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The coal industry is one of, if not the largest industry in Wyoming. As wind and solar become the least-cost source of new generation, the economic viability o

• 65827 10y ago
  Many of the west's coal power plants are powered from Wyoming coal. Lots of ways of life about to go away, lots of people desperately trying to protect the old. So strange to see this same theme repeated over and over in history, you'd think we'd learn after seeing this for so many centuries.
  • city41 10y ago
    When it's your way of life that is threatened, it's hard to heed that lesson.
    • 65827 10y ago
      My way of life was just upended in October by machine learning, I didn't fight it instead I just switched careers. Not sure why others are so unwilling to do the same. I think this is a very important point, in the past illiteracy used to be defined as people who couldn't read, in the future I think it's going to come to mean the people who can't or are unwilling to adapt and learn, we'll look down on them with pity like we used to all the people who couldn't read back in the 70s.
      • icebraining 10y ago
        I'm curious, what did you do before?
        • jes5199 10y ago
          software engineer
      • grogenaut 10y ago
        Also curious. How far out did you see it coming?
      • rosser 10y ago
        If you're on HN, it's very, very likely that you have a skill set, and knowledge base that makes career-changing fairly easy (relatively speaking, anyway). If you've worked in a factory all your life, and suddenly all the factories around where you — and your well-established, extended family — live are closed down, or moved overseas, or whatever, you're probably going to be a bit less sanguine about the situation. The myopia of tech people will probably never not astound me.
        • chrischen 10y ago
          It should be the government's job to provide an ecosystem that provides jobs and opportunity to its citizens, and when it fails its the governments job to pay for the shortcomings.l directly. Expecting the government to patch the syptoms of the problem doesn't fix anything, myopic we are or not.
          • wmccullough 10y ago
            > "It should be the government's job to provide an ecosystem that provides jobs and opportunity to its citizens, and when it fails its the governments job to pay for the shortcomings.l directly." > "Expecting the government to patch the syptoms of the problem doesn't fix anything" So care to explain that a bit better? I think you just contradicted yourself. The government has no business anywhere near the job market. Go read about the subsidized corn market if you want to see their brand of job creation in action. For too long we've expected the government to take care of the needs of society when we should have been doing it as citizens.
            • crdoconnor 10y ago
              >The government has no business anywhere near the job market. Go read about the subsidized corn market if you want to see their brand of job creation in action. Or drive through the Lincoln Tunnel or use electricity from the Hoover Dam. Or fly from LaGuardia to LAX. >For too long we've expected the government to take care of the needs of society Maybe corporate welfare should be cut to the bone first.
            • 10y ago
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      • rhizome 10y ago
        Not sure why others are so unwilling to do the same. "Unwilling." Going back into your comment history it appears you have had some struggles along these lines, so maybe ixnay the condescending illiteracy angle. Did you used to have any previous HN accounts, maybe from the period where you were being "upended?" Probably some gold in there, too.
    • pjc50 10y ago
      There's a bunch of people living on coastlines whose way of life is also threatened by continuing to mine coal, but most of them aren't in America.
    • jimnotgym 10y ago
      It is interesting that Elon Musk thinks electricity generation from utility companies is safe from his products. In fact he expects usage to go up, as people move to electric heating
      • rhizome 10y ago
        Where's the interesting part?
    • Gravityloss 10y ago
      I understood the lesson a completely different one: that those whose jobs are destroyed by some larger event, should be supported?
    • org3432 10y ago
      Right, our way of life is living on land and not underwater as well. :)
  • rayiner 10y ago
    What lesson should they take away? How many examples are there if places like Wyoming surviving a major technological transition away from its primary economic engine? The fact that it may be globally optimal to switch generation technologies doesn't mean it's locally optimal for Wyoming (within a political system that doesn't let Wyoming recoup local losses from national gains).
    • euyyn 10y ago
      The lesson that you can't fight the tide. You can force your own utilities to use only coal, and that'll only make them less competitive. Later you'll have to force them not to buy more affordable power from utilities outside the state, which use renewables. As a result, the cost of living and the cost of doing business increases for everyone in your state, comparatively. You might as well have increased taxes. When the time comes when you're forced to face reality, you regret not having instead used all that extra imposed cost to retrain your workforce and incentivize your industry to move to more promising businesses.
  • samirillian 10y ago
    If we learn anything from history, it's that nobody learns from history.
  • astrodust 10y ago
    > Lots of ways of life about to go away... If you're a coal miner and coal mining has been in your family for generations it's going to be a bit sad when that comes to an end, but you know what? Good. The last thing we need to do is send people down deep into the earth to dig up coal so we can burn it in power plants and fuck up the air so badly that some people actually die from it. China's learning this lesson, and it's about time that America committed to the same. Shut them all down. Stop blowing up mountains to chase after chunks of coal. Lots of ways of life are about to go away, but this is not new. Think of how many people were involved in the horse business. How many people had to deal with lepers. How many people were put out of work by steam shovels. How many were displaced by factories. Things change. This is good, because if we don't change everyone's way of life is about to go away when the climate change gets so bad that most of the continental US is uninhabitable, under water, or both.
• oculusthrift 10y ago
  they've never cared about the "free market" or "big government". it's always been about whatever argument works best in the moment to help wealthy donors and destroy the planet the fastest with global warming.
  • cloakandswagger 10y ago
    I think you're wrong there. The "old guard" conservatives actually walked the walk when it came to their free market ideals, and a big part of globalization was enabled by them. There seems to be a new strain of conservatism being lead by Trump which seems to be a marriage of formerly liberal populism (protect workers, rebuild middle class, bring back factory jobs, socialized healthcare) and conservative economics.
    • matwood 10y ago
      Yeah, the old guard would be considered libertarian now.
    • oculusthrift 10y ago
      when? we saw the same big wheeling deficit creating policies in the bush years. definitely not just trump.
    • woofyman 10y ago
      >socialized healthcare You're not paying attention. They're talking about access to insurance. Sure, I have access to a private Gulfstream jet, but that doesn't mean I can afford it.
    • nerfhammer 10y ago
      Conservatives have a uniquely American small-government ideology. Trump is essentially a European right-wing populist, something that hasn't really existed in America before.
      • CalChris 10y ago
        > Conservatives have a uniquely American small-government ideology. No. Unless you think that defense spending is not part of the government. This is per capita spending by year: https://www.mercatus.org/sites/default/files/Chart1-Spending-Per-Capita-vero.png https://www.mercatus.org/sites/default/files/Chart1-Spending... Actually, George W Bush signed the spending bills for 2009. But the central point remains that conservatives (Republicans) hold no claim to fiscal conservatism.
• ryao 10y ago
  I suspect that their constituents wanted this. Anyway, it is possible that solar will phase it out anyway, except in a more distributed manner. Rooftop solar is not banned after all.
  • icebraining 10y ago
    Maybe, but rooftop solar without feed-in requires big local batteries to provide the majority of energy of a home, since otherwise you'll need to use utility-produced energy during the night and cloudy days.
    • ams6110 10y ago
      It also fails if you have a cloudy week, unless you have a local standby generator
    • theptip 10y ago
      > Those "eligible resources" are defined solely as coal, hydroelectric, natural gas, nuclear, oil, and individual net metering. Are you referring to something other than net metering of consumer renewables when you say "feed in"? I thought that net metering was a policy that's fairly friendly to residential solar.
      • icebraining 10y ago
        Ah, no, I simply had missed that bit :)
• diogenescynic 10y ago
  And yet if Wyoming wanted to grow its economy, they could add more ski resorts, winter sports facilities, hotels, and other tourist related businesses. They are doubling down on the wrong ideas.
  • toomuchtodo 10y ago
    Unless you're prepared to make up the difference in pay with social benefits, its disingenuous to suggest industries that are going to significantly lower quality of life for people. Disclaimer: I propose making up the difference with social benefits. "Basic income lite" if you will until society can catch up with the fact that your job and income does not define you.
  • Spooky23 10y ago
    They could add more ski stuff...at wages 50% less. Mining is a horrible business and worse job. If people are fighting for that, they have no options.
  • tomjen3 10y ago
    I don't disagree that it is a wrong move, but those are all service jobs, which have crap pay and probably a mine employs more people than a hotel.
  • oh_sigh 10y ago
    Tourism is a shitty way to make a living. It's basically retail writ large.
  • cloakandswagger 10y ago
    Do you think those blue collar coal workers are going to be amenable to switching careers so they can service wealthy ski resort visitors? All while making much less money? On a personal note, I've always been troubled by the over-representation of unnecessary services and useless gadgets in the US economy. Luxury ski resorts and $400 cookie baking devices (with connected smartphone app) are not noble products, and they demoralize the workers who provide/build them. I know this might not be a popular sentiment to those on HN who Uber home from their San Francisco office to pick up their Blue Apron delivery and pre-order their new iDevice, but there it is.
• closeparen 10y ago
  You could argue that solar is only becoming the least-cost solution because it's propped up by government subsidy on the basis of that evil leftist conspiracy about climate change. (Of course, coal gets its share of subsidies too, but a supporter of this measure might prefer to forget that).
• emodendroket 10y ago
  > Republicans who think government shouldn't pick winers They don't actually think this; they just pretend to
  • dexterdog 10y ago
    Both sides don't think the government should pick winners, except when they are in power.
• sjg007 10y ago
  Well they do need money and votes for re-election. Money comes from coal companies and some votes come from the mining industry workers.
• smallnamespace 10y ago
  An economist would say that almost any time a market leads to an unfair allocation of wealth or income, there is a reasonable solution that involves a transfer of wealth from one party to another, rather than adopting a non-market solution. The most galling thing about this is that there is a reasonable compromise here, which is that you let the market decide things properly then you fairly pay off the people who were negatively affected, by intensive job training, relocation, early retirements + pensions, etc. For example compared to Germany, the job training in the US is a complete joke. But American (and especially Republican) ideology of the rugged frontier individualist would never allow the blow to the psyche that would come from officially being on the 'government dole' or admitting needing help from anyone else. Hence we have all these disguised welfare schemes (defense contractor jobs are another example) that are economically inefficient and environmentally damaging, mostly for reasons of personal and regional pride.
  • greglindahl 10y ago
    The US actually has a special jobs program aimed at workers whose jobs are cut based on overseas competition. While a good idea, it isn't very successful.
    • smallnamespace 10y ago
      Yeah, because it's completely underfunded. In terms of % of GDP spent on public spending on the labor market, US ranks near the bottom. When you look at spending on job training directly, US spends 0.03% of GDP, while Germany spends seven times as much as a fraction of GDP [1]. [1] https://data.oecd.org/chart/4IID https://data.oecd.org/chart/4IID
      • hueving 10y ago
        Fraction of gdp isn't a good metric because the US has a large GDP. It's like implying that a billionaire hasn't spent much on housing because they only bought a 100 million dollar house. A better comparison would dollars per unemployed person.
• coding123 10y ago
  I agree, but talk about kicking yourself in the ass, when the world's coal consumption rates drop and WY isn't ready. Also I would imagine they would want to export as much of this coal as possible, by consuming it themselves they're probably making less money off of it. They may (keyword may- this may not pass) be able to manipulate their own market but doing so is going to be terrible for them in 10 years.
• elastic_church 10y ago
  Federal government should enforce antitrust laws on state governments. Given the case law available, all that states do is adversely affecting interstate commerce, even for things that happen solely intrastate. The Federal Government's tolerance is a work of fiction to maintain compliance. States have a false sense of autonomy under the 10th amendment ever since interstate commerce became the only form of commerce.
  • cmurf 10y ago
    This is dreaming of a new administration very prematurely. On day 1 it withdrew from a federal lawsuit to enforce voting rights on Texas, which enacted a blatantly racist law to engage in voter discrimination. https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-work/2017.01.20_Continuance-Motion.pdf https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-work... And as a result, the national policy is that voter discrimination is to be left up to the states. If Texas' own citizens decide to discriminate, it's their right, and not for the federal government to question it. Systematic voter discrimination being left up to the states fairly clearly shows anti-competition will be left up to the states as well. I'd hardly call this a work of fiction, it's an emerging fact of the political landscape.
    • elastic_church 10y ago
      > This is dreaming of a new administration very prematurely. Thats strange, I hadn't actually attributed this reality to any particular administration. > On day 1 it withdrew from a federal lawsuit to enforce voting rights on Texas This has nothing to do with enforcing federal will through the interstate commerce clause, which is what my post was about. All expansion of the federal government's power domestically, through the interstate commerce clause, is through case law, which is largely exempt from administrations.
      • cmurf 10y ago
        >Thats strange, I hadn't actually attributed this reality to any particular administration. That's strange, considering this administration is openly hostile to the environment, and ran on the traditional Republican platform of state's rights. Voting rights, commerce, environment - these things being relegates to the states vs being reviewable by the federal government are related by how and whether the executive branch decides to act. That they have the legal power through case law doesn't mean they'll actually use it.
• hackuser 10y ago
  > Rather than allow the free market to select the least-cost solution Currently it's not a 'free' market. Fossil fuels dump massive costs on everyone else via greenhouse gas emissions and climate change; it's an incredible subsidy. Nuclear, wind and solar, for example, generally have to pay to clean up their own messes.
  • ghouse 10y ago
    > Currently it's not a 'free' market. Absolutely agree. A classical "free market" approach would be to internalize the external costs (like pollution) and then let the market figure it out. Instead of the debate in the US of whether CO2 is causing climate change, we should be arguing what the cost is (in $/ton) and then apply that as a revenue-neutral carbon tax. And then let the market do its work. For other pollution, for coal specifically, look at the costs borne by society (not reflected in the cost of generation) to deal with coal ash containment.
• cmurf 10y ago
  Republicans are not at all in any way pro free market, that's just a propaganda ploy, a Jedi mind trick for the weak. They are, have always been, classist. They believe in retaining class distinctions. Everything they do is a preservation of differentiation of the American version of the caste system. And it's why some people seem to vote against their economic interests, like coal workers. They voted Republican to preserve their class, not actually get ahead, and to preserve the class of their company's owners, rich landed elite. So now the calculus will be, which party will sign on to protecting the human worker vs the robot, in a variation of the H-1B program. The really dangerous jobs will go to the robots, ostensibly to protect the worker, so that there's still this differentiation of class preservation. Naturally, anyone who disagrees with this is a traitor to their class, because everyone should want to be preserve the class caste system. Know your proper place. Some people are in fact better than others. Equality is P.C. bullcrap.
  • paulddraper 10y ago
    > They are, have always been, classist. Except for that time they freed the slaves. Yeah, yeah, I know that's 19th century, but I hope to show your generalizations are absurdly broad. Hell, even 21st century, we have a populist Republican president appealing to blue-collar workers. Characterizing the Republican party as elitists oppressing the masses is woefully incomplete.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • rhizome 10y ago
      Except for that time they freed the slaves. Claptrap. It's not the same party, and I don't mean that in the sense of stepping in a river.
      • galago 10y ago
        In the 1960s the Democrats and Republicans switched places on a lot of issues. It wasn't taught very well to me in school, and for a variety of reasons its not discussed much in the current media. Ovbiously, the parties themselves don't want to make a point out of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
• api 10y ago
  There is not much difference between the parties on this level. You ultimately get elected by making it rain for your constituents.
• melling 10y ago
  When wind and solar actually become cheaper than coal, the problem will take care of itself. When will this happen? People seem to think we're close, but it's still at least a decade? Population of Wyoming: 500,000 Their decision to use coal is irrelevant. I can't believe this is a top 10 story.
• Theodores 10y ago
  For those that have not been to Wyoming, the wind there is phenomenal. Anecdotal story: I cycled across the state from Yellowstone down to Colorado and the wind (plus awesomely paved roads, amazing scenery and friendly motorists) made the ride practically effortless. I set off at 11 in the morning on the Western side of the continental divide, went over a 10K or so pass, stopped off in a cafe for a couple of hours with some cyclists I met on the way (they had eloped from an organised tour and I had met their former partners earlier on the road). At that stage it was 5 p.m. and I had done 75 miles but it was too early to call it a day. I got going again and, by 8 p.m., I managed to put in 150 miles for the day. I was pleased with this, particularly considering that I had tent + stove + other camping gear with me. Only my heroes on the Tour de France managed such speeds for so long and they could slipstream each other plus they had a team car and 'PED's... From my anecdotal experience of Wyoming (the locals told me it was always windy although the wind allegedly is 'always against you'), it would be a shame if this was not (wind) farmed. This failure to encourage wind power is kind of expected though for us observers from outside the U.S. - 'crazy Americans'!!!
• pasbesoin 10y ago
  In other words (for me, at least), Republicans are "free market" advocates like -- well, like not. Their market advocates, more like. As is everyone, to some extent. We're just not all so hypocritical about it. "You can't buy this, because we say so." How much more un-free-market can you get? P.S. This said, without even getting into all the various subsidies, externalized costs, etc. Just keeping it at the level of "free market" rhetoric that gets expounded to the public ad infinitum and ad nauseum.
• javiramos 10y ago
  As a Puerto Rican, this comment resonates with me. Puerto Rico's shipping industry is closed from competition due to a 1920 law called the Jones Act. It only allows American shipping companies, with American-made ships, to ship goods to and from Puerto Rico. This significantly inflates prices of products sold in Puerto Rico. The Jones Act has created a corrupt duopoly which has been found guilty of price collusion a handful of times [1]. Republicans keep insisting on a closed market in the name of protecting the US shipping industry (which has old, inefficient ships and has little incentive to improve services and competitiveness). I can't stand the free market BS anymore - in the end, politicians will do whatever the $$$ says. [1] http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/11336/Sixth-shipping-executive-goes-to-jail-in-Puerto-Rico-rate-fixing-case.aspx http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/1133...
• pfarnsworth 10y ago
  Contemporary Republicans aren't small-government and fiscal conservatives. That's a complete myth. Look at Bush and how much crazy spending he did which incapacitated this country. The Republicans and the Democrats are both basically the exact same, except they each have their own set of "winners". The only good thing to come of Trump's election is that it shows that an independent such as Trump has the ability to win the election. He is a Republican only in name, just like Sanders was a Democrat only in name. Hopefully this gives inspiration to real leaders out there that are willing to take a chance, come next election, and then we can smash this two-party oligarchy.