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Coal Company Plans to Close Several Mines

cpwill said:
Reallocation of resources to meet market incentives increases production and we as a nation are left better off for it. Reallocation of resources to meet political or regulatory incentives decreases production and we as a nation are left the worse off for it.

The President has made it quite clear that he intends to choke off and shut down the coal industry, which he sees' as a worthy loss in the regulatory goal of fighting off ManBearPig. :) Then he goes off and tries to push us into the electric cars that run off coal.

:) hope that helped.
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If you ignore the public poses of political advocates, you would free your mind to come the logical conclusion that Big Oil is behind the shutting down of its rival, the coal industry. Also done to shut down logging, which competes with the petrochemical, plastic.
 
As evidence, here are the spot prices and future prices for natural gas from 2006 to 2011.

Check out what happened between 2008 and 2009. Coal ain't done that.
 
johnny_rebson said:
A clear example of Obama pandering to the people on the gulf coast.
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Well thank God! You'd think us on the Gulf Coast should have a say as to what is done right off our coasts! We do have billions in tourism and fishing that are dependent on those same waters that oil is drilled out of.
 
Phys251 said:
It has almost nothing to do with Obama's cracking down on a dirty, polluting industry. Heck, under Obama, the US has become a net exporter of petroleum for the first time in half a century.

Rather, it has almost everything to do with the development of natural gas fracking. In the energy industry, money talks. Coal, at long last, seems to be going the way of the dinosaur. :)
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You don't get it. We just don't have the natural gas resources to last us going forward. So, if we allow the coal infrastructure to die, strangle it out as we are, when the natural gas supplies start to fall and/or folks start to realise they've traded cleaner air for deadly poisoning of the water and soil, we've up the creek without a paddle. We have to pay big time to get the coal industry started again and all those clean coal initiatives will have been abandoned.

The feds are digging us into yet another energy hole, but hey, who cares right? As long as Obama can say he cleaned things up and can be re-elected. Suckers!
 
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Phys251 said:
It has almost nothing to do with Obama's cracking down on a dirty, polluting industry. Heck, under Obama, the US has become a net exporter of petroleum for the first time in half a century.

Rather, it has almost everything to do with the development of natural gas fracking. In the energy industry, money talks. Coal, at long last, seems to be going the way of the dinosaur. :)
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1. Petroleum exports have nothing to do with this topic. Mentioning it here is nothing but a diversion and a space filler for your post. Irrelevant.

2. One of the reasons, as I've illustrated with my links, for the parity of coal and natural gas prices is the increase in costs to the coal industry due to Obama's regulations and meddling in the market.

Obama needs to just leave American business the frack alone. He's screwing things up left and right. And costs for everything in this country are rising thanks to him. Freakin' liberals!!
 
So where are the power plant closeings?

Where is the reduction in coal use related to the EPA regulations?

Your story has no details and no connection to any EPA regulations.

it is just a fire the plebes to punish the "socialist" president act.........

From EIA
"In 2011, the amount of coal produced at U.S. coal mines was 1,094.3 million short tons."

So they are reducing production 1.4% in USA. A irrelivant amount.........
 
Coal...Really? Thats what your going to blame on Obama, the worldwide decline of the coal industry?
 
Grim17 said:
It begins... The lay offs are coming thanks to Obama's new EPA regs, which is just what our economy needed.

Four more years... I don't think so.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/u...close-several-mines.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper
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..and where in the article does it attribute the closing to EPA regs?

What about the nearly 40% decline in the price of coal over the past year? How do you think that may have fit into the Company's decision to shutter the mines? Sorry, that would be a free market explanation and we all know how much Regressives hate the free market.

1 Year Coal Prices and Coal Price Charts - InvestmentMine

Nice piece of journalism on your part. Nice baseless spin on a story to suit your political world view. Send your resume to Fox, you are exactly the type of guy that can go far in that organization. They love people that fill in the blanks from their own narrow world view and call it in-depth reporting.
 
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upsideguy said:
..and where in the article does it attribute the closing to EPA regs?

What about the nearly 40% decline in the price of coal over the past year? How do you think that may have fit into the Company's decision to shutter the mines? Sorry, that would be a free market explanation and we all know how much Regressives hate the free market.

1 Year Coal Prices and Coal Price Charts - InvestmentMine

Nice piece of journalism on your part. Nice baseless spin on a story to suit your political world view. Send your resume to Fox, you are exactly the type of guy that can go far in that organization. They love people that fill in the blanks from their own narrow world view and call it in-depth reporting.
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Maybe you missed post #5

Grim17 said:
From the Wall Street Journal:

The coal industry has been hit by competition from cheap natural gas, but Alpha made clear in its announcement that an equal problem is a Washington “regulatory environment that’s aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal.” That’s a direct reference to the deluge of Obama Environmental Protection Agency regulations designed to force the closure of coal-fired power plants.​
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Grimm-
so because a coal company says it is the EPA it must be so? Nevermind the shift in energy trends, nevermind the eastern coal is soft, dirty, more expensive to mine and most mines are death traps waiting to kill miners.

If a coal company says it...well it must be true... :roll:
 
clownboy said:
You don't get it. We just don't have the natural gas resources to last us going forward. So, if we allow the coal infrastructure to die, strangle it out as we are, when the natural gas supplies start to fall and/or folks start to realise they've traded cleaner air for deadly poisoning of the water and soil, we've up the creek without a paddle. We have to pay big time to get the coal industry started again and all those clean coal initiatives will have been abandoned.

The feds are digging us into yet another energy hole, but hey, who cares right? As long as Obama can say he cleaned things up and can be re-elected. Suckers!
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Mycroft said:
1. Petroleum exports have nothing to do with this topic. Mentioning it here is nothing but a diversion and a space filler for your post. Irrelevant.

2. One of the reasons, as I've illustrated with my links, for the parity of coal and natural gas prices is the increase in costs to the coal industry due to Obama's regulations and meddling in the market.

Obama needs to just leave American business the frack alone. He's screwing things up left and right. And costs for everything in this country are rising thanks to him. Freakin' liberals!!
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So you trust Big Coal to tell the truth? Really? Please cite for me the exact regulations and an unbiased study that proves that these regulations were the primary cause of coal mines shutting down.
 
Dude. Even the President said he was going to bankrupt these guys. This isn't exactly The Mystery Of The Century.
 
Phys251 said:
So you trust Big Coal to tell the truth? Really? Please cite for me the exact regulations and an unbiased study that proves that these regulations were the primary cause of coal mines shutting down.
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Yes, I do trust them to tell the truth...especially when it's backed up by other sources...which I've posted.

Look, keep your tactics in your tool belt. I'm not going to cite any regs and I never said regs were the primary cause. I gave my sources and you can believe them or not.

So, dude...if you want to prove YOUR position, you are going to have to cite your own sources.
 
Higgins86 said:
Coal...Really? Thats what your going to blame on Obama, the worldwide decline of the coal industry?
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Hmmm...

Now I don't know if you are moving the goal posts...or raising a straw man...but this isn't about the "worldwide" decline of the coal industry. It's about U.S. coal companies.

I guess you are trying to be clever and use two liberal tactics at the same time. I'll be generous and give you a "C" for effort.
 
Mycroft said:
Hmmm...

Now I don't know if you are moving the goal posts...or raising a straw man...but this isn't about the "worldwide" decline of the coal industry. It's about U.S. coal companies.

I guess you are trying to be clever and use two liberal tactics at the same time. I'll be generous and give you a "C" for effort.
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lol so the US coal companies dont follow the world trend?
 
Higgins86 said:
lol so the US coal companies dont follow the world trend?
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As far as I know the world doesn't have to abide by Obama's EPA edicts.
 
Mycroft said:
As far as I know the world doesn't have to abide by Obama's EPA edicts.
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has nothing to do with "Obama's EPA edicts" its more to do with the whole "clean energy" issue worldwide, you may have read about it!
 
Higgins86 said:
has nothing to do with "Obama's EPA edicts" its more to do with the whole "clean energy" issue worldwide, you may have read about it!
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Regardless what you choose to believe, the links I provided beg to differ.
 
Grim17 said:
Maybe you missed post #5
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Sadly I did miss post #5. My bad there, but your bad for not including in your original assertion if it was material to your point.

That said, post #5 is an op-ed. Unfortunately, as I am not a member of the WSJ site, so I can't read the whole article, but I have no basis to conclude that it is anything more than someone drawing their own self-serving conclusions, as I accuse you of. But, I did owe you and this thread a little more so I did some more research on the issue looking for a complete explanation of the mine closures.

I found this on Reuters with an article on S&P's rating of Alpha.

TEXT-S&P cuts Alpha Natural Resources Inc rating to 'B+' | Reuters

If you read this article, Alpha is in deep trouble because of the market.

"....U.S.-based Alpha Natural Resources Inc. is cutting production
amid a sharp cyclical drop in domestic demand for coal, which will lead to
lower-than-expected EBITDA in 2012 and 2013...."

and

Alpha Cuts Steelmaking Coal Outlook as Export Market

Sorry, the articles paint ANR as being in deep financial trouble with no blame whatsoever to the regulatory environment. Accordingly, your example does not support your assertion. You can blame the weakening market for coal for the job loss, not Obama nor the regulatory environment.
 
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Phys251 said:
As evidence, here are the spot prices and future prices for natural gas from 2006 to 2011.

Check out what happened between 2008 and 2009. Coal ain't done that.
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I prefer to use this to illustrate the benefits between buyer and seller that result when trade is restricted to civilized people. The natural bandits of the Third World can't act in a fair way. Whenever the OPEC hoarders develop new fields, they cut back on other production in order to maintain their traditional piratical price-gouging. Again going deeper into interpretation, I must mention that they do nothing to create this new supply; it is all discovered and developed by infidels. Therefore, we should own the oil on the territories the pirates occupy. Intellectual property rights supersede the unearned rights of tribes whose ancestors were driven into the territory as fugitives from justice.
 
iliveonramen said:
Well thank God! You'd think us on the Gulf Coast should have a say as to what is done right off our coasts! We do have billions in tourism and fishing that are dependent on those same waters that oil is drilled out of.
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Because of your unpatriotic selfishness, eventually only degenerate Arab sheiks will be able afford to be tourists, turning Florida into Thailand.
 
PrometheusBound said:
Because of your unpatriotic selfishness, eventually only degenerate Arab sheiks will be able afford to be tourists, turning Florida into Thailand.
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Haha! We're all in this together when it comes to opening up areas to oil companies.

Yes....the Gulf Coast economy which represents billions of dollars and millions of individuals should not be considered when opening up and extracting oil that will have almost no impact on global oil prices.
 
Mycroft said:
As far as I know the world doesn't have to abide by Obama's EPA edicts.
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But the world does have to abide by Big Oil's monopolistic tactics to eliminate its competitors in providing energy. The British expression "bringing coals to Newcastle" used to be a contradiction like selling ice to Eskimoes. But that was before British Petroleum pressured Parliament to shut down all the mines there. Greenheads are empowered by Greedheads.
 
iliveonramen said:
Haha! We're all in this together when it comes to opening up areas to oil companies.

Yes....the Gulf Coast economy which represents billions of dollars and millions of individuals should not be considered when opening up and extracting oil that will have almost no impact on global oil prices.
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You beachcombers and surfheads are also unpatriotic towards the other people in your region, who will gain billions of dollars from oil company jobs and leases and the spending churned up by churning away the useless coral. The citizens of the western Gulf Coast prove that. Sally sells shells at the seashore because her husband can't find a job in the Green Economy.
 
PrometheusBound said:
You beachcombers and surfheads are also unpatriotic towards the other people in your region, who will gain billions of dollars from oil company jobs and leases and the spending churned up by churning away the useless coral. The citizens of the western Gulf Coast prove that. Sally sells shells at the seashore because her husband can't find a job in the Green Economy.
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Beachcombers and surfheads? You mean mom and pop shops and fisherman that go out every day to earn their livlihood. You obviously have no idea what the gulf coast economy looks like.
 
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