Awaiting Trump's coal comeback, miners reject retraining

[PC2]

I have zero empathy for people who wont study STEM fields.

[Hammerfest]

Right, ok - again, your lies are literally killing your neighbors.

My neighbors aren't dying from coal and neither are yours.

[Crissi]

Oh lighten up. I know lefties. They're fickle. A lefty colleague of mine who hated Bush in the 00s said he really liked McCain and would vote for him in the next election if he ran. He said this at the beginning of Bush's second term when McCain was on all the Sunday talk shows siding with Democrats over Bush on every news story out of Washington every week. I called his bluff and told him there was no way he would vote for McCain over an actual Democrat. He responded in his usual emotionally charged way that he loved McCain and would definitely vote for him if he ran in 2008. Well, come 2008, he was all about hating McCain and displaying all kinds of Obama mugs and stickers and t-shirt. He conveniently forgot about his staunch support and allegiance to McCain back in 2004 and acted with faux disgust when I brought up him swearing he was voting for McCain over a democrat in the next election. That's how I view your current approval of natural gas line expansion. You say you are okay with it now, because the discussion is about coal...

I'm not a leftie. I'm probably an insult to actual lefties. Im also not a rightie, as Ive been accused of being by actual lefties.

Also, given I live in oil pipeline mecca, I really don't care as long as they adhere to safety standards and companies (or the EPA that one time, lols) dont try and cover leaks up. Kind of how I used to be against fraking before I did more research and found that its in injection wells that cause problems, not the actual fraking itself.

Transitioning takes time, so having to deal with a less ideal option is necessary. I rather that be gas than coal.

[Edge-]

My neighbors aren't dying from coal and neither are yours.

Actually, they are.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ds-every-year/

You're welcome.

[Felya]

Oh lighten up. I know lefties. They're fickle. A lefty colleague of mine who hated Bush in the 00s said he really liked McCain and would vote for him in the next election if he ran. He said this at the beginning of Bush's second term when McCain was on all the Sunday talk shows siding with Democrats over Bush on every news story out of Washington every week. I called his bluff and told him there was no way he would vote for McCain over an actual Democrat. He responded in his usual emotionally charged way that he loved McCain and would definitely vote for him if he ran in 2008. Well, come 2008, he was all about hating McCain and displaying all kinds of Obama mugs and stickers and t-shirt. He conveniently forgot about his staunch support and allegiance to McCain back in 2004 and acted with faux disgust when I brought up him swearing he was voting for McCain over a democrat in the next election. That's how I view your current approval of natural gas line expansion. You say you are okay with it now, because the discussion is about coal...

The above means you are biased and your friend was at least willing to consider it. Your friend is also not here talking shit about conservatives because you have strange ideas, but you certainly have no issue bitching about liberals, as if Energy is liberal construct.

[Adam Jensen]

Coal miners: Even if Trump magically makes good on his promise, coal is still entering obsolescence, you're being outdone by natural gas. Your jobs are temporary, at best.

Get with it.

[Hammerfest]

Actually, they are.

Actually, they're not. There's no air pollution here... and we've got a clean coal plant within 20 miles.

[Edge-]

Actually, they're not. There's no air pollution here.

You're near a coal power plant, correct?

There's pollution.

You can deny reality all you like, but it doesn't make you any less wrong.

[shimerra]

Actually, they're not. There's no air pollution here.

Let's all learn science from the guy who still thinks the earth is flat and only a few thousand years old! Better get rid of that EPA because in addition to racism we got rid of air pollution!


Bet you're that special type of stupid that thinks cigarettes with filters don't have anything cancerous in them. Clean coal is a misnomer to placate low intelligence voters like yourself. It's better, but still bad.

[Hammerfest]

You're near a coal power plant, correct?

There's pollution.

No, there isn't... except from an unrelated house fire that put billowing smoke into the air. And nobody is dying because of the plant.

[shimerra]

No, there isn't... except from an unrelated house fire that put billowing smoke into the air.

Yes there is. Air quality is empirically lower. You're not choking in soot because of regulations thanks mostly to those dirty leftiesI(and Nixon that dirty leftist socialist marxist jerk) you always whine about, but there's still pollution.

[draynay]

You can deny reality all you like

Don't worry, he will.

[Bdatik]

I thought conspiracy theories weren't allowed on these forums?

[Daelak]

Actually, they're not. There's no air pollution here... and we've got a clean coal plant within 20 miles.

But Clean Coal is just another liberal Obama holdover regulation. Sounds like you aren't letting the free market work.

[Cthulhu 2020]

No, there isn't... except from an unrelated house fire that put billowing smoke into the air. And nobody is dying because of the plant.

Is your criteria for "pollution" that there be some kind of smoke coming out of smokestacks?

While our coal plants no longer billow out dark black smoke, doesn't mean it's not toxic. Want me to list off all of the gases and other compounds that are invisible to the naked eye but still toxic? Cause there are a lot.


Coal is only still being used in the amounts it is because we have the infrastructure - the coal plants - already built and running. It's taking more money in the short term to build new power plants of varying types, but once they're built, they become cheaper to operate in the long run.

We've been making the transition from coal to other energy sources since the 80's, since we knew even back then that coal would become too expensive to maintain.



So imagine you're a politician. Joe's coal has been providing power for the government for the last century. Now Bob's Natural gas and Kim's solar come to you and tell you that they can give you the same power for 60% and 80% the price. Adopting the new cheaper power will create just as many jobs as are lost by the abandonment of coal. Get up in front of your "fiscal conservative" base and explain to them why you took the more expensive route.

"Cause Joe's a great guy!" won't cut it when you're burning away their tax dollars.

[s_bushido]

Let's all learn science from the guy who still thinks the earth is flat

Does he really? That explains a lot.

[Vash The Stampede]

Capitalism is a bitch, now setup my solar panels and my wind turbines to power my home while I cut my cable and use Netflix and YouTube for my source of entertainment.

[Grapemask]

Sad to see, but not unexpected. Mining has been a culture over their for generations. Hard to break the habit, even in the face of permanently loosing your job.

The sad part is that it's not just a habit; the entire right wing, spearheaded by Trump, is telling them that these jobs were only in danger because of that scumlord Obama and that they're going to save coal. Because they'd rather get the political capital than tell the unfortunate truth, that coal is dead and politics aren't the cause of it.

[cubby]

My neighbors aren't dying from coal and neither are yours.

I guess Black Lung isn't a thing then.

The biggest problem with people like you is that you take a bit of knowledge, wrap it up in a few easy-to-repeat lies, and then, again, literally end up killing people because you can't be bothered to learn something new.

Coal is on the way out.
Clean coal isn't a real thing.
Alternative energy is getting better each year.

Why are you so married to something that is so bad for literally everyone involved? Do you work in the coal industry? Why do you want your neighbors to die?

[Draco-Onis]

Here's a pie graph from before the recent restrictions on coal in 2014. In 2016, according to the site you linked, coal has dipped to second place in favor of natural gas. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/mont...hp?t=epmt_1_01

That is the point, the natural gas boom is what is killing coal and it's never going to reverse. The fact is natural gas is cheaper, cleaner and less expensive, you don't change entire infrastructures overnight that takes years, coal is dead. Also even if by some miracle you are right due to the difficulty of the coal industry most of these companies have automated.

The coal industry has been in a slow decline for decades



Whether by automation or other cleaner energy coal jobs are never coming back to wait for them is idiotic.