LET’S KILL COAL

Sometimes I think Obama and his minions purposely want to destroy our economy, based upon the ridiculous and utterly disastrous belief they can control everything and everyone. They believe they are smarter than everyone else. They believe they can solve all the problems in the world with thousands of pages of regulations enforced by clueless government drones working in a vast bureaucracy in Washington DC. The hubris and arrogance of these people is beyond the pale. Over 40% of our electricity in this country is produced by burning coal. We have the largest supply of coal on the planet. The shale oil and shale gas miracle is a fraud. This past winter revealed the downside of natural gas storage and supply. Obama and his minions won’t be satisfied until there are blackouts and rationing of electricity. This boob and the boobs surrounding him actually believe the rest of the world will follow his lead if he just unilaterally imposes massive restrictions on the use of coal. I’m sure China, Russia, and India can’t wait to follow Obama down this path to a cleaner planet.

Meanwhile Boobus Americanus stares at their iGadgets, HDTVs, and computers, powered by electicity, while agreeing with Obama’s plan to kill coal. And so it goes.

New EPA rules could burn coal state Democrats

Administration said to be seeking 30 percent emissions cut by 2030

By S.A. Miller

The Washington Times

It’s not just electric companies and coal miners bracing for the Obama administration’s announcement Monday of tough rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from America’s roughly 600 coal-fired power plants, rules designed to cut U.S. power plant emissions by nearly a third in the next 15 years.

Democratic candidates and the party’s campaign organizations have positioned themselves carefully in anticipation of more stringent emissions standards that will thrill the party’s environmentalist base but cause political headaches for Democrats facing tough challenges in states that produce coal or rely heavily on coal to generate electricity.

About 40 percent of electricity in the U.S. comes from coal-fired power plants, considered to be the nation’s top source of carbon dioxide pollution. Leaked details of the plan suggest Mr. Obama will set a goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s power plants by 30 percent by the year 2030, preventing an estimated 650 million tons of carbon dioxide from power plants.

Coal-fueled plants will face the toughest challenge to meet the president’s centerpiece goal.

The Environmental Protection Agency regulations, which industry insiders expect to be hundreds of pages long, likely will be Mr. Obama’s strongest effort yet to tackle climate change.

The executive action, however, will expose some Democrats to charges that they are complicit in what critics call Mr. Obama’s “war on coal,” including candidates in several states whose fates will determine whether Democrats can retain majority control of the Senate after November elections.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which oversees the GOP’s Senate races, drove home the point in a blog post last week: “Senate battleground states are largely coal-intensive states, which makes President Obama’s upcoming EPA announcement even more important. These states will be particularly hard hit by the rate spike that will come from the Obama administration’s cap-and-trade fiat.”

In West Virginia, where coal is king, Senate candidate Natalie E. Tennant, a Democrat, quickly turned on Mr. Obama when asked about the regulations. Ms. Tennant trails in polls in a race against Republican nominee Rep. Shelley Moore Capito for the seat of retiring Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, a Democrat.

“I am pro-coal, and I am pro-coal miner. I will fight President Obama, the EPA, the Senate and anyone else who tries to undermine our coal jobs,” said Ms. Tennant, the West Virginia secretary of state.

Sen. Kay R. Hagan of North Carolina, one of the most endangered Democrats this election year, also will have to handle the issue carefully. Her state relies on coal plants for about 38 percent of its electricity.

Ms. Hagan sent a letter late last month to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that begged her to delay the regulations. Ms. Hagan weathered criticism days earlier from Republican rival Thom Tillis for not joining a bipartisan group of senators who asked the EPA for a similar delay.

In Kentucky, the nation’s third-largest producer of coal, Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes has struggled to distance herself from Mr. Obama’s energy and climate change policies as she seeks to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Kentucky obtains more than 90 percent of its power from coal-fired plants, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and Mr. Obama is deeply unpopular in the state.

The McConnell campaign hit Ms. Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state, early on for backing the “war on coal.”

Her weakness among Kentucky coal voters was evident in the May 20 primary election, when she lost a substantial share of the vote to underfunded opponents in 21 counties, nearly all of which depend on the coal industry.

The EPA regulations also will fuel Republicans’ attacks against vulnerable Democrats in other energy-producing states, including Sen. Mary L. Landrieu in Louisiana, Sen. Mark L. Pryor in Arkansas and Sen. Mark Begich in Alaska.

Although their states could benefit from an increase in the use of natural gas as coal is phased out under the new emissions standards, they will have to fend off criticism from Republican rivals that the Obama administration’s EPA is hostile to energy and business interests.

The coal debate also will reverberate across the campaign trail for Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, West Virginia Democrat, who has had to deal with the fallout from Mr. Obama’s energy policies as he tackles one of the toughest races of his nearly 40-year career.

The EPA rules also threaten to step on Democrats’ national campaign message that focuses on jobs and the economy.

Providing fodder for the EPA’s critics, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce study released last week calculated that the emissions reduction goals set by the Obama administration would reduce the nation’s gross domestic product by $51 billion a year, cost 224,000 jobs and increase American electricity bills by $289 billion from 2015 to 2030. EPA officials have disputed the Chamber of Commerce estimates, and other critics note that the projected costs amount to only 0.003 percent of a $17 trillion economy.

The coal industry lobby also warns that an increased reliance on natural gas will result in unreliable electric supplies and mass blackouts.

“This administration has largely turned a deaf ear to those states that are most affected,” said Laura Sheehan, senior vice president of communications at the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry lobbying firm. “Their goal is to bring about the end of coal-based electricity in the United States.”

In response to questions about the administration’s climate change agenda, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Josh Schwerin stuck to the party’s message.

“While every candidate runs with their own message in their own district, Democrats across the country are focused on strengthening the economy by creating good jobs, supporting equal pay for women, investing in infrastructure and putting the middle class ahead of special interests,” he said.

“As Democrats zero in on strengthening the economy for middle-class families, Republicans have abandoned any pretext whatsoever of caring about jobs or the economy and now have a singular focus on conspiracy theories and partisan political games. It’s abundantly clear to voters which party is focused on the economy and which one is focused on political gamesmanship,” Mr. Schwerin said.

Mr. Obama also has sided with environmentalists to the detriment of red state Democrats by repeatedly delaying a decision on whether to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast in Texas.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/1/new-epa-rules-could-burn-coal-state-democrats/#ixzz33UH2UZ2f
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Tommy
Tommy

I’ll bet rates double in the nest five years – he (the savior) has openly stated his desire to bankrupt the coal fired electricity generators.

Welshman
Welshman

I’m certainly not pro-coal, but I am pro-electricity. Shale has been a real disappointment due to cost and getting it out of the ground. Monterey Shale has been a total dud, as the cost and technology are over the top. Nuclear generation does not seem to be moving forward, so how do you generate power. I have 20 solar panels on my roof and they only generate about 2/3’s of my needs in the summer, and winter time not much at all.

Coal is about the only cheap energy source we have left, so now we are going to phase it out, brilliant.

Stucky

It took me pretty much all day Saturday, even with a power washer, to get the grime and soot off of my parent’s home. And that was from the neighbor’s wood burning stove. Coal is worse.

My dad actually worked for two years as a coal miner in England immediately after WWII. Says it was the worst job he ever had.

Our 2nd apartment in Newark NJ was actually heated by coal … three story apartment building, six units, each unit had it’s own coal storage bin and boiler. It was pretty much my job to shovel the coal several times a day in the winter. Kept us real nice and warm. Also turned all cars nearby a pretty dusty black color within days.

I rode in a coal powered train. It was an old steam engine … a tourist thingy … that ran from Ft Wayne to a circus in Peru IN, about 60 miles. They warned us of the danger of opening the windows, so I didn’t, but some ass-clown several rows up did, and sure enough within minutes some hot ash soot flew into my eye. Seriously. Pretty much ruined the trip as my eye swelled up all red, and stayed that way until the next day.

You can laugh all you want about environmentalism and tree-huggers demanding a clean planet. I also hate and loathe the EPA. But, it’s not about them.

The fact of the matter is that coal burning is dirty nasty shit. I don’t care what “facts” the coal-industry has to “prove” otherwise.

A pretty coal day in London, circa early 1900’s.
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Oh, but coal is now clean. They can scrub it, and shit.

A pretty coal day in China, circa now.
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Tommy
Tommy

@stucky – it may be messy, but you can’t compare the soot and shit from a home boiler, old shitty locomotive and such to a stationary power plant —- but I too hate the pollution part. Global warming is bullshit, but I’m all for grabbing toxins and such belching out of smoke stacks. But not if the government is involved. Even your parents neighbor, there are lots of clean wood burners out – lots of ’em, but the old ‘throw logs in twice a day’ with a manual flue ….. messy.

Stucky

Tommy

You make good points regarding the home boiler and old shitty locomotive.

But what about this?
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BTW …. I am not in favor of killing the coal industry. Gotta get power from somewhere …. and the alternatives also suck. We’re between a rock and a hard place. I have no solutions. I hope science does, eventually, before we’re all dead.

ragman
ragman

The only gas emissions that need to be limited are the ones coming out of Obongo & COs collective black asses. Just wait ’til after the Nov election. The next two years will see “Executive Orders” that will make this shit seem like child’s play.

Persnickety
Persnickety

What Stucky said – coal is dirty and nasty stuff. And it’s getting dirtier and nastier each year as the higher quality deposits are used up and we switch to lower quality crap. Germany is using mostly brown coal, which is basically dry peat. Yeah, makers of the nicest stuff in the world are burning rotten plant hulks for their power. Yeah….

Oh, and coal burning also releases far more radiation into the atmosphere than nuclear plants do (Fukushima excepted). It’s just nasty in all ways.

TE
TE

Most reasonably intelligent people can agree that burning coal increases pollution.

Most can also see that over the past 40-50 years, the industry has taken steps to reduce pollution, and by viewing this through the lens of lakes and rivers, has been largely successful.

Just did some quick research and found that there are approximately 2300 coal-burning plants in the world.

So while this legislation will go a long way to removing more GDP from our pockets and transferring the money to the rich and elite, it won’t do a freaking thing for the planet.

China is still building MORE, India building MORE, our forced, bullshit, bandaid of a solution won’t make an iota of difference to the planet.

Now throw on the insult of their numbers, just how in the hell does stealing $300 billion annually from our pockets equate to a drop in GDP?

Nothing more than more lies with the express purpose of eliminating more of the middle and gifting it to the rich, while covering up the destruction with bogus “reporting” on the economy.

Think the retail sector looks bad now? Wait until the fines for O’care hit the $5000 a year mark (by 2020, if I remember correctly), AND our utilities cost 3x more.

I’m sure our obsession with Chinese produced crap will continue on as our houses go dark and our bellies empty.

Damn fine job they are doing of erasing our way of life.

Next up, shipping us to the coasts in the name of saving the planet. It’s coming, so sad we are going to sit back arguing about it as it happens.

Tommy
Tommy

For sure, I know its been beat to death – but what good choices are there? Although our cable went out and for a couple of days – I gotta say, it wasn’t bad – actually relaxing? Maybe I could use less power and read more. You should see the looks of complete fucking horror from my teenage daughters when I discuss modifying our cell plan – I mean it, the concern, worry, fear – all of it – they’ve no idea how to live without that shit.

Stucky

“For sure, I know its been beat to death – but what good choices are there?” —- Tommy

Reduce global population to 2 billion human souls.

And, no, I am not fucking volunteering. We don’t really need India or Africa. Start with them.

gilberts
gilberts

“Sometimes I think Obama and his minions purposely want to destroy our economy, based upon the ridiculous and utterly disastrous belief they can control everything and everyone.” What, are you daft? OF COURSE he’s trying to destroy the economy! He couldn’t do any worse if he merely asked all the experts for the ideal decisions, then did the exact opposite of their advice. He only makes a correct decision by accident or inaction. Nothing Barry does is for the improvement of this nation. Once you accept the idea he’s trying to hurt us, his decisions all make a lot more sense.

Stucky, I agree with wanting clean air. And coal is dirty stuff (I do blacksmithing). But the power plants can make it a lot cleaner with air scrubbers and other tech, as Tommy said. For instance, I thought I read you can burn sulfur with coal at high heat to eliminate some of the nastier pollution. Not sure about that, but it’s been a while. I’m all for regulating it to ensure it’s as clean as possible, but kill coal? What does that leave us for power generation? Solar? (low EROI) Wind? (low EROI) Water? (I read we’re already maxed) Thermal? (Dunno, will it power your car?) Nuclear? (dangerous!) Wood? (dirty) Oil? (gone) Natty Gas? (going)

bb

You have coal or nuclear . Nuclear power is the most affordable energy we have but no nuclear plants have come on line in 30 years.It’s also clean and safe.The spent fuel can also be stored safely.

Stucky

bb

Nuclear power is also a short term solution. Uranium is also a NON-RENEWABLE resource. Eventually it will we gone.

At current rates of consumption pretty much all of mankind’s needs concerning non-renewable energy sources will be gone sometime in the next 100 years. (Solar, wind, and water will remain … but we seem tapped out right now on getting them to produce the gazillions of gigawatts needed.)

AWD

Where I live is coal country. Everyone here hate’s Obama with a passion, and he’s trying to end their livelihood completely based on the erroneous assumption of global warming. Obama can’t come up with ways to destroy this country fast enough. He’s almost doubled the FSA, more than doubled our debt. He’s wiped out the auto industry, the healthcare industry, and now energy production.

If he’s allowed to continue, electricity bills will triple or quadruple, and they’re already high now. Obamacare has tripled health insurance premiums, and college tuition has tripled, as has student loan debt. Obama’s destructive tendencies are satisfied unless he can three-bagger everything. With inflation starting to seriously kick in, people have to decide whether to pay their electric bill or eat. Unbelievable. Obama’s got to go, be impeached, NOW.

Peaceout
Peaceout

Regarding Barry, stupid is as stupid does.

All this is, is Barry trying to make good on his campaign promise to “heal the planet”. He is using his ‘executive privilege’ to modify an existing law and get his way rather than wait for congress to pass a law they never will pass. Politics pure and simple, with a bit of narcissism on the side.

The new coal guidelines will not do anything to improve global air quality, global greenhouse gases or your health. Unless the whole world’s coal power producers are on the same page and taking the same measures then the net effects of the US efforts to curb global warming and improve air quality will be nil.

The cost of these changes will lead to overall higher energy costs which will make goods and services produced in the US more expensive, making the US less competitive in the global market, forcing companies to continue to outsource to countries that do provide cheap power, further depleting the job market, ……………..etc.

Downward spiral and epic fail, good job Barry.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

Denninger posits that liquid salt thorium reactors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor could power us for 500+ years (accommodating an increase in power demands) and that we could get all the thorium we need from coal (and use much less coal than if we kept burning it). http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3355150

I haven’t investigated enough to decide that he’s right, but I suspect that he is.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

Karl Denninger’s own comment on his article linked above:

“Ecofascists are all about making everyone — except them — live in a straw hut.

THEY get the mansion.”

Sounds about right.

Stucky

The world’s thorium supply is estimated to be several times greater than that of uranium. That’s the good news.

The bad?

Benefits of Thorium Are ‘Overstated’, UK Report Finds
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/09/14/benefits-of-thorium-are-overstated-uk-report-finds/

Thorium Reactors: Back to the Dream Factory
http://www.ccnr.org/Thorium_Reactors.html

“However, critics of the thorium alternative point out that it’s more expensive than uranium because it can’t sustain a reaction by itself and must be bombarded with neutrons. Uranium can be left alone in a reaction, while thorium must be constantly prodded to keep reacting. Although this allows for safer reactions (if the power goes out it simply deactivates), it’s a more expensive process. Thorium is a popular academic alternative: in the lab it works well, but it hasn’t been successfully – or profitably – used on a commercial scale yet.”
http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/2012/09/05/can-thorium-provide-a-safer-nuclear-future/

Eddie
Eddie

The rumor is that they once had a demo thorium reactor up and running at Oak Ridge…and that it was scrapped and its chief backer pushed into retirement when Congress gave the go-ahead to the plutonium fast breeder reactor…the main “benefit” of which was bomb-making fissionable material. This all happened when I was a little kid now, and nobody seems to know much about the real facts of that reactor.

There are some people trying hard to build one, but so far nobody has one working, not sure if they ever will. If they did, it’d be a massive improvement, at least from the standpoint of people who don’t like large amounts of nuclear poison that linger for millions of years.

Detractors think the thorium rector is like nuclear fusion, in that it’s a “theoretically possible” solution that’s not likely to ever be built in the real world.

I dunno.

Zarathustra

I grew up in Oregon, which once was the land of sawmills. It used to pretty common for people to heat their houses using sawdust-fired furnaces. A truck would come by and blow the shit into a room in a basement. The sawdust was auger fed to the furnace. You could always tell a house heated in this fashion. Because the sawdust had a pretty high moisture content having sat at the lumber mill in a big pile outdoors in the rain for weeks or months, the smoke that emerged from the chimney was white from steam.

It probably wasn’t very efficient as a fuel source but in those days, it was a waste product so it was cheap. Often it was burned at the mill in large rusty iron contraptions known as wigwam burners. Actually they looked like a big Teepee. That kind of shit is banned now.

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Zarathustra

Tries again…

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bb

AWD ,you mean you live in corn country. Corn country. There’s no coal in Illinois. What would you do without me and Lipoh correcting you.

Llpoh
Llpoh

The option to coal is nuclear energy. No ifs, and or buts.

But there is no way that the US abandons coal, no matter what the fucking EPA says, and no matter if the smog is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Llpoh
Llpoh

bb – leave me out of your hullshit. I have been idly watching you crap all over the site again, but best leave me be.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Thorium is a viable solution to our energy needs.

Eleven reasons to switch to Thorium based Nuclear Power generation.

AWD

bb Go Fuck Yourself

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ObamaEnergy is the ObamaCare of Power Industry

National KMTC Today – The states have begun reviewing their options to meet new EPA regulations requiring the cutting of CO2 emissions. While the EPA has provided many suggestions, the states are already thinking outside the box.

Thus, one representative explains how the new regulations will change his own state:

“The EPA has offered us many tools to cut back emissions, but we’ve come to the conclusion that the best course in light of these regulations is to start an active campaign of discouraging ALL industry in our state, discourage ALL people from coming to our state for any reason, and discourage people already residing in our state from continuing living here.

The way this works is, we will reduce our state to a very wild and pastoral paradise emitting no CO2 whatsoever and thus will earn for our state a huge heaping pot of national carbon credits. Those carbon credits will then be sold to the other states and we will use the earnings to buy and import all the necessities we need. So this is a real win-win for everybody. And our state will be a real poster boy for the whole program.”

National KMTC Today talked to many other state representatives. Their plans for the future of their states generally repeat all the points described above.

“Carbon credits will be the new currency driving all new innovation,” explained one representative. –

llpoh
llpoh

AWD – the EPA is near the top of my shit list – always has been, always will be.

They are one of the handful of groups that can walk into almost any business and shut it down – especially a manufacturing business. They can invent reasons to do so, or can interpret laws and regs in such a way as to do so. And the business has virtually no defense.

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AWD

Llpoh

The dictatorship is complete, vis-a-vis the EPA, IRS, NSA, DHS and other “regulatory” organizations controlled by Obama.

Something that many don’t understand or fully appreciate about the regulatory state apparatus the Progressives built: it has altered the governing of American society to the point that a single man can rule us all. The regulatory agencies are the arms of one man to pull the strings of a marionette society.

It was bad enough when we were all pretty much on the same page in belief of human progress. The worst the agencies did was hold human progress in many areas pretty much in check, but they didn’t undermine the whole edifice.

Obama says none of what he intends to do has been done before, it’s all new and very scientific. In actuality his new plans, to be announced tomorrow, were tried quite recently.

bb

Lipoh , crap ,if these big boys can’t take a little joking around then ?????.As the joker said….why so serious Lipoh. You come at me before and I wipe your ass good.Remember?Back up injun or suffer the consequences.

overthecliff

We deserve what we get. Obama told us what he was going to do 6 years ago.

Stucky

To the two people who voted down my Thorium links post.

You’re both fucking dumb asses. Please identify yourselves.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

I voted down your Thorium links. The gist seemed to be that Thorium hasn’t worked because it hasn’t been tried yet. If we’re going to throw tax credits at windmills and solar and such, we should at least dedicate some funding to something that could work rather than denigrate it as “overstated” and a “dream factory”. One link came from Canadians, and I have a standing policy of voting against all things Canadian. I already live in Canada. And I never said I wasn’t a dumb ass.

Stucky

Iska

You??? Oh. Damn. I take it back. I always felt you’re a smart guy.

If I had to write a paper encompassing everything I know about Thorium …. I’d be done in 5 minutes.

It has been discussed here at length in older threads. The reactor in India isn’t doing jack shit. The general consensus by TBPers seems to be that MAYBE it’ll work someday but, right now, it’s a bust.

I merely provided a couple links supporting that premise. I would like to be WRONG. It sounds great. But, if it’s so great, why don’t we have dozens of plants?

SSS

“So where does that leave this nation? In three words, “natural gas, nuclear.” That’s it. You want the lights to come on when you flip the switch, then you have no other choice. You want cleaner air, then you have no other choice. You want clean water to come out of the faucet when you turn on the spigot, then you have no other choice (people tend to forget that water and waste treatment plants need a lot electrical power to operate, and so do water wells and water pumping stations). The only way to a reliable and secure supply of electrical energy is to build as many natural gas and nuclear power plants as fast as they are needed. And stop shutting down coal-fired plants until they’re fully replaced by one of those two sources.”

Me. In my article “We’re Going the Wrong Way” posted 6 weeks ago. It got 15 comments.

I’ve been posting RATIONAL articles on energy and energy policy on this site for damn near 5 years. But whenever an energy article is posted, like this one, some fucking dumbass comments on the potential of thorium or tells us how dangerous nuclear power is or how quickly we’ll run out of uranium ore or natural gas. Some people here have the memory retention of a goldfish (5 seconds).

And I support coal. Look at the last sentence in my quote. When we’re finished burning coal in our relatively clean coal-fired power plants, it’ll get shipped overseas. And some coal plants, like the Navajo Generating Station, will NEVER close if it were my decision.

llpoh
llpoh

SSS is right. Always has been on this stuff. When it comes to darkness and freezing to death, vs. burning coal or having nuclear energy, gee, I wonder what will happen.

It will be burn baby burn, or let’s fire up the reactor.

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