The “War” on Coal
Senator Markey’s point is a good one: clean energy is a revolution (or an evolution) away from the antiquated ways of old. Like all such societal changes made for the better over the 10,000 years of human civilization, we learned, we innovated, and we improved our quality of life.
But suppose there actually is a “war” on coal. This is really just semantics, isn’t it? Suppose 7.5 billion people have seen enough destruction of our skies, our oceans, and our lungs–and have, in some sense, declared war.
Fighting a war against something that is killing you seems fairly sane and healthy to me. Aren’t we all proud to be a part of the wars against cancer, genocide and human trafficking?
I’m OK on identifying the components of our existence that bring us pain, and working hard to eradicate them from our Earth at the maximum practical rate. I’m betting that you are too.
Regrettably, only one variety of war – that which kills people directly and purposefully, with weapons overtly designed to be lethal – gets the level of funding necessary to achieve stated (or unstated) goals.
The War on Poverty was successful for a time, but it’s a challenge to consistently bribe politicians to be in favor of education, and training programs, and domestic industry support, that help more people find ways out of poverty.
The War on Drugs continues to be a dismal failure, less because of a lack of funding than because of a fatal flaw in overall strategy, criminalizing addiction in favor of treating it properly as a medical and psychological matter.
I’m reminded of Alec Guinness in the 1951 film, The Man in The White Suit – It’s about an altruistic chemist who invents a fabric which resists wear and stain as a boon to humanity, but both big business and labor decide that it must be suppressed for economic reasons.
Craig,
Civilization has always been a compromise between beneficial and detrimental aspects of technology. The greatest of human achievements was the ability to create and store energy thereby altering and taking charge of the human evolutionary process.
Control of Fire brought great benefits to humans as a species, but along with those benefits came certain negatives.
The ‘Age of Coal’ has already passed. While coal was essential the essential power source for the industrial revolution, other forms of energy arose to meet the demands coal couldn’t fulfill.
Harnessing any form of energy will always produce some negative effects. Coal remains an essential part of the US and global energy mix, and will be for the foreseeable future.
The concept of a ‘War on Coal’ was not invented by Donald Trump, but by lobbyists and extremists from the RFA lobby. It was eagerly exploited by President Obama as a means of garnering votes from the “green” boom.
President Obama wasn’t the only politician to eagerly fan the flames of a ‘War on Coal’, he was just part of a largely Leftist attempt to use environmental issues as a means to disguise other political agenda.
As a result many huge multinational corporations along with some nations, particularly the PRC, saw an opportunity to create and dominate huge new industries, largely at the expense of taxpayers and consumers.
Coal has been demonized and declared Coal “immoral” by and assortment of political/ ideological advocates. Curiously, many those advocates campaigned to have Hydraulic Fracturing Technology banned along with Nuclear energy.
Imagine an America without either Natural Gas,Coal or Nuclear power ? A de-industrialised America reliant on imported oil.
Although resistance to “fracking” seems to have lost support, the “War on Coal” continues. The idea of a “War on Coal” has a darker political aspect. Within the rhetoric of opposition to coal a theme of hatred can be detected toward Coal mining communities and denigration of the folk who make up those communities as inferior and even immoral.
At 43 % Coal remains the world’s single largest source of energy for electricity generation. Even in the US where abundant cheap Natural Gas is available, Coal remains 33-4% of domestic electricity generation.
Without Natural Gas or Hydro available, most nations are dependent on Coal, especially nations in colder climes or attempting to industrialize.
The idea of conducting a “war” on a third of America’s electricity generation is absurd (especially if you also want to ban fracking).
The worst aspect has been the delusion surrounding renewable energy.
The most vehement opponents of Coal, cite wind and solar technology as a replacement for Coal (and all fossil fuel). These advocates claim a “war on Coal” is justified by the rational that if coal was banned, Wind and Solar could easily meet the energy needs of an industrialized America.
This is simply a fantasy! The technology just doesn’t exist. It’s not just a matter of giving even greater taxpayer subsidies and consumer mandates to the renewable power industry, a simple logistical equation renders the idea unworkable.
Ah ha, cry the proponents of a “War on Coal” (and all fossil fuels), renewable energy will work, all we need to do is completely reorganize society to suit our ideology !
Eventually, the Coal industry will dwindle and disappear along with the use of all fossil fuel as a source of energy. How long before this occurs will depend on the economic availability of emerging technologies.
In the meantime, instead of pretending that coal is about to disappear, and waging a futile “War on Coal”, it would be more environmentally productive encouraging the Coal industry to continue developing technology to mitigate environmental negatives from Coal energy production.