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Energy experts give Trump the hard truth: You can’t bring coal back
Coal wasn’t killed by a political “war” — cheap renewables and fracked gas were the culprits.
The fact is clean energy jobs are the only major new source of sustainable high-wage employment in the coming decades. Tragically, Trump’s misguided policies — his war on clean energy — mean the U.S. may not benefit from this exploding $50-trillion industry.
My son works in the oil industry and agrees with this. Most of his colleagues do as well.
Don't worry FOX will step in and Make up a story about how something Obama did killed coal and trumps hands are tied....
Fox wont stop backing Trump until it is unprofitable.... and it will be soon. Frankly we should be requesting advertisers boycott Fox until they stop lying.
Energy experts give Trump the hard truth: You can’t bring coal back
Coal wasn’t killed by a political “war” — cheap renewables and fracked gas were the culprits.
My son works in the oil industry and agrees with this. Most of his colleagues do as well.
Lets put politics aside and figure which clean energy can replace over 40% of the coal-produced electricity in the US. What is the clean-energy you are referring too? Look: every one of us in this forum is using electricity that results from burning petroleum, coal, natural gas (which is present in the oil fields), and nuclear. Also, a very small percentage of hydro, solar, and wind power. The later is not sufficient to replace petroleum, coal, and nuclear.
Blaming Obama, or Trump won't provide clean energy.
Energy experts give Trump the hard truth: You can’t bring coal back
Coal wasn’t killed by a political “war” — cheap renewables and fracked gas were the culprits.
The gas is about 30 times better at holding in the atmosphere’s heat compared with carbon dioxide. So if enough methane leaks during production, natural gas’s slim advantage over other fuels could be wiped out.
A report published today in Science, however, concludes that the United States’ leaky natural gas production system currently isn’t leaking enough methane to make it worse fuel for the climate than coal.
The March 2016 STEO expects that the combination of market forces and government policies will continue to stimulate the use of natural gas and nonhydro renewables for power generation. In EIA's forecast, natural gas provides 33% of generation in 2016 while coal's share falls to 32%. The expected share of nonhydro renewables increases to 8% in 2016, with hydropower's share at 6%.
Coal has been in decline for quite a while. The shale gas revolution that began about a decade ago sparked the first wave of coal retirements.
“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said, responding to a question about his cap-and-trade plan. He later added, “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
Of course, cap and trade is long dead. But coal-fired power plants are powering down nationwide, and they are blaming the Obama Environmental Protection Agency. The president’s critics say proposed greenhouse gas regulations for future power plants are designed to cripple the coal industry.
Rather Trump can bring these jobs back does remain to be seen. But at least these workers NOW have a president that demonize their careers and vow to destroy their companies. At the least, it's a start in the right direction.
Lots of Trumps plans are highly optimistic. But at least they ARE optimistic, not the defeatist, put-Americans-last" efforts of our last president.
Coal has been in decline for quite a while. The shale gas revolution that began about a decade ago sparked the first wave of coal retirements.
Generally speaking, facts won't convince those on the far right.
The notion that coal jobs were gotten rid of because "crazy liberal politics" is simply laughable. Say what you will about either party, but the reality is that both of them, in the end, answer to Big Business. If burning hemp was suddenly the most profitable way to create energy, we'd suddenly have all prohibitions on hemp removed overnight. If horses were somehow more efficient than cars thanks to insane genetic engineering, we'd have horses everywhere and cars would vanish overnight. In the end, it's all about the money.
Sadly, too many Trump voters are under some nutty believe that "liberals" actively want to put them out of business, which doesn't make sense. Or, they think that hordes of "black, gay, Muslim coal miners overseas" took their jobs... at least, that could be used as an excuse to explain away those hatreds.
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