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" tax its carbon emissions, tax its particulate emissions, require real management for whatever waste it produces, and see if any investors or inventors want to

" tax its carbon emissions, tax its particulate emissions, require real management for whatever waste it produces, and see if any investors or inventors want to keep it alive." Actually, this is exactly what environmentalists have been trying to do. This is what the cap and trade system which has been pushed by various environmental organisations was all about. But of course it was blocked by conservatives paid by the energy industry. There is one rare fact that both environmentalists and coal executives agree on -- if the coal industry is forced to pay for their emissions it will die. So I can confidently answer your question -- there would be no investors wanting to keep it alive. Furthermore, the US government has spent literary billions of taxpayer money to make coal environmentally acceptable. All kinds of schemes have been tried -- carbon capture, coal liquification, coal gasification, etc. None of them work. It turns out it is very expensive to capture large amounts of gases for an indefinite period of time. You can liquify or gasify coal at a significant cost, but it still turns out much dirtier than gasoline or natural gas. Even with its current preferential treatment, where it does not have to pay for damage it causes and it uses much government subsidies, the coal industry is generally losing money. Most major US coal companies went through bankruptcies in the last several years. It is highly doubtful investors would want to put good money in coal plants that actually have to pay for their environmental damage.

amluto 8y ago
I'm not making any claims about what environmentalists are doing. I'm making a claim about the marketing. People don't like their industries, their beliefs, or their ideas being painted as evil or immoral. There are plenty of good people out there who are involved in the coal industry, some of whom are or were coal miners. If you want their votes and you tell them that coal is evil and should be eliminated, you're going to gain a lot of opposition. I think that, instead, environmental groups should cast it as: coal is being outcompeted in sustainability, and, when the cost of handling emissions and waste is factored in, cost. (And it's often being outcompeted in cost even without any of that.) I think that people who have an economic state in coal should instead be encouraged to demand that the coal companies apply some good ol' American ingenuity and some genuine R&D investment into making coal remain useful. (A similar idea applies to industries like steel. Blaming foreign countries for the US steel industry's declines at various times may appeal to some voters, but a more productive message would be to blame steel industry executives for sitting on their collective arses. [0]) A message demanding that they spend money and effort to keep up might be much more effective. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-05/steel-history-shows-how-america-lost-ground-to-europe https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-05/steel-...

amluto 8y ago

I'm not making any claims about what environmentalists are doing. I'm making a claim about the marketing. People don't like their industries, their beliefs, or their ideas being painted as evil or immoral. There are plenty of good people out there who are involved in the coal industry, some of whom are or were coal miners. If you want their votes and you tell them that coal is evil and should be eliminated, you're going to gain a lot of opposition. I think that, instead, environmental groups should cast it as: coal is being outcompeted in sustainability, and, when the cost of handling emissions and waste is factored in, cost. (And it's often being outcompeted in cost even without any of that.) I think that people who have an economic state in coal should instead be encouraged to demand that the coal companies apply some good ol' American ingenuity and some genuine R&D investment into making coal remain useful. (A similar idea applies to industries like steel. Blaming foreign countries for the US steel industry's declines at various times may appeal to some voters, but a more productive message would be to blame steel industry executives for sitting on their collective arses. [0]) A message demanding that they spend money and effort to keep up might be much more effective. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-05/steel-history-shows-how-america-lost-ground-to-europe https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-05/steel-...