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With Wyoming's very sparse population, I'm sure your vehicles accumulate extremely long mileages. So I would think Wyomingians would be really happy with the 2012 Federal law, requiring US motor vehicles to gradually increase (double) to an average of 54 miles per gallon. Presidents ever since Richard Nixon have been promising to decrease US reliance on foreign oil. Decade after decade after decade has gone by with little improvement in vehicles' average fuel economy. Now Congress had mandated a doubling in average fuel economy. Does that not even register with you?
To the best of my knowledge, all coal cars are sprayed with an oil of some kind within a minute or so of being filled. Years ago, before they started doing that, you could see the dust coming off the coal trains, especially in a cross-wind situation, but it's a thing of the past. And I'd think that if any dust at all came off the cars, most of it would be shortly after the cars are filled. There just isn't any that I've seen, and I see dozens of coal trains most days.
EH, you're off on your "60% of the Nations energy". I'm not sure what percent it is, but it's not nearly that much. We may be approaching 50% of the nation's coal, but I think it's more like 40%, and we're nowhere near that with oil and natural gas. Off the top of my head, I think we're topped by AK, LA, TX and ND with oil.
With Wyoming's very sparse population, I'm sure your vehicles accumulate extremely long mileages. So I would think Wyomingians would be really happy with the 2012 Federal law, requiring US motor vehicles to gradually increase (double) to an average of 54 miles per gallon. Presidents ever since Richard Nixon have been promising to decrease US reliance on foreign oil. Decade after decade after decade has gone by with little improvement in vehicles' average fuel economy. Now Congress had mandated a doubling in average fuel economy. Does that not even register with you?
From what I've seen, these mandates do more to drive up the cost of fuel and vehicles than they do to increase mileage. I drive an older diesel pickup most of the time. Because of the new diesel fuel requirements, the price of diesel has been driven up. If I got a new pickup I'd be saddled with maintenance costs associated with it. Or maybe that has more to do with emissions. Now that I think about it, I guess it's the new pickups that are getting worse mileage.
I'd love to get 50 mpg in my 4x4 pickup, but it wouldn't do me any good if I couldn't make it up the hills and mountains.
Funny, when my son graduated from high school in '88 I gave him a new Chevy Sprint Turbo. He could get around 50 mpg with that thing at highway speeds, and if he wanted to kick it, top speed was 130 mph IIRC.
With Wyoming's very sparse population, I'm sure your vehicles accumulate extremely long mileages. So I would think Wyomingians would be really happy with the 2012 Federal law, requiring US motor vehicles to gradually increase (double) to an average of 54 miles per gallon. Presidents ever since Richard Nixon have been promising to decrease US reliance on foreign oil. Decade after decade after decade has gone by with little improvement in vehicles' average fuel economy. Now Congress had mandated a doubling in average fuel economy. Does that not even register with you?
I've already been getting 50mpg+ for the past decade... (and yes, 23~25k mile/year averages are the norm in WY for me) of course, buying the same model of my car Today I could only get ~40mpg. That's thanks, directly, to Government action.
Sorry, but there's what "they" say they're going to do, and what they Actually do... rarely do the two meet.
Does that register with you? I'll take actual, tangible PROOF over promises and talk any day of the week.
And down here in GA (Rural GA at that) we're dreading the future as well. Not like what's going to happen next will be easy (or even possible) to reverse/correct.
With Wyoming's very sparse population, I'm sure your vehicles accumulate extremely long mileages. So I would think Wyomingians would be really happy with the 2012 Federal law, requiring US motor vehicles to gradually increase (double) to an average of 54 miles per gallon. Presidents ever since Richard Nixon have been promising to decrease US reliance on foreign oil. Decade after decade after decade has gone by with little improvement in vehicles' average fuel economy. Now Congress had mandated a doubling in average fuel economy. Does that not even register with you?
On the ranch we only have trucks, no cars, we use one 3/4 ton diesel crew cab long box for long trips it used to get 25mpg with out a trailor , but now with the low sulper fuel it ave only 19 mpg or less on a road trip.
With Wyoming's very sparse population, I'm sure your vehicles accumulate extremely long mileages. So I would think Wyomingians would be really happy with the 2012 Federal law, requiring US motor vehicles to gradually increase (double) to an average of 54 miles per gallon. Presidents ever since Richard Nixon have been promising to decrease US reliance on foreign oil. Decade after decade after decade has gone by with little improvement in vehicles' average fuel economy. Now Congress had mandated a doubling in average fuel economy. Does that not even register with you?
Yup, it does, but nobody was talking about that. Wyoming doesn't manufacture automobiles. We were talking about shutting down coal mines and coal fired power plants, not oil, not methane, not natural gas, but coal.
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Originally Posted by WyoNewk
EH, you're off on your "60% of the Nations energy". I'm not sure what percent it is, but it's not nearly that much. We may be approaching 50% of the nation's coal, but I think it's more like 40%, and we're nowhere near that with oil and natural gas. Off the top of my head, I think we're topped by AK, LA, TX and ND with oil.
The article I read actually showed Wyoming as producing over 60% of our nations energy, directly, or indirectly. By indirectly, I am talking that coal from Penn State can be used industrially and then has to have millions of dollars of scrubbers in the stacks, where as Wyoming's coal is clean enough to burn, as is so it furnishes mainly power plants for home power. It also is used in home heating. Add that with our oil, methane, natural gas, etc and the article described something around 63%. Ton for ton, 40% of the coal comes out of Wyoming, does not equate to furnishing power to the nation.
The President has said that he wants to shut down coal power, period. Not taper it off, shut it down. One of the biggest customers for Wyoming Coal is Penn State. They have coal mines, but they buy a lot of our coal.
With Wyoming's very sparse population, I'm sure your vehicles accumulate extremely long mileages. So I would think Wyomingians would be really happy with the 2012 Federal law, requiring US motor vehicles to gradually increase (double) to an average of 54 miles per gallon. Presidents ever since Richard Nixon have been promising to decrease US reliance on foreign oil. Decade after decade after decade has gone by with little improvement in vehicles' average fuel economy. Now Congress had mandated a doubling in average fuel economy. Does that not even register with you?
What's not lost on me is that the latest technology vehicles that can deliver the improved fuel economy exact tremendous penalties for the pleasure:
1) Typical cost of a late model 3/4 ton PU truck which is a necessity for moving supplies, materials, produce, farm products, farm equipment ... is the north side of $50,000, well north for a decently equipped model. There's no way I can justify that expense up front to replace a perfectly serviceable pair of 3/4 ton diesel pick-up trucks that cost me $12,000 each and only have 225,000 miles on them now.
2) The high acquisition cost brings with it a substantially higher full coverage insurance premium than what I now pay.
3) The high acquisition cost carries a 7% sales tax burden which I must pay in full to be able to register the vehicle the first time.
4) The high acquisition cost carries a huge annual ownership tax burden, well over $1,000 per year for the first several years of license renewal.
Are you seeing a pattern here that might "register with you?" The marginal improvement in fuel economy will not break even over hundreds of thousands of miles for my pick up truck requirements, which aren't an option for my real world needs. At that, I don't drive these vehicles for transportation, I use them to haul loads.
When I need to drive a car, I drive vehicles that get in the very high 20's to mid 30's per gallon. Been doing that since the late 1960's, too ... not a recent arrival to the concept of fuel efficient cars. But with the family requirements for cars, I don't buy new cars, I buy cars with at least 100,000 miles on them and several years old. My newest car is over a decade old, and I bought it for $3,500. My wife's "new" car is a year older than mine ... same model Subie Outback Limited Wagon ... and we gave $2,800 for that plus our 1995 Subie Wagon in trade. The latest models achieve mid 35 mpg under ideal circumstances on the highway ... but cost close to $30,000. Again, the cost of achieving fuel economy doesn't approach the savings in fuel mileage. Similarly, the penalties that we then have to pay to register, insure, or pay sales tax add enormously to the cost burden.
I'm thinking that you flunked elementary school math ....
I spent today in Gillette, working with a client firm that just made a sizable long term committment to expanding their service business to the coal and extractive industries. They are alarmed in view of the president's determination to eliminate coal as an energy source in the USA, and the path that the EPA under his direction has taken to implement that policy. There's talk already of significant lay-offs in the mining industry in the area if coal gets shut down as a power source. Gillette could easily go from being a boom town economy now to a fraction of it's size.
As mentioned above, so much of the Wyoming state tax base is produced by the extractive industries. If major cut-backs occur there, the funding for schools ... as well as many public works ... will be seriously impacted.
Obama has a demonstrated practice of remembering who didn't support him (and who did, crony capitalism at it's worst), and seeking ways to punish them. With so much of the Wyoming economy based in the extractive industries, restricting them would be his revenge. We're already seeing that in the more recent EPA requirements for pipelines through public lands being much more restrictive and expensive to comply with than pipelines on private property.
As I said, those were the two big tickets, that directly effect Wyoming. There are hundreds of other reasons, but we'll stick with these.
I'm not sure if the gasification plants could handle a drastic increase in natural gas used as power and we certainly do not have power plants set up to utilize natural gas, so there would have to be a drastic remodel of several plants This would take a great deal of money and time. Your question was, would I vote for a political party that worked toward this end? No. I don't vote for a party, I vote for individuals that better the state. Never has a party been able to do it as a whole, but several times individuals have been able to steer in the right direction.
Apologies I've maybe expressed myself badly. What I mean is, from some background reading it appears that as older coal power plants are reaching or nearing the end of their service lives, energy companies have been replacing them with natural gas fired power plants which are cheaper to run, primarily because natural gas is cheaper to buy, cheaper to transport via pipeline and doesn't require storage by power companies buying the stuff.
If (hypothetically) the effect of this switch to natural gas meant that the demand for coal made mining in Wyoming unprofitable, and led to widespread mine closures over a short space of time, with associated knock on affects on the railroads and ancillary workers; would you vote for a politician who promised to try and secure federal funding to keep mines open but running at a loss for the short to medium term, in order to allow Wyoming's economy and workers time to diversify? (Something like Obama did with General Motors, except for Wyoming's coal industry?)
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Subsidising anything, has seldom worked. Look at Methanol Fuel for our vehicles. Just a short time ago it took 6 gallons of diesel fuel farming the corn, to produce one gallon of methanol, so the government subsidised the plants to manufacture. Who one in that deal? Nobody that I know of.
Sure, that does sound like an extraordinary waste of public money.
There are also those of us who moved here because of low taxes, few gun laws, and a general lack of rules and regulations. We came here for freedom; we make our own economic opportunities.
China puts a new coal-fired power plant into service every week. They need coal.
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Now that I think about it, I guess it's the new pickups that are getting worse mileage. 
