We’ll Soon Be Burning More Coal. Sound OK?
A wise-cracking friend of mine in high school used to tell me that I “have a firm grasp on the obvious.”
That was the first thing that went through my mind when I came across Jameson McBride’s article that begins: “Clean energy advocates should oppose subsidizing coal.”
He points out that the Trump administration’s proposal to promote coal and nuclear favors coal far more than it does nuclear, and is:
“likely to result in more coal burning, at a time when coal is being displaced by cleaner and cheaper alternatives like gas and renewables.” He continues: “Now we have the first quantitative forecast of what the rule would do to power markets, and the results are sobering. The study, by Daniel Shawhan and Paul Picciano at Resources for the Future (RFF), finds that over the next 25 years, the rule would cause a net cost of $263 billion and 27,000 additional premature deaths from increased carbon emissions and air pollution due to increased coal burning.”
News flash: “clean energy advocates” aren’t the only people who should oppose subsidizing coal. How about the 27,000-soon-to-be-dead people and their loved ones? How about all people with lungs? Those with a conscience?
When you think about it, there are precious few on the wrong side of this one.
Craig,
Like most emotive partisan based advocates Daniel Shawhan and Paul Picciano at Resources for the Future (RFF) massage speculation and distortions to sound like fact, and publish authoritative sounding “studies”, which are then quoted and re-quoted by advocates until they become rigid dogma no longer able to be challenged.
Your article start with a picture of a miner bearing no resemblance the modern mining industry but designed to create emotive outrage among people who have probably never met a miner, or ever seen a mining operation.
This sort of highly emotive politically motivated advocacy doesn’t offer any practical solutions or solve any problems. It only increases divisiveness and intolerance.
Such articles have an underlying dishonest premise.
The premise the world can immediately replace Coal and Nuclear power generation with renewable energy technology can’t be substantiated as the technology just doesn’t exist.
When asked to explain this completely unsustainable claim, advocates always resort to conspiracy theories and increasingly intolerant political ranting.
Solar advocates never discuss the vast amount of highly toxic waste created by their product, just as the lithium battery industry carefully avoids mentioning that “lithium” batteries should be more appropriately described a “cobalt’ batteries.
No one mentions the “mining” activity for the crypto-currency, Bitcoin, probably uses more energy than the US coal industry !
The US coal industry has many problems, but it still provides 31-34 % of US electricity generation (Nuclear 20%). Coal is also a useful export industry. Both these industries need large injections of capital to modernize and adopt cleaner technology and better environmental practices. This requires stability and profitability.
Superficial readings of biased articles, studies and report etc isn’t really helpful. In fact it’s very counter productive.
The level of public discourse and debate is deteriorating. Each side blames the other, but in reality each are equally to blame. It really is time to start listening, reassessment and start considering the wider picture, not just barracking for one political party, ideology or technology as if they were football sides able to be influenced by louder cheering.