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The partisan obsession with coal is cultural, not practical. West Virginia coal miners are a convenient proxy for the image of hardworking Americans being oppre
by beat 8y ago
The partisan obsession with coal is cultural, not practical. West Virginia coal miners are a convenient proxy for the image of hardworking Americans being oppressed by unnecessary and burdensome regulation (as if regulation was the source of the woes of the coal industry).
In practice, the entire coal mining industry employs fewer people than Arby's (true fact). Expensive changes to environmental regulations, environmental costs aside, will help very few people in that industry. Coal is gonna go the way of buggy whips, and and politicians will still do the moral equivalent of demanding we ban cars because they frighten the horses.
The real trick is going to be reworking the grid to take advantage of the intermittent nature of wind and solar. And the Invisible Hand has opinions about that. If you can cache enough power to stabilize the grid, then the whole "baseline" model currently provided by coal and nuclear plants running at near-capacity goes away.
And storing power isn't exactly rocket surgery. There are a whole lot of ways to do it - batteries, compression, gravity, thermal, etc. Add in smart micrometering (which also isn't exactly rocket surgery), and you create an arbitrage opportunity. Buy energy when it's cheap (when the wind blows and the sun shines), and sell it when it's dear (the demand is up and the sun is down). The invisible hand smooths out the ripples for us. The difference is power prices metered by the second or the minute, not the year. Market forces will regulate the prices, not actual regulation.
And because this combination cache baseline and zero-margin generation is so efficient, it'll quickly displace fossil and nuclear financially.
We just need to survive another couple of decades.
- beat 8y agoGoogling my own answer... in the US, nuclear provides about 20% of our electricity. Russia, 17.8%. China, only 2%, with a 6% goal. France is 74%, a strong outlier, but I don't think they have much domestic coal.
- Fradow 8y agoFrance doesn't have any coal mining anymore, it was totally stopped in 2004 according to Wikipedia (French-only page). You can still see a lot of former "mining cities" (easily recognizable because of naming quirks and the distinctive houses) in parts where there was mines in the past. It seems to me it's still in the culture of some people (especially older ones), but it's fading. France has a strong nuclear culture (though with fierce opposition from part of the population). Not too sure about the reason, but it might be because France has few resources, but lots engineering expertise. Nuclear also don't have much CO2 emissions and produce cheap electricity.
- e40 8y agoThe invisible hand smooths out the ripples for us Yes, that's all well and good, when we have a functioning Democracy, one that will regulate just enough to keep the playing field level, instead of regulating for large corporations to give them an advantage. Look at Comcast, AT&T and others like them. Regulation allows them to reap huge profits for subpar service, that their customers agree is not what they want, but we don't have any choice. For the last 40+ years, the true aim of Republicans in Congress and the Executive has been to insure that Corporations have more rights than The People. All this culture war bullshit is a diversion (and we've been playing along so nicely devouring each other while the world shifts under our feet). Democracy has been taken over by corporatists. The question is, will The People recognize this before it's too late to reverse (by Democratic means)?
- beat 8y agoDon't read my post as some libertarian competition-cures-cancer nonsense. I'm just pointing that we can create an opportunity for a lower-cost and more effective model, in this particular case. Regulation isn't what helps large companies reap high profits. Monopoly and friction does. Read your Peter Thiel! In a truly free market, competition drives profit margins to zero. That's just basic economics, taken to its logical conclusion, as opposed to the illogical conclusion of politicians and economists who put aesthetics over mathematics.
- erpellan 8y agoCorporations are not Persons. Money is not Speech. Fix those (which also implies taking the money out of politics) and the rest will follow.
- workinthehead 8y agoCorporations being "persons" is merely a legal fiction that enables them to sue and be sued. I hardly see how this causes the problems you claim nor agree that this needs "fixing". Corollary, money is and has always been a proxy for political power, in addition to being the raison d'etre of the corporation. Would love to hear your plans for weaning our economy off of money. It's also ludicrous to suggest that "taking the money out of politics" (as if that was something that could be done) would just fix everything.
- greglindahl 8y agoThere are more people employed as solar installers in West Virginia than as coal miners in West Virginia.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoBut what's the median income of each group?
- actsasbuffoon 8y agoAnd while we’re at it, what percentage of each group prematurely dies of black lung?
- toomuchtodo 8y agoYou might not care if you die early of black lung if your much higher income from coal mining allows your family a higher quality of life until your death (when life insurance and social security survivor benefits kick in).
- beat 8y agoI'm pretty sure most people care if they die early or not. And if you think Appalachian coal mining is a "higher quality of life", I suggest sitting down and watching the 1976 documentary Harlan County USA (about violence while striking against coal companies), and Coal Miner's Daughter (a film biopic of country singer Loretta Lynn, who grew up in coal country).
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- Kalium 8y ago> The partisan obsession with coal is cultural, not practical. West Virginia coal miners are a convenient proxy for the image of hardworking Americans being oppressed by unnecessary and burdensome regulation (as if regulation was the source of the woes of the coal industry). Bang on. The knock-on effects of this are surprisingly nasty, though. Whole swaths of country identify as mining country. Taking that away from them with economics is an assault on their culture, and the people concerned react like any culture that senses its core is under attack. You can treat them as something obsolete, a dying beast we can circle like vultures. Or you can find a way to get them off of coal that doesn't involve invalidating how they think of themselves.
- beat 8y agoAnd lots of people who don't live in mining country identify culturally with the miners. They see themselves as the "real Americans", being victimized by shadowy cultural elites and unnecessary regulations. So the coal miners as a political force aren't relevant per se. The coal miners as a symbol are extremely relevant. This only becomes more potent as American conservatism drifts away from a free market ideology and toward a protectionist/nationalist ideology. It doesn't matter that market forces are doing this to the coal miners. Their traditional way of life must be defended! The importance of intergenerational poverty and black lung disease cannot be overstated!
- MaysonL 8y agoAnd the miners keep dying of black lung and caveins, and their neighbors have their water poisoned by runoff.
- Kalium 8y agoYou can tell people that their identity is killing them, and it might actually be true. But most people tend to think of losing their identity as functionally equivalent to not only their death, but also the deaths of everyone they hold dear. It's not something you can prize people away from readily.
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- Spooky23 8y agoIt’s more than that. Mineral rights in that part of the country is an old money game, and coal mining is a proxy for many extractive industries. The modern GOP came out of the turbulence of the 60s. The conservatives are the result of crossing betrayed southern democrats angry about desegregation with western resource interests. It’s part of the machinery of the party.
- galieos_ghost 8y agoIt would be easier to convince them if liberals didn't outright mock them, Hillary bragged that she was going to put a lot of miners out of business. There's also the sense of abandonment. Coal miners worked and died for generations to provide the energy that made comfortable city life possible. Now when they are no longer needed they get thrown away like an old tool. If liberals actually promoted something other than "leave behind everything/everyone you know and move to the city" they might be more receptive to dropping coal.
- Toboe 8y ago> if liberals didn't outright mock them, >Hillary bragged that she was going to put a lot of miners out of business. Searching for "hillary coal jobs", it seems your statement is based on a misrepresentation of what she said. (if "politifact" is to be believed) http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/may/10/context-hillary-clintons-comments-about-coal-jobs/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/may/10/...