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More bad news for coal: Wind and solar are getting cheaper

OldFatGuy said:
The Japanese have announced they are returning to commercial whaling (as if their research whaling projects weren't a sham) even tho the modern Japanese populace has express disinterest for consuming whale flesh. Well, blubber away.
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Maybe we should torpedo the whaling ships.
 
MTAtech said:
Are we heartless bastards to put heroin dealers, whose product hurts people, out of business?
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We could give them new jobs, like meth dealers. They'll keep the cost of BJ's down and cheap. The plus side of the meth epidemic.
 
OldFatGuy said:
We could give them new jobs, like meth dealers. They'll keep the cost of BJ's down and cheap. The plus side of the meth epidemic.
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Sorry that I read this. Excuse me while I have my eyes boiled.
 
Helix said:
i agree. however, the public sector probably needs to step in and do something for Appalachia / coal country. they need to be trained and hired to do something that they can make a living on as we transition off of coal.
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That's the same nonsense that Hillary spouted when she proclaimed that she'd put coal miners out of business.
You can't train people in a whole region to learn something that you consider useful when there is no industry where they can apply it at.

Coal mining was more or less the only industry in that region and coal mining was also the industry that in turn supported other businesses (local grocery stores, cafes, bars, small businesses, restaurants, etc. etc. etc.).

How many electricians can a small town support?
How can somebody be hired when there is no industry around?
 
apdst said:
You didn't take any deductions, credits, nor breaks?
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... what does that have to do with anything? Do you think it's impossible to write a check to the IRS when you take one single dollar of a deduction, credit, or break?
 
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Barnacle said:
That's the same nonsense that Hillary spouted when she proclaimed that she'd put coal miners out of business.
You can't train people in a whole region to learn something that you consider useful when there is no industry where they can apply it at.

Coal mining was more or less the only industry in that region and coal mining was also the industry that in turn supported other businesses (local grocery stores, cafes, bars, small businesses, restaurants, etc. etc. etc.).

How many electricians can a small town support?
How can somebody be hired when there is no industry around?
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As I said earlier, the number of healthcare workers far exceeds coal mining jobs. West Virginia has a population of 1.8 million people. Coal mining employs 22,000 of those 1.8 million.

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Just got solar panels put on my roof last month.
 
MTAtech said:
Sorry that I read this. Excuse me while I have my eyes boiled.
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It was a momentary Kroft lapse. :) You know, the guy who said "I am so sorry" I got caught.
 
KevinKohler said:
Just got solar panels put on my roof last month.
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I put them on my first house in 2001 and on my latest house last year.

Hope it works out for you. Mine have.
 
Moderate Right said:
What kind of nonsense is that? I never said there shouldn't be any regulations. I just said that we shouldn't purposely over regulate to kill businesses and jobs. I was talking apples and you start a conversation about Greek mythology. WTF?
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Let's say the government banned mountaintop removal coal mining because of the environmental devastation resulting from it, and because reclamation is insufficient for recovering former mountaintop removal mining sites, would that be excessive regulation?
 
Barnacle said:
That's the same nonsense that Hillary spouted when she proclaimed that she'd put coal miners out of business.
You can't train people in a whole region to learn something that you consider useful when there is no industry where they can apply it at.

Coal mining was more or less the only industry in that region and coal mining was also the industry that in turn supported other businesses (local grocery stores, cafes, bars, small businesses, restaurants, etc. etc. etc.).

How many electricians can a small town support?
How can somebody be hired when there is no industry around?
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Coal mining, specifically mountaintop removal mining, has turned much of West Virginia into an environmental cesspool. This bargain with the devil they have made in that state, which has scarred their land to such an extent that the permanent environmental devastation is clearly visible from space, has only 1.2% of the state's residents directly employed, but has ensured the state has remained the poorest state in the nation for decades. With the mountains, rivers, and forests that West Virginia was blessed with, in combination with its location in close proximity to our nation's capital, should have resulted in West Virginia being one of the richest states in the nation. Coal mining is the reason it isn't. West Virginia should be the Seattle of the East, attracting the best and the brightest knowledge workers and high tech industries, coal mining is why it isn't.

Would you want to live next to this?

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If only cheap, abundant natural gas, largely from fracking, had came about 40 years ago, it would have put coal out of business there before the coal industry would have been able to scar up the whole state and ruin its environment and economic prospects.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Let's say the government banned mountaintop removal coal mining because of the environmental devastation resulting from it, and because reclamation is insufficient for recovering former mountaintop removal mining sites, would that be excessive regulation?
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I'm not going to get into the trenches with details of theoreticals. I'm not against government regulations. We need government regulations. But, to arbitrarily impose regulations as an agenda to purposely put businesses out of business and therefore employees out of work, is over-regulation. There's no reason why we can't let the market take care of this all by itself. We can prop up clean energies as much as we want and let the chips fall where they may. Yes, coal is on it's way out but we don't have to purposely push them off the edge of the cliff. It's wrong to purposely put coal miners in the mid west and east coast out of work and claim that it is all evened out because wind mills in California will be hiring more employees. That doesn't help the laid off workers in the mid west and east coast.
 
HenryChinaski said:
To the anti-regulation crowd, those are images of the "good ole days" and "utopia"..
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I am aware yes. They are disgusting shill sell outs and traitors to this union.
 
Moderate Right said:
I'm not going to get into the trenches with details of theoreticals. I'm not against government regulations. We need government regulations. But, to arbitrarily impose regulations as an agenda to purposely put businesses out of business and therefore employees out of work, is over-regulation. There's no reason why we can't let the market take care of this all by itself. We can prop up clean energies as much as we want and let the chips fall where they may. Yes, coal is on it's way out but we don't have to purposely push them off the edge of the cliff. It's wrong to purposely put coal miners in the mid west and east coast out of work and claim that it is all evened out because wind mills in California will be hiring more employees. That doesn't help the laid off workers in the mid west and east coast.
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The point is that if the coal industry was subject to the same level of regulation that oil and natural gas companies are subject to, then mountaintop removal mining would be banned due to the significant environmental damage that results from it. If you banned mountaintop removal mining, the coal industry would be wiped out in the East overnight.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
The point is that if the coal industry was subject to the same level of regulation that oil and natural gas companies are subject to, then mountaintop removal mining would be banned due to the significant environmental damage that results from it. If you banned mountaintop removal mining, the coal industry would be wiped out in the East overnight.
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Everything effects the environment. Wind mills are killing birds. Why don't we regulate them into non existence and put all of their employees and businesess out of work? Why are you OK with birds dying?
 
HenryChinaski said:
I'm quite sure that buggy whip manufactures would have agreed with you 100%
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I don't understand your point. Are you saying the government purposely put buggy whip manufacturers out of business? In fact, you are making my point. We didn't need to purposely put buggy whip manufacturers out of business. The market took care of that, just like the market should take care of dirty energy.
 
Moderate Right said:
I don't understand your point. Are you saying the government purposely put buggy whip manufacturers out of business? In fact, you are making my point. We didn't need to purposely put buggy whip manufacturers out of business. The market took care of that, just like the market should take care of dirty energy.
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So why do you get upset if we say put Yosemite up for sale to strip mall developers and let the free market take care of it? The free market takes care of everything, right?
 
Moderate Right said:
Everything effects the environment. Wind mills are killing birds. Why don't we regulate them into non existence and put all of their employees and businesess out of work? Why are you OK with birds dying?
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Before arguing something you ought to look at the actual statistics. Yes, wind mills kill birds. However, coal mining kills exponentially more birds.

Wind energy kills between 140,000 and 328,000 birds a year.

Coal mining kills roughly 7.9 million birds a year.

Whether you are talking about air pollution, water pollution, deforestation, habitat loss, soil loss, or any other measure of environmental destruction, coal mining is in a league of its own. No other human activity even comes close.
 
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