If the
regulations on the coal industry are allowed to stand, they will almost certainly destroy the coal industry, with predictable, undesirable economic effects on the rest of the country.
First, some
background on the coal industry: Profitability for U.S. coal - fired power plants has been declining and coal use has dropped radically since 2007 — a trend that is expected to continue.
Rick brought up an issue that the clean coal lobby usually mentions when we got to talking about the livelihood that so many families depend
on the coal industry for.
It is unlikely the House majority will sit quietly for this Obama end run, or the apparent
attack on the coal industry and the possible threat to the Keystone XL Pipeline.
I'd like to repeat my thought from the other day that Dot Earth should do a thread focused on the oil industry, another
focused on the coal industry, and another focused on the utility industry.
The
assault on the coal industry pleases affluent progressive funders and then taxes all Americans for the re-education aimed at buying the support of the workers who used to have well - paying jobs — all the while hitting the pocketbook of those same Americans as coal - fueled power plant closures and expensive renewables force electricity rates to skyrocket.
As a way to make the bill
easier on the coal industry, Boucher is also pushing to ease performance standards for new coal - fired power plants, and grant «bonus allowances» to the first companies that install carbon - capture - and - sequestration technology.
A recent University of Massachusetts study found investing in clean energy projects like wind power and mass transit creates three to four times more jobs than the same
expenditure on the coal industry.
Second, we have seen continued pressure, more veiled than overt,
on the coal industry by the EPA as the agency weighs whether to use its legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
Regulations
on the coal industry are driving massive layoffs and the shuttering of coal plants in Pennsylvania, injecting environmental issues into that state's hotly contested Senate race between incumbent Democrat Bob Casey Jr. and Republican challenger and coal mining executive Tom Smith.
But it's unclear what effect any revocation of the moratorium would have
on the coal industry itself.
Pruitt's come under fire for rolling back Obama - era global warming regulations and regulations
on the coal industry.
That's disappointing: from Australia's point of view, a cheap, safe method of CCS would have resolved the climate change problem, at least as regards electricity, with no adverse impact
on our coal industry.
And here (below) is how it translates into financial impact
on the coal industry....
But the impact
on the coal industry is effectively doubled, because under the current policy scenario under which much of the industry is making its investment, coal prices would be «significantly» higher, the IEA says, because of increased demand.
For information
on the coal industry's backroom lobbying to prevent the classification of coal ash as «hazardous,» check out the recent DeSmogBlog / PolluterWatch report, Coal Fired Utilities to American Public: Kiss My Ash [pdf].
China's coal drive is part of a larger energy - driven investment policy that follows its attempt to reduce carbon emissions by clamping down
on the coal industry and pledging to increase investments in renewables.
«She did have reason for highlighting the possibility of global warming because the biggest threat to the UK energy security at the time was the stranglehold the Marxist National Union of Mine Workers had
on the coal industry.