Coal in the Trump age: Industry has a pulse, but prospects for jobs are weak

We talked about dirty coal today, and lo and behold, this is in the Washington Post, worth reading through since it addresses both the dirtiness of coal, but also the fallacy of Trump's talk about creating thousands of jobs in the coal industry.  Also discussed: Peabody's bankruptcy schemes, bad investments, and overall dirtiness.

Coal in the Trump age: Industry has a pulse, but prospects for jobs are weak  (Steve Mufson, Washington Post)

Highlights:

'Clean coal technology' -- which does not exist and "doesn't actually make coal clean" -- is not even being considered by Trump budget.

Some coal supporters pin their hopes on the president supporting “clean coal technology,” which removes and stores carbon dioxide from coal-burning plants. That technology, which is costly and relies on federal aid, doesn’t actually make coal clean; it addresses climate concerns.  [No, it does not make coal clean, well said. But it does not address climate concerns either, because 'it' does not exist at any viable scale in any viable time frame that might slow emissions, and because injecting CO2 underground does not address climate concerns.]

Trump, however, has shown no signs of backing that technology. His budget proposal for the Energy Department would cut $2 billion from a number of programs that help fund basic science as well as full-size, carbon-capture plants. ['Carbon capture plants' are not viable, economically or environmentally.  See the story on the Kemper case.]

Trump already rolling back the very weak environmental protections, such as Streamwater Protection rule:

Instead Trump, who has voiced skepticism about climate change, on Feb. 16 signed legislation rolling back a regulation on coal debris dumped in streams. At the signing ceremony at the White House were Kentucky’s senators, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, both Republicans; Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.); and Murray Coal executives and miners.

On Obama's war on coal?  No, unemployment lower in coal country now then when Obama took office:

In fact, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reports the unemployment rate in Clay County [Kentucky], one of the hardest-hit counties in the state’s eastern coal region, at 8.4 percent in December, half the rate it was at its peak in January 2010. It was 14.1 percent when President Obama took office.

Peabody, with close ties to WUSTL, is a crooked company, this is one of many:

The company still has to iron out disputes with stakeholders, especially bondholders who say that Peabody executives are in cahoots with hedge funds and making the business sound worse than it was last year so that it pays old bondholders less than they deserve. At the same time, now Peabody has an interest in sounding good enough to attract investors, the less fortunate bondholders say. 

On the fact that coal industry profits rely on reducing the number of jobs, not increasing them:

“A lot of people conflate two primary things: the coal industry and coal jobs,” said Chiza B. Vitta, a coal analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “Even if the coal industry were to do better, that doesn’t translate into coal jobs. Over time the process has become more and more efficient, and they’re able to mine with fewer and fewer people working.” 

Decide for yourself,read the whole story here.

Bulldozers ready to work at Peabody Energy’s Somerville Central coal mine in Indiana. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg News)

Climate Deniers, You're Climate Deniers--Deal With It

Climate Deniers, You're Climate Deniers--Deal With It  (@pdykstra)

From Scientific American, more on Exxon and climate science denialism.  For information on how Washington University's Murray Weidenbaum Center (aka Center for the Study of American Business) participated in Exxon's (probably criminal) obfuscation of climate science, see here.

For information on how Washington University participates in Peabody, Arch, and Ameren's obfuscation of public knowledge with the phrase "clean coal" – I call this criminal, in Britain they determined it was false advertising at least – see here.

" Tillerson has acknowledged climate change for many years, but his company funded denial-based think tanks and scientists, all while Exxon’s own internal science affirming climate impacts was deep-sixed."

Read the full story from Scientific American here. 

'Clean coal', CCS and CSG will not save fossil fuels – their game is up | Ian Dunlop

A friendly note to Chancellor Wrighton and Washington University.  Your legacy is at stake.  Stop saying 'clean coal'.  Stop wasting time, money, and energy.  We will neither forgive nor forget your inaction on climate change.  Nor will we forgive nor forget your active work trying to confuse and distract the public with greenwashing strategies that the industry is promoting. 

See my notes on how much it cost to betray the public trust at WUSTL. -BG

'Clean coal', CCS and CSG will not save fossil fuels – their game is up | Ian Dunlop

“Clean coal” is neither new nor clean. These technologies can reduce emissions by up to 40% relative to conventional practice but that does not solve our problem when the global carbon budget has already been exhausted. Furthermore, costs are increased by up to 30%, rendering coal even less competitive with renewables. 

Years of research have failed to establish the basis for CCS expansion at scale. CCS works where emissions are stored in depleted oil and gas reservoirs, which the oil industry has practised for decades. Storage in other types of geological structures is far harder. The few commercial operations in the world today are in the former category. The substantial additional costs of CCS again reduce coal’s competitiveness, particularly if you refuse to price carbon, as the government is doing. CCS will be useful at the margin but it will not save fossil fuels from their inevitable demise.

File under coal and the undermining of science and democracy: Arch Coal funded US ‘libertarian’ think tank and ALEC

More evidence that coal companies are fighting tooth and nail against science and democracy. Arch Coal bankruptcy documents reveal their support for anti-science think tanks.

"Arch Coal, the second largest coal company in the US, has revealed that it has been a secret funder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a self-proclaimed “libertarian” think tank which has been a part of the global echo chamber of groups opposing action on climate change.

The filing also reveals the coal company was a behind-the-scenes funder of the American Legislative Exchange Commission (ALEC), a US-based group which drafts corporate-sponsored legislation and brokers its introduction via a network of conservative legislators.

Arch Coal’s recent 579-page filing (large pdf) with the US Bankruptcy Court listed the Ludwig von Mises Institute as one of the company’s creditors which are owed money. However, no details are provided on how much Arch Coal has paid the libertarian think tank or when any payments were made." (Bob Burton, at End Coal)

This would not be so out of the ordinary, except that here at Washington University in St. Louis, money also comes in (or was coming in?) from Arch Coal to fund so-called "clean coal" research.  We know that there is not, and will never be anything such as "clean coal." But Arch and Peabody, who also have representatives sitting on the university's board of trustees have little interest in truth or science.  Does it not seem troubling to the scientists at Washington University that corporations that are spending a lot of money to discredit science are associated with you and your colleagues?  

I guess some people's ethics have a price.  

Peabody is also going into bankruptcy soon.  In those documents we might get some revealing information about the climate science denialists they owe money to as well.

Read the whole story here: Arch Coal funded US ‘libertarian’ think tank and ALEC

The Cost of Clean Coal

The Cost of Clean Coal Sara Bernard

http://exp.grist.org/clean-coal/