent clean energy.
Chilean officials have an even more ambitious projection, saying the country is on track to rely on clean sources for 90 percent of its electricity needs by 2050, up from the current 45 percent.
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