SBW

Wow, you hateful lefties that hate America, and think the EPA should be running the United States day to day are not going to like this: Coal is making a comeback! Will the U.S. coal industry ever be what it once was? Probably not, but what is happening is a far cry from the community organizer's attempts to kill it off and what the fat lady would have done had she been elected.

Over the last few months, many of you lefties have actually posted "Coal Is Dead". Once again you demonstrate you have no idea what you are talking about. You rarely do.

So all you lefties that hate America, read and weep. For the patriotic others that believe America SHOULD be great again, then rejoice and know that in spite of the MSM and the hate filled left, we are winning!

From the Wall Street Journal.

Coal Makes a Comeback
Trump’s policies and exports to Europe are helping the industry.

By The Editorial Board
Aug. 16, 2017 7:27 p.m. ET

Not long ago liberals hailed the demise of coal as inevitable while the Obama Administration strangled the industry with regulation. But don’t look now, Tom Steyer, because coal is showing signs of a revival and breathing economic life into West Virginia and other coal states.

Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy proclaimed in 2015 that coal “is no longer marketable.” She planned to be the lead undertaker. The Obama Administration worked tirelessly to fulfill her mission and may have succeeded had Hillary Clinton become President. “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of work,” the 2016 Democratic nominee famously promised.

Yet the Trump Presidency seems to have lifted animal spirits and coal. Weekly coal production has increased by 14.5% nationwide over last year with even bigger bumps in West Virginia (19%), Pennsylvania (19.7%) and Wyoming (19.8%). Exports were up 58% during the first quarter from last year. Apparently coal can be marketable if regulators let it be.

***
The Obama Administration first targeted coal consumption with rules on mercury emissions and ash disposal that would have made it next to impossible to build a new coal-burning power plant. Then came the 2015 Clean Power Plan that would have forced the existing fleet of coal plants into early retirement.

Finally, the Obama anti-coal warriors sought to shut down coal’s export potential. Thick-seamed coal on federal land in the Powder River Basin overlying Wyoming and Montana is relatively clean-burning and inexpensive to mine. The Obama Interior Department suspended new coal leases on federal land last winter and then reassessed royalty payments—thereby reducing investment and profitability. In December came the coup de grâce: Interior’s stream rule usurping state authority over permitting.

President Trump has called a cease fire to his predecessor’s “war on coal.” In February he signed a resolution repealing the stream rule under the Congressional Review Act. The Supreme Court stayed the Clean Power Plan in February 2016, and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is dismantling the power rule as well as the ash and mercury rules. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has re-opened leases and rescinded the royalty revaluation.

Meanwhile, coal is becoming more competitive as a fuel source relative to natural gas, whose price has risen 63% since March 2016 amid an expanding market. The Energy Information Administration says the U.S. will be a net exporter of natural gas this year.

Growing pipeline networks have boosted gas exports to Mexico and are providing new domestic outlets for gas trapped in the Marcellus and Utica Shales. Pipeline export capacity to Mexico is expected to nearly double by 2019. Several interstate pipelines are under review to deliver gas to the Midwest, eastern Canada and Gulf Coast for export. Liquefied natural gas exports have increased six-fold in the last year, and five new terminal projects are expected to be completed within three years. While coal and natural gas compete as electric power fuels, they can both prosper if energy markets expand.

This is all horrifying to the climate-change lobby, but they might note that U.S. coal exports are rising to countries that claim climate-change virtue. Exports to France increased 214% during the first quarter of this year amid a nuclear power plant outage. Other European countries like Germany and the U.K. are utilizing U.S. coal to stabilize unreliable renewable sources and make up for electric capacity lost from the shutdown of nuclear plants. First-quarter coal exports were up 94% to Germany and 282% to the U.K. Et tu, Angela Merkel ?

Coking coal used to make steel is also currently a hot commodity, and its price can soar whenever a storm hits Australia and shuts down mines as one did this spring. Metallurgical exports to China rose 357% during the first quarter. As much as Mr. Trump denounces China’s overproduction of steel, U.S. coal miners are benefitting.

***
The bigger story is that there’s still demand for U.S. coal if regulators allow energy markets to work. The Energy Information Administration in June projected that U.S. coal power generation will increase by 13% by 2025 “as the existing fleet of coal-fired generators can be more fully utilized and fewer coal-fired generators are retired.” With the Obama Clean Power Plan, the EIA had forecast a 2% to 16% decline.

Coal production will likely never return to its heyday of decades ago. Recent bankruptcies that have made coal companies leaner and more competitive also mean that fewer workers are needed to produce the same output. But even the current modest rebound is helping coal states.

During the first quarter, West Virginia (3%) ranked second in the nation in GDP growth after Texas (3.9%), according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. New Mexico, another heavy mining state, came in third (2.8%). Mining resurgences began in West Virginia, Kentucky and New Mexico last summer after the Clean Power Plan was stayed. After plummeting last year, Wyoming and Montana’s mining industries grew during the first quarter.

Two or three quarters of economic data don’t make a long-term trend, but all of this is still good news for coal states that have experienced two years of little or negative growth and years of political assault.

Appeared in the August 17, 2017, print edition.

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

"You can't stop what's coming".

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Yes, I yen for the soot that filtered out the UV in Pittsburgh in the good ol' days... there was a perpetual eclipse. Coal had high sulfur and so the SO2 in the air sanitized it.
Mercury emissions and ash disposal?? the body adapts to accommodate the tooth filling component...
" EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is dismantling the power rule as well as the ash and mercury rules. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has re-opened leases and rescinded the royalty revaluation."
Yes, and all this crap about SeatBelts being safe?? where did that come from??

SBW we need more clear thinker.. want my country back... thinkers like you.... LONG LIVE SOOT
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"Pollution was once so bad in Pittsburgh that it could block out the midday sun. The scale of the problem is revealed in pictures from the Smoke Control Lantern Slide Collection at the archives of the University of Pittsburgh." Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2155742/Hell-lid-taken-The-pictures-bygone-Pittsburgh-residents-choking-clouds-smog.html#ixzz4q0qX3Xs7
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thom w Loc: San Jose, CA

Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga

To read what some have posted, you would think that we are dialing the clock back to the 40's. Hardly.... Stop with the "Fear tactics" already.... We can see thru them.

Black Bart Loc: Indiana

Nice photoshop job.

thom w Loc: San Jose, CA

Not for long if we keep burning coal.

bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

if we can acknowledge that oil will see it's day, why not coal? the cost of using coal over the years has been really high. air, water and land pollution, not to mention health issues. it cost to burn coal willy nilley, it cost to filter the smoke. we can't afford the cost any longer.

Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga

Nuclear power then? It's cheaper. Water, Wind, Sun and other "Green" solutions won't work in all parts of the country & what do we do when the sun don't shine or when the wind doesn't blow ?.... Not to mentions the thousands of bird kills from Sun & Wind power sources... Oh, and don't forget, the Kennedys didn't want the Wind turbines blocking their view off of Martha's Vineyard.

" Senator Edward Kennedy’s efforts, and those of his wealthy friends, to fight Cape Wind have been the most publicized, but Native Americans, fishermen, and local communities have also battled the industrialization of Nantucket Sound. The town of Barnstable has been particularly active in the fight. The Cape Cod Times reports that Charles McLaughlin, Barnstable’s assistant town attorney, said: “The town’s concerns include the possibility that a collision between a boat and the large electric service platform the project requires could spill thousands of gallons of oil into the sound.”

davefales Loc: Virginia

"The Supreme Court stayed the Clean Power Plan in February 2016" (I think that was before Prez Trump was elected.)

Some alarmists seem to be ignoring that US coal plants are continuing to shutdown... so that part of Prez O's threat to destroy the industry is working. But those rotten frackers have made it economical to fuel our power plants with clean natural gas. His prediction of explosive growth in power costs has not worked out so well.

SBW

Apparently, you cannot read English. According to the article, we certainly can reverse "what is coming". Read and weep you dumb hick and whine about yet another part of our economy that you democrats were unable to kill off. I know you hate our country so you will find something else to attack and destroy.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

If you invest in coal in one hand and shit in the other, you wanna guess which hand will fill up with all the dividands first???
That's the future of coal!
SS

SBW

Straw man much chump? Your stupid post has NOTHING to do with the article I posted. Nothing. Did your limited attention span prevent you from figuring that out? Actually, you are not too good at this, you should go back to pimping your sisters. Thommy W says you are much better at hooking up the ner' do well like him with the best whores. Stick with that and stay away from your stupid post. LOL

SBW

Yeah, heard that before. Came from the same stupid people that assured us that Hillary would be president. Remember that? Bet you do. Ask your sister about that. LOL

SBW

Wrong, apparently we can afford and so can the people we are exporting millions upon millions of tons of coal to. Oh, those would be the same people that have sworn they are going to "fix" the climate.