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)

Tillerson, Exxon, and China's claim on offshore oil in the South China Sea: What's the end-game?

Rex Tillerson Basically Promised the Senate That He Would Start a War With China

Eric Levitz, New York Magazine... (read the whole story here)

Tillerson's boast...

“We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops,” Tillerson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday, likening China’s activities in the South China Sea to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. “And second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”China claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea — and thus, most of the 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that lie beneath it."

China responds...

“Unless Washington plans to wage a large-scale war in the South China Sea, any other approaches to prevent Chinese access to the islands will be foolish,” the Communist Party–controlled Global Times wrote in an editorial Friday. “If Trump’s diplomatic team shapes future Sino-U.S. ties as it is doing now, the two sides had better prepare for a military clash.”

What are the interests at stake...

"If America were to pursue a foreign policy dictated by the interests of Exxon’s shareholders, it would involve softening relations with Russia and confronting China in its disputed waters. A significant faction of Trump’s advisers appear interested in such a policy."

Ready and waiting. Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Today's lecture (1.30.17): Related to the question of Trump's tactics and fossil fuel 'democracy'

Attack on public and democratic control of industry:  On my observation that while chaos and attention surround the immigration question, there will be moves to unravel other institutional checks that are relevant to the question of fossil fuels, energy, and the environment.  As we spoke this morning, Trump signed an executive order that said that for every new regulatory rule, two had to be repealed.

The order stipulates that
"Unless prohibited by law, whenever an executive department or agency (agency) publicly proposes for notice and comment or otherwise promulgates a new regulation, it shall identify at least two existing regulations to be repealed." 

Trump said earlier today he wants to eliminate "a little more than 75%" of the regulations now on the books. "We don't need 97 different rules to take care of one element," he said. (Source: NPR)

Beyond the seeming absence of logic or rationale for that order, lies its autocratic capriciousness, which undermines processes and institutions.

On the 'Stream Protection Rule' that Peabody coal hopes to repeal.  

The Stream Protection Rule was in the works for nearly a decade. It's 1,200 pages long, and even still, it barely made it in under the wire. The rule went into effect on the very last day of Obama's presidency. (Source: NPR).

Background on the Stream Protection Rule: https://www.osmre.gov/programs/rcm/streamprotectionrule.shtm.

The rule defines “material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area” for the first time and clarifying that the statutory prohibition on the approval of proposed operations that would result in material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area applies to both surface and underground mining operations. Under SMCRA, the regulatory authority may not approve a permit application unless the application demonstrates, and the regulatory authority finds, that the proposed operation would not result in material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area. The rule requires that the regulatory authority specify the point at which adverse mining-related impacts on groundwater and surface water would constitute material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area reach that level of damage. It further provides that the regulatory authority must specify threshold values for surface water and groundwater parameters that will trigger an evaluation of whether the permit must be revised to prevent the occurrence of material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area.

Link to the rule (as of 1.30.17): https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=OSM-2010-0018-10631

The automobility system and the question of credit and debt
From a student, as per my comments on the connection between the credit and finance industry, auto loans, and the discourse of automobility:  John Oliver rocks it!

Trial Balloon for a Coup?
From a student, as per my comments on Trump's orders being a kind of test-case or 'trial balloon' to see how far institutionality might be pushed (I do not vouch for or endorse the entirety of the article, lesson, triple-check your facts): https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e024990891d5#.bx9dv87q1

On the Quebec shootings (CORRECTION):
It was reported that two white supremacists were the authors of the attack. That information is yet to be verified, I should have waited to post that. As of today, there is one alleged shooter under arrest.  It is not clear what his link to organized racism is.

Coal: Southern Illinois politicians and industry folks think coal might come back. They should start thinking more creatively. Good background info.

Even in Illinois coal communities, Trump's anticipated impact on industry is a source of debate - Bryce Gray STL Post-Dispatch

• “That’s a fear,” said Georgia de la Garza, a local activist following coal issues. “Our communities cannot survive on the coal paycheck anymore. ... They need to look elsewhere.”
• 
  
• http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/even-in-illinois-coal-communities-trump-s-anticipated-impact-on/article_1d1890d6-3042-5b3f-9680-11d620861cf2.html

Bryce Gray, STL Post-Dispatch.

I have a lot of respect for underground coal miners, but this speech leaves one speechless: For the historical record: Trump's speech in Charleston WV.

They played John Denver "Take me Home, Country Roads" (Denver must be rolling in his grave, since he was an anti-oil, environmental activist)... Trump took the stage.  After being given an endorsement by the West Virginia Coal Association, he was presented with a hard hat – which he briefly donned and then took off, at which point he begin riffing on whether his hair was still in place, which took him down the road of comparing the regulatory control of hairspray to the regulatory control of the coal industry 

He did acknowledge that  'Sanders knows we're being ripped off on trade, but I knew it a long time before he did.'  And he says the right things on trade, hits all the buttons about people being underpaid, says the education system needs improvement.  

And, all of this is not to say that Hillary's message is much of an alternative, given complicity with past policies that have put people out of work and a less than robust vision of how we might seek a just transition for places like coal country going forward..but, for another day.

But then Trump stokes up the corrosive hatred of the scapegoat – blame the Mexicans, blame the Chinese, blame Obama, blame Clinton (well, for NAFTA, yes), but, you get the picture.  For the record, here's the hairspray part (those younger than me will not remember that the battle over the ozone layer was first fought around aerosols, back in the 1970s.  Trump appears to dismiss that battle as much as he is now dismissive of the struggle against global warming):

http://www.c-span.org/video/?409094-1/donald-trump-addresses-supporters-charleston-west-virginia

From the C-Span transcript, you cannot make this stuff up:

MR. TRUMP: NICE. NICE. GOT TO PUT IT ON, RIGHT? THANK YOU, EVERYBODY. THAT IS GREAT. MY HAIR LOOK OK? GIVE ME A LITTLE SPRAY. YOUR ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE HAIRSPRAY ANYMORE BECAUSE IT AFFECTS THE ZOZONE. YOU ME TO TELL ME, BECAUSE YOU KNOW HAIRSPRAY IS NOT LIKE IT USED TO BE. IT USED TO BE REAL GOOD. WHAT I PUT ON IT HELMET. IT REALLY IS MINE, RIGHT? LOOK AT THIS, RIGHT? MY HAIR. GIVE ME A MIRROR. IN THE OLD DAYS HE PUT THE HAIRSPRAY ON, IT WAS GOOD. TODAY YOU PUT THE HAIRSPRAY ON, IT IS GOOD FOR 12 MINUTES, RIGHT? YOU KNOW THEY SAY YOU CANNOT -- WAIT A MINUTE, SO I TAKE HAIRSPRAY AND IF I SPRAY IT IN MY APARTMENT WHICH IS ALL SEALED, YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT AFFECTS THE OZONE PLAYER? -- OZONE LAYER? NO WAY, FOLKS. NO WAY. THAT IS LIKE A LOT OF THE RULES AND REGULATIONS YOU PEOPLE HAVE IN THE MINES. SO, I WANT TO THANK YOU FOLKS. BELIEVE ME IT IS AN HONOR. I GET ELECTED YOU ARE GOING TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS. IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN FAST, AND YOU ARE GOING TO BE BACK TO BETTER THAN EVER BEFORE. AND HONESTLY THAT BEAT -- MEANS ALL KINDS OF ENERGY. WE NEVER WANT TO BE AN A POSITION LIKE WE WERE IN BEFORE WHERE WE WERE LITERALLY CONTROLLED BY PEOPLE, OPEC AND OTHERS, BUT WE WERE LITERALLY, IN THE HANDS OF THESE PEOPLE. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN, FOLKS. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN. SO, CONGRATULATIONS. NOW I WANT -- WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO IS SAVE YOUR VOTE. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO VOTE ANYMORE. SAVE YOUR VOTE FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION COULD FORGET THIS ONE. THE PRIMARY IS GONE. SAVE YOUR VOTE FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION IN NOVEMBER AND WE ARE GOING TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING AND THEN YOU WILL SHOW ME SOMETHING, OK? LOOK AT THAT. OK, THANK YOU. SO, WE'LL TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT TRADE AND JOBS. WE WILL TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE BORDERS. ARE YOU BIG BORDER PEOPLE? THE WALL. EVERYBODY WANTS THE WALL. WE WILL HAVE TO WALL. WE WILL HAVE THE WALL. THAT'S VERY NICE. WE WILL BUILD THAT WALL.

Updated 5/9/16: Meanwhile, outside the venue, this unfolded:

Trump rally gets real vulgar in Charlteson, WV. https://t.co/CpcTh7IrnR

— Taylor Kuykendall (@taykuy) May 6, 2016