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Global demand for coal falls in 2016 for second year in a row

apdst said:
I think you got it backwards, my friend.
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OK, tell me which unit is better, produces energy the cheapest/kwh?

Windmill A - Cost to purchase and install - $12 million
Windmill B - Cost to purchase and install - $8 million.
Nuclear plant - total costs $12 billion.
 
JasperL said:
OK, tell me which unit is better, produces energy the cheapest/kwh?

Windmill A - Cost to purchase and install - $12 million
Windmill B - Cost to purchase and install - $8 million.
Nuclear plant - total costs $12 billion.
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The oil well that costs 5 million and is twice as efficient and doesn't cost jobs.

Or, how 'bout we do all of the above?
 
apdst said:
The oil well that costs 5 million and is twice as efficient and doesn't cost jobs.

Or, how 'bout we do all of the above?
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Like I said, I knew better that to expect an honest discussion. My fault.
 
JasperL said:
Like I said, I knew better that to expect an honest discussion. My fault.
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Don't get all pissy because someone dared to disagree with you.
 
apdst said:
Don't get all pissy because someone dared to disagree with you.
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You're not "disagreeing" - you're avoiding points, posting non-sequiturs, red herrings, moving the goal posts, etc. as is your custom, it's what you do.

You said the cost per windmill is going up, but you know that cost, in and of itself, is irrelevant. That's why you cannot answer which of those three options I gave above produced the cheapest energy per unit, because the cost of a windmill or a nuclear plant is meaningless without ALSO knowing a bunch of other stuff, chief among them energy OUTPUT/produced by that energy source per hour or day, whatever. You're not this stupid, you know this, so I don't know what game you're playing but I do know you're playing games.
 
JasperL said:
You're not "disagreeing" - you're avoiding points, posting non-sequiturs, red herrings, moving the goal posts, etc. as is your custom, it's what you do.

You said the cost per windmill is going up, but you know that cost, in and of itself, is irrelevant. That's why you cannot answer which of those three options I gave above produced the cheapest energy per unit, because the cost of a windmill or a nuclear plant is meaningless without ALSO knowing a bunch of other stuff, chief among them energy OUTPUT/produced by that energy source per hour or day, whatever. You're not this stupid, you know this, so I don't know what game you're playing but I do know you're playing games.
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Dude! How can you say that with a straight face?? Are you really that deficient in the business savvy department?
 
JasperL said:
OK, tell me which unit is better, produces energy the cheapest/kwh?

Windmill A - Cost to purchase and install - $12 million
Windmill B - Cost to purchase and install - $8 million.
Nuclear plant - total costs $12 billion.
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The information you provide is inadequate to determine cost per kWh.
 
apdst said:
It isn't my job to convince me. It's your job to convince me.

23 grand? There's no way that covers the conversions and the whatifs and unknowns. Who the hell's going to even insure this system? All it will take is one fatality that is the fault of the automation technology and there won't be an insurance company anywhere that will touch it. No insurance? The system doesn't get on the road. That makes it absolutely obselete.

The FMCSA requires that all CMV's be insured. Does it piss you off that a single government regulation can flush your dream right down the crapper?
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My job? Do I get paid, or something? lol... C'mon, man, I said I was trying to be nice to you, why the jackassery? And it's not my dream, if I don't have drivers to tell what to do, I don't have a job either.

As for your luddite assumption that "a single government regulation can flush your dream right down the crapper", the GOP is pro business. If the transportation industry, which adds tons of cost to everything that needs to be made somewhere and moved somewhere else. so therefore all the other reliant industries as well, pushes on them to make this a thing, what do you think will happen? They'll suddenly find their spine and stand up to business? Sorry, your boy is all about DEregulation, not protecting your truck driving ass. How mad does that make you?

And as for your costing analysis, lol, forgive me, but I work with you guys all the time, your concept of cost and ROI is ...unique...as is your idea of what drives successful logistics companies. I love the drivers that take their direction from me, but I know my bosses would love nothing better than to not have to deal with drivers. Where do you think I even heard about this stuff from? hehe ...

Sorry, homie, unless you can find a way to get the GOP to care about you, or somehow manage to get reeducated and into a role ahead of the rest of the ~3.5 million US truck drivers you're going to be competing with for employment, I hope the answer to the question you failed to respond to regarding your retirement age is soon. Don't worry, though, the Leftists will be fighting for your security, too. :)
 
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apdst said:
The thing is, renewables aren't becoming cheaper.

Plus, this will never run on electrity...
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Not that specific tractor, but a different one designed to may.
 
In the movie he references, it envisions completely automated trucks and many other things have eliminated alot of jobs.
 
joG said:
It is more complicated, but as the prices of alternative energy and storage go down and in combination become competitive, they will gain market share and displace other sources eventually. But as we see in Germany, when regulation interferes, it is not that straight forward and CO2 exhausts can rise under certain circumstances in the mean time.
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Germany's problem is it's trying to take nuclear out of it's energy mix.
 
Visbek said:
Coal will continue to drop.

Natural gas will likely flatline or grow.

Oil won't drop because of renewables. What is more likely is that the price of oil will eventually drift higher, and this will cut back on some use. Given that about half of the oil is used for gasoline, replacing that with renewable energy won't be easy.



Read this and find out

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-analysis-100/




hahahaha

Coal mining jobs are gone, no matter what. Even if the US production of coal doubled, most of the coal would come from surface mining out west, which is heavily automated.

Plus, let's get real. There are somewhere around 90,000 coal mining jobs in the US now. That's somewhere around 0.05% of all jobs in the US. The idea that we should change energy policy to keep a few thousand jobs going is stunningly irrational.
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Oil most certainly will drop due to renewables. Electric is going renewable and vehicles are going electric.

 
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There are 7 times more clean energy jobs than there are coal miners. JCPenney has almost 3 times more employees than coal mining jobs, 140,000 to just 50,000.
 
Parrish said:
There are 7 times more clean energy jobs than there are coal miners. JCPenney has almost 3 times more employees than coal mining jobs, 140,000 to just 50,000.
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yeah but Trump signed an executive order allowing coal companies to dump their waste into streams so... yay?
 
The Mark said:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...and-falls-2016-second-year-in-row-fossil-fuel



Several thoughts:
Is it possible the increasingly cheaper cost of renewable energy will push coal and other fossil fuels out of the market?
A related thought - if all regulation and subsidies were removed, what energy production method would be cheapest, taking all of them into account?

What might this mean for Trump's goals to bring coal jobs back? Related - what caused the reduced demand?
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Even if CO2 was not a concern, coal is still the dirtiest, most environmentally destructive, and toxic to human health, form of energy that humanity has ever used - and that is before we even burn it. The worst natural disasters in this country's history are all related to coal mining and processing. We could have a Fukushima level nuclear power disaster every couple of years and nuclear would still be an order of magnitude less environmentally destructive than coal. You could take the worst case scenario for natural gas fracking, and coal mining is still exponentially more environmentally destructive. Coal mining has destroyed millions of acres of some of the most diverse temperate forests on earth, has poisoned thousands of miles of rivers and streams, and scars the earth literally for millions of years. You can see mountaintop removal mines from space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining

This is how we get much of our coal:

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That was a mountain ecosystem that took hundreds of millions of years to form, that we destroy in a matter of years. Then afterwards they will spread a thin layer of soil over the debris, plant some grass and a few trees (often all that will grow is scrub cedar) and move on the next mountain to blow up.I am for anything but coal. Natural gas, wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, anything but coal.

Finally, this notion that we should be developing "clean coal technologies" so that we can then sell it to nations like China and India is about as unpatriotic and asinine as it gets because what it means is that we should destroy millions of acres of our country's mountains and forests, just on the off chance we might develop a cleaner way of burning coal. Who on earth would trash their own property because it might bring about a small business opportunity for them some time way in future?
 
poweRob said:
yeah but Trump signed an executive order allowing coal companies to dump their waste into streams so... yay?
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And yay TransCanada and SD pipelines? And then there's Flint and MI officials being charged with felonies. But I digress.
 
Parrish said:
And yay TransCanada and SD pipelines? And then there's Flint and MI officials being charged with felonies. But I digress.
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Regulation is evil. Poisoned water is yummy! Grows hair on your chest... and eyeballs.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Germany's problem is it's trying to take nuclear out of it's energy mix.
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That is true. But it is also the structure of subsidies chosen that is producing a suboptimal allocation.
 
The Mark said:
In the movie he references, it envisions completely automated trucks and many other things have eliminated alot of jobs.
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Automation and robotization isn’t the problem but becomes a problem in combination with the last couple of decades of neoliberal polices. A bit dystopic but interesting article on the subject.

What’s different this time is the possibility that technology will become so sophisticated that there won’t be anything left for humans to do. What if your ATM could not only give you a hundred bucks, but sell you an adjustable-rate mortgage? While the current rhetoric around artificial intelligence is overhyped, there have been meaningful advances over the past several years. And it’s not inconceivable that much bigger breakthroughs are on the horizon. Instead of merely transforming work, technology might begin to eliminate it. Instead of making it possible to create more wealth with less labor, automation might make it possible to create more wealth without labor.

What’s so bad about wealth without labor? It depends on who owns the wealth. Under capitalism, wages are how workers receive a portion of what they produce. That portion has always been small, relative to the rewards that flow to the owners of capital. And over the past several decades, it’s gotten smaller: the share of the national income that goes to wages has been steadily shrinking, while the share that goes to capital has been growing. Technology has made workers more productive, but the profits have trickled up, not down. Productivity increased by 80.4% between 1973 and 2011, but the real hourly compensation of the median worker went up by only 10.7%.
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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/02/robot-tax-job-elimination-livable-wage

That to deal automation and robotization you need strong unions and other means so that workers get a share of the increased productivity. So that it may not only be real wage increases but also less working hours per week so more people can be employed.

Countries must also have the ability to tax the wealthy and corporations. Instead of today there you have corporation and the wealthy making countries compete by offering them lower taxes and hiding their wealth in tax havens. So, their it can be taxes to pay for government investments, government safety nets, government jobs and work training and education so people can get new jobs both in private and public sector. Also of course that you have universal health care so losing your jobs doesn’t mean you family lose access to health care. If you see a drastic decrease in jobs needed you may also need to have government provide a free basic income for all.

Then it comes to renewable energy it can lead to people can produce their own energy and store it. Instead of being dependent on huge companies that own and control the production, distribution and sale of fossil fuel energy. While people of course can lose their jobs in some industries so people need to get help with training and education to get new jobs. Also, that there is a social safety net during the transition to getting new jobs.
 
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JasperL said:
OK, tell me which unit is better, produces energy the cheapest/kwh?

Windmill A - Cost to purchase and install - $12 million
Windmill B - Cost to purchase and install - $8 million.
Nuclear plant - total costs $12 billion.
Click to expand...
Attach ratings, and we can compare!
 
devildavid said:
Wow, you can see far. How about in the year 2525?

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Back then most of the audience probably didn't think they would still be alive.
 
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