Trump-appointed regulators reject plan to rescue coal and nuclear plants

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: shooterbrody

When has the energy sector ever been about competing?

It's market is based on nation defense.

New technology is going to be subsidized. Particularly defense based technology. Look at the history of intel and chips.

Now your stretching beyond logic. Yes, subsidies have always existed for energy with hands getting greased along the way.

My beef with the OP is the connecting it with Trump's platform. His real intent with this OP, in case you don't know him on ATS.

Trump HAS and is delivering on his promises. The coal 'restrictions' via the EPA have been or are being lifted. A more even playing field has resulted. That was his promise. NOT subsidies.

The market place will dictate what energy source in what circumstance will dominate.

I, for one, am more than happy with that. Sink or swim....without handouts from the taxpayer. (The exceptions prove the rule....)

originally posted by: SkeptiSchism
a reply to: luthier

Which is insane because alt energies and defense require rare earth metals of which China has a near monopoly

www.aweablog.org...

TextThe U.S. utility-scale wind industry uses a negligible amount of permanent magnets at present.



“[2] The U.S. does have a domestic supply of the raw materials needed to make permanent magnets, and a private business deal is in the works to resume domestic manufacturing.



“[3] If the global wind industry were to move to direct-drive technology in the future and require more permanent magnets, the technological capability to do without them would still exist if doing so became a strategic necessity.”

originally posted by: nwtrucker
Trump HAS and is delivering on his promises. The coal 'restrictions' via the EPA have been or are being lifted. A more even playing field has resulted. That was his promise. NOT subsidies.

That's weird because I specifically remember him promising to bring back coal jobs and not so much to create a "more even playing field". Maybe you can find a quote from DJT where he promised that specifically?

Here's a collection of Trump quotes saying he is about bringing back jobs. Nothing about leveling the playing field though.
abcnews.go.com...

originally posted by: nwtrucker

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: shooterbrody

When has the energy sector ever been about competing?

It's market is based on nation defense.

New technology is going to be subsidized. Particularly defense based technology. Look at the history of intel and chips.

Now your stretching beyond logic. Yes, subsidies have always existed for energy with hands getting greased along the way.

My beef with the OP is the connecting it with Trump's platform. His real intent with this OP, in case you don't know him on ATS.

Trump HAS and is delivering on his promises. The coal 'restrictions' via the EPA have been or are being lifted. A more even playing field has resulted. That was his promise. NOT subsidies.

The market place will dictate what energy source in what circumstance will dominate.

I, for one, am more than happy with that. Sink or swim....without handouts from the taxpayer. (The exceptions prove the rule....)

The heaviest coal mining areas of Appalachia had the poorest socioeconomic conditions. Before adjusting for covariates, the number of excess annual age-adjusted deaths in coal mining areas ranged from 3,975 to 10,923, depending on years studied and comparison group. Corresponding VSL estimates ranged from $18.563 billion to $84.544 billion, with a point estimate of $50.010 billion, greater than the $8.088 billion economic contribution of coal mining.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...




Good for you!

Revenue‎: ‎US$14.562 billion (2016)

Wiki

a reply to: SkeptiSchism

Just for the record, that's a myth in regards to wind power.

Many people think rare earths are also a necessary component of wind turbines, but the facts find otherwise: only about two percent of the U.S. wind turbine fleet uses them, and that number shouldn’t change much in the years to come.

The vast majority use conventional electromagnets made of copper and steel, and companies that have used rare earths in the past are actively working to reduce their levels of use.

Rare earths and wind turbines: A problem that doesn’t exist

An even better article by Amory Lovins says the following:

Around 2010, many commentators stridently warned that China’s near-monopoly on supermagnet rare-earth elements could make the growing global shift to electric cars and wind turbines impossible—because their motors and generators, respectively, supposedly required supermagnets and hence rare earths. Some such reports persist even in 2017. But they’re nonsense. Everything that such permanent-magnet rotating machines do can also be done as well or better by two other kinds of motors that have no magnets but instead apply modern control software and power electronics made of silicon, the most abundant solid element on Earth.

Both kinds of magnet-free machines can do everything required not only in electric cars but also in wind turbines, functions often claimed to be impossible without tons of neodymium. That some wind turbines and manufacturers use rare-earth permanent-magnet generators does not mean others must. It’s better not to, and the word is spreading.

Clean energy and rare earths: Why not to worry

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: nwtrucker
Trump HAS and is delivering on his promises. The coal 'restrictions' via the EPA have been or are being lifted. A more even playing field has resulted. That was his promise. NOT subsidies.

That's weird because I specifically remember him promising to bring back coal jobs and not so much to create a "more even playing field". Maybe you can find a quote from DJT where he promised that specifically?

Here's a collection of Trump quotes saying he is about bringing back jobs. Nothing about leveling the playing field though.
abcnews.go.com...

As usual, you pointed out one side of it. Here's another and I'm betting it's more accurate.

fortune.com...

Market forces do play a part in this and coal has been declining literally for nearly 100+ years. The jobs will spike, even if only short term. In the long run we should be able to find and develop better energy sources.

Wiping out coal jobs and that source of energy via political arbitrary subsidies combined with heavy handed 'regulations' via the EPA without any concern to it's concequences by a gov't that was never intended to be the supreme deity in economic issues IS the issue.

There is a balance and that balance has been lost. Trump has restored it to a degree. Sorry. Nice try, but no cigar...

a reply to: nwtrucker

Corresponding VSL estimates ranged from $18.563 billion to $84.544 billion, with a point estimate of $50.010 billion, greater than the $8.088 billion economic contribution of coal mining.

Costs more to treat the workers then the economic gain.

So how about retraining?

Funny how coal mining areas a extremely poor..doesn't seem to be doing much good...

originally posted by: nwtrucker

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: nwtrucker
Trump HAS and is delivering on his promises. The coal 'restrictions' via the EPA have been or are being lifted. A more even playing field has resulted. That was his promise. NOT subsidies.

That's weird because I specifically remember him promising to bring back coal jobs and not so much to create a "more even playing field". Maybe you can find a quote from DJT where he promised that specifically?

Here's a collection of Trump quotes saying he is about bringing back jobs. Nothing about leveling the playing field though.
abcnews.go.com...

As usual, you pointed out one side of it. Here's another and I'm betting it's more accurate.

fortune.com...

So that article was written in April 2017, almost a year ago. The article is making predictions about how coal job growth will turn out over the 2017 year. Why don't you find the actual results?

Market forces do play a part in this and coal has been declining literally for nearly 100+ years. The jobs will spike, even if only short term. In the long run we should be able to find and develop better energy sources.

Duh. I've been saying this all thread. Though the decline isn't 100 years old, it still significantly predates Trump and Obama's administrations.

Wiping out coal jobs and that source of energy via political arbitrary subsidies combined with heavy handed 'regulations' via the EPA without any concern to it's concequences by a gov't that was never intended to be the supreme deity in economic issues IS the issue.

There is a balance and that balance has been lost. Trump has restored it to a degree. Sorry. Nice try, but no cigar...

It's like you guys reach for an victory, no matter how small and claim that is what you wanted all along. I still don't see any quotes from Trump where he promised to rebalance the energy sector.

a reply to: mikell

There is no aspect of nuclear power which is renewable.

It is, by its very definition, a finite source of energy and the use of radiological material as a fuel source has environmental implications which are frankly appalling in their scope, scale and severity. There STILL is no proper and comprehensive method for safely disposing of the remnants of nuclear fuels, a problem which has only grown worse since the first power plants went online.

Nuclear dumps are some of the most lethally dangerous, and dangerously run installations in the United States. Nuclear waste from the early days of nuclear power sits, even now, in improper storage vessels, many of which have started to leak, but are so hot that not man nor machine can access them to fix them, without being destroyed by the radiation. Concrete lined barrels, buried no where near far enough into the Earth itself, leak into the water table when they crack, or are threatened by underground fires which are started in nearby woodland, by way of lightning strike or other natural means. If those fires reach the storage locations, the fallout released will be catastrophic.

Even the most modern methods for disposing of nuclear waste, past a certain point, revolve around the simple "Encase it in stuff, and bury it someplace" method, which is a total joke, considering the period for which these materials will still pose a radioactive toxicity threat.

Its frankly inexcusable that the human race is driving forward with nuclear, or indeed any form of mineral or fossil based power sources, rather than relying solely on power sources which produce no waste.

Good.

Coal is little use as a mass consumed fuel. It would be insane to try to revive the industry.

Renewables aren't the future either, however. Wind is something I am quite familiar with. The subsidies for wind are flowing into the pockets of folks like Buffet. In fact, there are a few dozen farmers around Roscoe, TX that were made millionaires over night when hundreds of windmills went up on their property. Something like $25k/year per device (1 per acre) in leasing, plus 3% residual commission. If you have 200 windmills on your property, you are now a millionaire energy producer, and not a cotton farmer.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

That's a hell of a lot better than black lunged coal minor.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Wind isn't the only form of renewable energy out there. It is just currently the most accessible.

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

That's a hell of a lot better than black lunged coal minor.

A memory, if you will:

Prior to the civil war, the "elite" class in the south were the landowners. Farmers and ranchers.

At this point, not a lot has changed, other than business has grown (thanks to there being jobs available), and its not just landowners that hold all the cards.

That is, until you get to small farming communities like Roscoe (a small town between Colorado City and Sweetwater). Around the same time the windmills were going up, 25 or so folks pooled in to win several million on the lottery. At that time, Roscoe was in dire straits. Afterwards, most of the community had a good chunk of wealth.

But when you go into Roscoe today, there are 2 types of folks: the haves and have nots. The have nots do all the serving in the restaurant, they teach the kids and tidy up the school. At least there is work to do, and jobs to be had, I guess. But the landowners are firmly in charge and sitting on top of the society there.

Im not so sure that wealthy people in Roscoe getting more wealthy off of wind energy is really that much better than folks in Pennsylvania and West Virginia having employment options.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Really? Well here where I live it's given family farms who have been ravaged by corporate farms a chance to stay alive...

All a matter of perspecie I guess.