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If a miner in WV and worker at Caterpillar both lost their $50K+ jobs and are now cleaning solar panels manufactured in China for minimum wage that's not a win.
Remind me again, when was that big news story that headlined "35 West Virginia Installers Die in Massive Solar Panel Disaster!"? Oh, yeah, the 13th of NoNever.
Coal mining accidents killed over 100,000 Americans in the Twentieth Century, and now, even with reduced production rates and stricter safety rules they still kill something like 35 - 50 workers a year now, and permanently injure hundreds more. And that isn't counting all the associated health issues and shortened lifespans caused by working in coal production and living in the midst of it and breathing the dust all the time.
Ever work in a mine? I did, when I was young, and I gotta tell ya, it's a miserable way to make a living. Ever work on a roof, maybe installing shingles or the like? Again, I did that too when I was young, and although not a great job, it was in a completely different class in terms of danger. If you lost your footing you might break your leg, might break your neck even, but you're not going to take a dozen coworkers with you.
As far as wages go, I see coal miners making maybe $22 - $25/hr and solar installers making $21 - $29/hr so what's the complaint? Besides, coal miners can only work in a handful of states, while solar installers are working all over the country.
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Let's stop right at the first sentence in this article, they mention asthma. We have had an increase in asthma cases over the last few decades.
There are many causes of asthma, many due to food allergies. What the article clearly was referring to are cases of asthma traceable to air pollution. Remember, correlation does not imply causality.
Besides, the following paragraphs are for more significant...
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But just how large are the health benefits of cleaner air in comparison to the costs of reducing carbon emissions? MIT researchers looked at three policies achieving the same reductions in the United States, and found that the savings on health care spending and other costs related to illness can be big — in some cases, more than 10 times the cost of policy implementation.
“Carbon-reduction policies significantly improve air quality,” says Noelle Selin, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Professor of engineering systems and atmospheric chemistry at MIT, and co-author of a study published today in Nature Climate Change. “In fact, policies aimed at cutting carbon emissions improve air quality by a similar amount as policies specifically targeting air pollution.”
Remind me again, when was that big news story that headlined "35 West Virginia Installers Die in Massive Solar Panel Disaster!"? Oh, yeah, the 13th of NoNever.
Mining is certainly a dangerous job but there are more dangerous ones. For the mining industry as a whole which is going to include all mining activity it's number 3.
When you get into specific occupations it's the machine operators but working heavy equipment is a dangerous job no matter what the task.
Do you use wood? Need a roof on your house? Eat fish? Does anyone collect your garbage? Thse are all more dangerous occupations than the most dangerous mining job which is operating a machine. Keep in mind that is not just coal mining.
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even with reduced production rates and stricter safety rules they still kill something like 35 - 50 workers a year now,
It's not nearly that high, average is about 20 fatalities per year except when you have a large accident.
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There are many causes of asthma, many due to food allergies. What the article clearly was referring to are cases of asthma traceable to air pollution. Remember, correlation does not imply causality.
I don't see how food allergies would cause an increase in asthma cases. I'm no rocket science but my opinion is it's the homes we live in. They no longer breathe, all of these increases in efficiencies are also trapping more indoor air pollutants. You also have switch from the traditional hydroni to ducted sytems that can easily disperse and distribute these pollutants. Last but not least kids spend a great deal more time indoors.... gotta stay away from that coal pollution in the outdoor air.
Last edited by thecoalman; 08-01-2020 at 05:30 PM..
I'm no rocket science but my opinion is it's the homes we live in. They no longer breathe, all of these increases in efficiencies are also trapping more indoor air pollutants. You also have switch from the traditional hydroni to ducted sytems that can easily disperse and distribute these pollutants. Last but not least kids spend a great deal more time indoors.... gotta stay away from that coal pollution in the outdoor air.
Yeah, I fondly remember when I was a kid, being sent outside to play in the snow, which had a black crust from all the accumulated coal soot.
Yeah, I fondly remember when I was a kid, being sent outside to play in the snow, which had a black crust from all the accumulated coal soot.
Were you burning soft coal in your house or lived in a major industrial center? Otherwise I'm saying BS. In any event my post was about current conditions. We have had a major reduction of pollutants since the 80's and increase of asthma cases since. You keep your kids indoors, I'm sending mine outside.
We still have to force people to be clean. Hell, we can't even stop them from littering, much less destroying our environment.
So you show some stock photos. Now, just how do you think that computer you used to post those pictures got made?
From raw materials that were refined and processed. Help us all, stop using anything but hemp and dirt.
What is your solution other than complaining about all those things that give you your quality of life? Same thing for all the green groupies. Nothing stops them from going native and forgoing all those wonderful things they take for granted.
Just ask one of them to never use a vehicle with an ICE again and see what happens.
Were you burning soft coal in your house or lived in a major industrial center? Otherwise I'm saying BS.
No, not BS at all. But since that was in a galaxy far, far ago, and a long time ago, I can't fill in all the details for you. I do know that we used anthracite to heat our house. It came in small pieces, was loaded into a big coal bin shaped like a funnel, and was fed into the furnace by an automatic screw mechanism, while ashes fed out into metal pails. It pretty much ran by itself unless a clinker formed that jammed the works and broke the pin that my dad would have to go fix in the middle of the night. That's when I really learned how to swear.
But what the neighbors did, I don't know, but I have a strong memory of the smell of sulfur in the air once it got cold enough in the autumn to require heat. In the area were a large brewery, a big state mental hospital, and high school, and hospital that all had tall chimneys. In any case, yes, when I was a kid, snow was only white the first day.
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In any event my post was about current conditions. We have had a major reduction of pollutants since the 80's and increase of asthma cases since. You keep your kids indoors, I'm sending mine outside.
Well, I was done raising kids by the 80s, but what has that to do with the MIT study? I do believe they were taking more into account than you presume to do. And the health issues caused by air-borne carbon and other pollutants extend to far more than just asthma.
And neither wind turbines nor solar energy generation contributes to that air pollution at all.
I do know that we used anthracite to heat our house.
Anthracite produces no visible soot, it's nearly pure carbon. Soft coal might 40 to 50%, it's the other 50% or the volatiles that produce soot with soft coal. Anthracite does produce a very small amount of light gray fly ash but most of that settles in the flue pipe or the bottom of the chimney. I'll be happy to take some pictures once the first snow hits.
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It pretty much ran by itself unless a clinker formed that jammed the works and broke the pin that my dad would have to go fix in the middle of the night. That's when I really learned how to swear.
Anthracite typically does not clinker, that's also caused by volatiles. The grade I'm using wouldn't clinker even if you tried, there are other grades with a high iron content but even then you have to over-fire it to produce a clinker.
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But what the neighbors did, I don't know, but I have a strong memory of the smell of sulfur in the air once it got cold enough in the autumn to require heat.
Soft coal has a strong sulfury smell, anthracite not so much. You might get a whiff of it on warm and humid mornings.
Last edited by thecoalman; 10-14-2014 at 04:57 PM..
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