EPA plans to repeal Obama-era Clean Power Plan

[Deleted]

It seems when comparing to all other Western countries, the USA is the only country that hasn't figured out that supporting the coal industry is a bad thing. It's not only a bad thing for the environment, but mainly for the health of the workers themselves, even though filters and conditions in mines have improved compared to a decade ago, on average they still live 8 years less than any other person that isn't working in the coal mines. This doesn't even include the amount of lung issues most of them have when they grow older.

Not to mention, coal itself is not a very profitable business, the coal is cheap and the labor costs are expensive, which means the sold product doesn't really have a big margin on it, and that's the main reason why coal is in decline, not because countries are pushing a cleaner legislation. So regardless of what the USA does, eventually nobody is going to want coal and you'll have essentially wasted a lot of capital that could have been used to train coal miners to work within the clean energy businesses.

Yes banning coal, like they did in my country, a lot of coal workers did lose their job, however, our government was fully prepared and had a huge fund ready and re-schooled every coal mine worker within 2 year period and all of them moved towards clean energy, which at that time needed a huge working force to complete their projects in time.

Then you also have the studies and actual data which supports that the clean energy market will be 10 times bigger than the entire fossil fuel market combined, by 2030 (in terms of projects, spending (If you wanna speak by market share, it will overtake it by then)). They also noticed a trend that clean energy is sustainable in growth due to how technology advances, which keeps the demand high, and solidifies the constant need for skilled workers.

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Identity politics is about invoking tribal perspectives. Energy policy based on the economy, jobs, or cost is not identity politics.

Clean energy requires a larger work force and also pulls bigger investments in general, thus more jobs, and better paid.

[PC2]

Well since the economic and policy impacts of Trump's plan openly undercuts all your stated support for "letting the markets decide". The only reason left for you and other posters to support this, is for Identity Politics. The OP even bragged about this when admitting we wanted to see people get jimmied in Rustle or whatever.

"Jimmies" is maybe redneck slang for, I'm so cynical I dont care if this hurts my future policy or economic goals.

People can totally be too stupid or too cynical to openly admit they engage in Identity Politics.

Trump has some anti-market ideas. Such as protecting old industries from new competing industries inside the country. It doesn't help the country, it doesn't help innovation. I only agree with some of his points on this topic, such as criticizing China for being over-manipulative.

[Michh]

Fossil fuel has been amazing for civilization, but I think over the long run there will be better molecules for doing all those tasks. Though it may take a while to build up the infrastructure to make them cheap.

From an electrical perspective fossil fuels are more reliant on centralization, which is less fault tolerant. I think the decentralization that comes from solar panels will be a big plus for suburban and rural properties, where surface area doesn't come at a premium.

I completely agree. I do think we're headed in the right direction here, though not as fast as some would like......I think we will get there. It's the "long run" debate that is the most disagreed upon topic. I have no idea what this time frame is, but I do know that something will have to happen over the coming years. When you start involving emerging markets, like 3rd world economies that are just now starting to benefit from cheap fuel, it's hard to completely understand timeframes because people are just now starting to enjoy things we've taken for granted for years. Basic electricity, heating and cooling from Coal or natural gas that have improved their lives two fold. I saw some information that some 1 billion people still don't have basic electrical needs, growing countries that are expanding their economies, economies that will be fed with fossil fuels for the most part. This is not even considering the raw feed/chemicals that's needed for building materials, just fuel for everyday lives.

Obviously they're going to be ahead of the curve with Solar and wind technologies if they choose to use it....weave it in with the old fashioned methods. This has to happen to keep carbon emissions in check. You can't suddenly add a billion people to the *grid* without considering the impact of not only the supply from the earth, but the impact to the earth too. The overall subject is very interesting to me.

Peace