after many years, another coal mine opens, the first under Trump

a reply to: Deny Arrogance

Germany are having to build new power stations as they are decommissioning their Nuclear power stations , not sure how much they're investing in renewables but there are EU directives on that so that must be part of the package.

a reply to: starwarsisreal

Are you serious? From your link...

Cassandra – the Princess of Troy – had been blessed with the gift of prophesy by the Greek God, Apollo

And you want me to take it serious?

Oh and Gnome poop turns to coal...makes as much sense as Apollo.

a reply to: Martin75

What do you propose then? We cannot use coal forever.

I may be anti fossil fuel but personally I sympathize with the pro coal folks because I feel like the way environmentalists are solving the fossil fuel is really idiotic and short sighted. To shut down mines and not provide some sort of plan on what to do with the miners and just leave them out cold.

a reply to: starwarsisreal

Coal wouldn't run out even when CO2 rises to 5000 ppm and people die of headache. Humans compared to Earth is like an ant compared to a mountain.

a reply to: starwarsisreal

Every single day the amount of algae turning into oil is in the millions of barrels. Essentially oil will never run out.

a reply to: miniatus

You think Earth is the only planet that has life? There are countless planets just like Earth having people on them just like us. Even if this Earth is gone, civilization will never be gone in this universe.

a reply to: allsee4eye

The process will take millions of years. We would be long gone by now. You should take some classes on geology some time or ask any geology experts in ATS (I don't remember their usernames but I recall their are some who are familiar with geology). Go look for them.

a reply to: starwarsisreal

The process takes millions of years. Every day lots of oil are made from the process that started millions of years before that day. The point is, oil is renewable. Every substance on this planet has a natural recycle. Of course, people use oil faster than oil is naturally generated. That's why CO2 goes up. For the first time, CO2 touched 410 ppm in a given year.

www.esrl.noaa.gov...

originally posted by: allsee4eye
Environmentalists like Arnold Schwarzeneger and Barack Obama have for many years blocked coal mines from opening with their environmental regulations. These regulations are done away with under Trump. Personally, I like coal. Coal is a mineral. It is there for people to use. Some people complain about the minute traces of sulfur and mercury. Well, sulfur and mercury occur in nature, not just in coal. There is a good old Chinese saying. There cannot be fish in water too clean. Humans don't live in a germ free environment. Sometimes, you need a bit of so called impurities in order to boost the immune system. And that's why I think coal is good for health.

insider.foxnews.com...

Coal has the highest death rate per kwh produced of all forms of electricity.

a reply to: gortex


It going to be coal or nuke electricity. Sorry wind and water just isnt going to do it.

originally posted by: allsee4eye
a reply to: starwarsisreal

Coal wouldn't run out even when CO2 rises to 5000 ppm and people die of headache. Humans compared to Earth is like an ant compared to a mountain.

You know that coal isnt even a problem compared to what it was 100 or 70 years ago.

originally posted by: Martin75
I'm so sick of hearing how bad coal is. It still powers most of the USA and brings good paying jobs to the areas.

Not in Appalachia it doesn't. Wyoming produces 3x more coal than all of Appalachia combined. 8x more coal than West Virginia.

Do you know the problem with the coal industry in that area of the country? It's not that coal isn't economical, Wyoming proves that it is. It's that the population of Appalachia shuns education and wants to go into the mines with a pickaxe and a canary and get coal the old fashioned way. That sort of labor has been pushed out of the market in favor of large machines that require engineering degrees to build and operate. Unfortunately for Appalachia, most of them can't read. West Virginia for example has one of the lowest literacy rates in the US, and one of the lowest HS graduation rates... to say nothing of those engineering degrees they need.

They're also not willing to move to where the mining jobs actually are, due to deep cultural roots that bind people to tiny little towns that have no future.

originally posted by: miniatus
And there's really no such thing is clean coal anyway.. that's just a term for the technology behind trying to capture the bad emissions and store it, or do something else with it to sequester it. they've managed to clean up the bad emissions considerably, but our time and energy best served ramping up our truly clean and renewable infrastructure for the long haul. If money were invested in that sector more than it is now, that would also create jobs. Someone would need to be hired to build out that infrastructure.

Not really. Clean Coal technology has been pretty effective at keeping pollutants out of the air, but it's still highly toxic waste that needs to be stored. Every container they've put it in has resulted in the coal ash leaking into groundwater. Most plants simply dump the waste directly into rivers these days. Clean Coal helps, but it's still not clean.

originally posted by: Logarock
a reply to: gortex


It going to be coal or nuke electricity. Sorry wind and water just isnt going to do it.

Generating just 20% of US electricity with wind power would require some 185,000 1.5-MW turbines, up to 18 million acres of land, and 245 million tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and rare earth metals. Multiply that times global needs, and you get the picture.

originally posted by: D8Tee

originally posted by: Logarock
a reply to: gortex


It going to be coal or nuke electricity. Sorry wind and water just isnt going to do it.

Generating just 20% of US electricity with wind power would require some 185,000 1.5-MW turbines, up to 18 million acres of land, and 245 million tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and rare earth metals. Multiply that times global needs, and you get the picture.

Yea and the wind turbines are not much of a vale really. Oh you just said that!

originally posted by: SinDefiant
I'm glad they're opening up coal again. hopefully the people of West Virginia will be able to feed themselves again.

They won't. I live in West Virginia, and I've lived in the area (border towns) for 15 years. I've seen it up close. I'm being perfectly honest here, there are some deep and systemic issues in this area of the country. Coal jobs don't even crack the top 10.

In rough order:
#1. Heroin addiction.
#2. Opiate epidemic.
#3. Pill mills.
#4. Clean water
#5. Literacy.
#6. Transportation infrastructure.
#7. Bad schools.
#8. Generational poverty.
#9. Rural lifestyles.
#10. Backwards culture.

Coal might make #11, but I suspect it's closer to 14 or 15 on the list. Ultimately coal mining is just a job, and the way they do it in West Virginia isn't the way competitive mines do it. The entire population needs retrained, but that's never going to happen when a massive chunk of the work force can't pass a drug test. I've spoken to a few local business owners. At Krogers, 75% of applicants fail. At the company I'm interning at it's 85%. Getting contracted to do construction for the city it's 40%. This all feeds back to issues #1, #2, and #3 on the list. Until the work force gets off drugs, abandons their alcohol abuse (another problem, albeit a legal one), and start living clean and sober lives... they're simply not going to be fit to work in a mine or anywhere else.

Should we start making soap and soap products out of whale blubber again?

SAVE the WHALING INDUSTRY! Bring back Whale blubber! Those whalers need jobs!

originally posted by: Deny Arrogance
Paris Accords sure as hell don't seem to be stopping them.

Paris doesn't mention the word coal in it. That's why it's popular internationally. It let each nation set their goals, as well as their own plans to meet those goals. If you want to, that means you can build coal plants so long as you do other things to reduce CO2.

a reply to: Aazadan


What was 9 and 10? Like to see you talk that way about others and get away with it. And really what does anything down there have to do with coal as you are projecting. They just want to mine coal cause they are dumbasses?