Author Topic: Coal  (Read 20862 times)

respond2u

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Re: Coal
« Reply #50 on: June 27, 2017, 01:11:15 AM »
This one of the reasons I put solar panels on every house I've ever lived in. Just purely to say F-you to coal, coal mines, and coal fired power plants.

Don't like coal? Call up SolarCity (or whoever) and you can make a tidy profit at the same time you punch coal in the nuts.

-W

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This forum really needs a +1 option

stackorstarve

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Re: Coal
« Reply #51 on: June 27, 2017, 05:10:31 AM »
This one of the reasons I put solar panels on every house I've ever lived in. Just purely to say F-you to coal, coal mines, and coal fired power plants.

Don't like coal? Call up SolarCity (or whoever) and you can make a tidy profit at the same time you punch coal in the nuts.

-W
Another thing you can do is go long on the alternative energy sector. That's bound to have some sweet returns in a decade or so. (Full disclosure: I plan to be long in an alternative energy ETF)

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Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #52 on: June 27, 2017, 11:37:11 AM »
Actually the rules/regulations that were formally implemented were much less stringent than during his infamous speech made while he was a Senator.

So just because the billions of dollars in costs were less severe than rhetoric on the campaign trail, that somehow means democrats don't have an animosity against coal?  Interesting perspective.  I think you're the first person I've seen put forth this novel argument on why Muslims should love Trump. 

He made no such remarks as an "existing President."
  He was a president that existed in real life, just like the regulations put out by the EPA under his administration.  I'd be really interested to know what kind of people you have dealt with in your life.  It really seems reasonable to you to say, "Those dummies in coal country.  Sure Obama bragged about intending to bankrupt companies that built coal fired plants, but he never publicly repeated those statements after becoming president and implementing regulations that put billions of extra costs on burning coal.  Why would those rubes think he is against coal?"  You can't understand why people in coal country would think democrats are engaging in efforts to kill or at least shrink the coal industry?

Obama was also talking about disincentives to building coal-powered plants with old technology, not coal plants with cleaner technology. He is also talking about a hypothetical, not making a “vow” to bankrupt coal operators.
  By old technology, you must mean technology that actually exists.  Because at the time, their still hadn't been a commercial demonstration of carbon sequestration at a commercially operating coal plant.  To my knowledge their still hasn't been.  There was a Southern Company plant intended to be the first one, but it has had construction issues that have delayed its commercial operation. 

But regardless, does it really change things from the perspective in coal country for the President to say, "we're only going to bankrupt companies that build coal fired plants that can generate electricity economically?  The ones that spend enough on carbon sequestration to make their electricity uneconomical, they can build all they want."   

MasterStache

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Re: Coal
« Reply #53 on: June 27, 2017, 12:28:55 PM »
But regardless, does it really change things from the perspective in coal country for the President to say, "we're only going to bankrupt companies that build coal fired plants that can generate electricity economically?  The ones that spend enough on carbon sequestration to make their electricity uneconomical, they can build all they want."

The regulations would have been burdensome on new coal plants for sure. But, since power companies themselves have been and will continue to actively switch over to cleaner, cheaper, more efficient natural gas and renewables, the odds of any new coal plants being built were pretty damn slim to begin with. So arguing that the regulations impact future plants is a non-issue. Now that Obama isn't President anymore, I would be interested to see if you can find any coal company that filed for bankruptcy strictly due to stringent regs put in place by the Obama administration. Since you are so up in arms about something he said 10 years ago, you know as a Senator. I didn't respond to your other parts because it was nothing but fallacious arguments.   

As an aside, a good recent article with a link to a published study showing regulations accounted for roughly about 3.5% of coals decline while NG accounted for about 49%.
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/02/531255253/fact-check-is-president-trump-correct-that-coal-mines-are-opening
« Last Edit: June 27, 2017, 12:54:05 PM by BeginnerStache »

nereo

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Re: Coal
« Reply #54 on: June 27, 2017, 01:04:44 PM »
serious question: what regulations exist for coal that don't also exist for other fossil fuels?

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Coal
« Reply #55 on: June 27, 2017, 03:10:18 PM »
I'm really glad mercury will be scrubbed out of the smokestacks of coal burning electric utility plants.

https://www.edf.org/climate/mercury-and-air-toxics-rule-power-plants

Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #56 on: June 27, 2017, 03:41:24 PM »

The regulations would have been burdensome on new coal plants for sure. But, since power companies themselves have been and will continue to actively switch over to cleaner, cheaper, more efficient natural gas and renewables, the odds of any new coal plants being built were pretty damn slim to begin with. So arguing that the regulations impact future plants is a non-issue. Now that Obama isn't President anymore, I would be interested to see if you can find any coal company that filed for bankruptcy strictly due to stringent regs put in place by the Obama administration. Since you are so up in arms about something he said 10 years ago, you know as a Senator. I didn't respond to your other parts because it was nothing but fallacious arguments.   

As an aside, a good recent article with a link to a published study showing regulations accounted for roughly about 3.5% of coals decline while NG accounted for about 49%.
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/02/531255253/fact-check-is-president-trump-correct-that-coal-mines-are-opening

You are making my argument for me.  If the market was going to push coal out by itself (which low natural gas prices due to fracking would have displaced a lot of coal generation regardless), why did threats need to be made?  That shows even more animosity towards coal.  They don't have to do anything for coal to go away, and they go out of their way to take "credit" for coal's decline just to virtue signal about how much they dislike coal, and now that they are getting the credit they asked for, they are acting like people are rubes for giving it to them. 

And also, you realize how nonsensical it must sound to people in coal country (or anybody else that can use logic) to use the fact that power companies are switching away from coal in an environment where politicians in the democratic party and partisans at the EPA have expressed a commitment to make coal more expensive, as evidence of the regulations not having any impact? 

And what does it matter how many electric utility companies went bankrupt?  The point of the threat was to prevent people from building new or reinvesting in existing coal plants, and if you look at the coal retirements around the country, it was pretty successful.  Obviously it wasn't the only factor and the ideological makeup of the EPA, as exhibited by things like CAMR, MATS, CSAPR, etc., was also a big (bigger?) factor, and electricity demand and the relative costs of natural gas and subsidies for renewable energy all play into it, but decisions about plant construction and reinvestment are made on the margins, and fear of stranded investments due to new regulations absolutely are big enough to flip decisions.   

But hey, all the "smart" people say people in coal country are idiots for thinking that people looking at investments millions or billions of dollars in coal plants take the risk of future regulatory costs into account before making investments, and how can you argue with them?


scottish

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Re: Coal
« Reply #57 on: June 27, 2017, 03:52:29 PM »
By old technology, you must mean technology that actually exists.  Because at the time, their still hadn't been a commercial demonstration of carbon sequestration at a commercially operating coal plant.  To my knowledge their still hasn't been.  There was a Southern Company plant intended to be the first one, but it has had construction issues that have delayed its commercial operation. 

Hmm.   We were debating the use of coal for electricity production and the proponent claimed that coal plants were much better environmentally than they used to be.   Is it just carbon sequestration?    He was claiming that they were able to sequester the various heavy metals & radioactive particles somehow.

Here's my reference.   https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/

It's a little bit old, but it talks about some of the byproducts.

nereo

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Re: Coal
« Reply #58 on: June 27, 2017, 04:02:20 PM »

The regulations would have been burdensome on new coal plants for sure. But, since power companies themselves have been and will continue to actively switch over to cleaner, cheaper, more efficient natural gas and renewables, the odds of any new coal plants being built were pretty damn slim to begin with. So arguing that the regulations impact future plants is a non-issue. Now that Obama isn't President anymore, I would be interested to see if you can find any coal company that filed for bankruptcy strictly due to stringent regs put in place by the Obama administration. Since you are so up in arms about something he said 10 years ago, you know as a Senator. I didn't respond to your other parts because it was nothing but fallacious arguments.   

As an aside, a good recent article with a link to a published study showing regulations accounted for roughly about 3.5% of coals decline while NG accounted for about 49%.
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/02/531255253/fact-check-is-president-trump-correct-that-coal-mines-are-opening

You are making my argument for me.  If the market was going to push coal out by itself (which low natural gas prices due to fracking would have displaced a lot of coal generation regardless), why did threats need to be made?  That shows even more animosity towards coal.  They don't have to do anything for coal to go away, and they go out of their way to take "credit" for coal's decline just to virtue signal about how much they dislike coal, and now that they are getting the credit they asked for, they are acting like people are rubes for giving it to them. 

And also, you realize how nonsensical it must sound to people in coal country (or anybody else that can use logic) to use the fact that power companies are switching away from coal in an environment where politicians in the democratic party and partisans at the EPA have expressed a commitment to make coal more expensive, as evidence of the regulations not having any impact? 

And what does it matter how many electric utility companies went bankrupt?  The point of the threat was to prevent people from building new or reinvesting in existing coal plants, and if you look at the coal retirements around the country, it was pretty successful.  Obviously it wasn't the only factor and the ideological makeup of the EPA, as exhibited by things like CAMR, MATS, CSAPR, etc., was also a big (bigger?) factor, and electricity demand and the relative costs of natural gas and subsidies for renewable energy all play into it, but decisions about plant construction and reinvestment are made on the margins, and fear of stranded investments due to new regulations absolutely are big enough to flip decisions.   

But hey, all the "smart" people say people in coal country are idiots for thinking that people looking at investments millions or billions of dollars in coal plants take the risk of future regulatory costs into account before making investments, and how can you argue with them?

The problem I have here is that where you see threats and animosity others see more fair market at work. Regulations that require coal-fired plants to be as clean as those LNG plants - even ignoring CO2 - may indeed require expensive scrubbers and pre-screening the coal.  However, that doesn't make those regulations 'evil.'

Finally, your argument above seems to be that if current and anticipated regulations are enough to tip the scales (perhaps out of fear of stranded investments) then we can blame the regulations in their entirety. This doesn't pass the sniff test for me - all forms of electricity have to undergo such analyses.  Natural gas plants have to consider whether fracking will be curtailed. Hydro is vulnerable to seismic activity as well as the current 'tear-down-those-dams!" mentality. Wind farms permits get scrapped because they're not pretty and turbines get shut down when endangered birds and bats can't avoid their blades. Nuclear still suffers from no long-term storage options for spent rods.
The same arguments you seem to be making for coal could be made for just about any of the others.

stackorstarve

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Re: Coal
« Reply #59 on: June 27, 2017, 04:16:25 PM »



The regulations would have been burdensome on new coal plants for sure. But, since power companies themselves have been and will continue to actively switch over to cleaner, cheaper, more efficient natural gas and renewables, the odds of any new coal plants being built were pretty damn slim to begin with. So arguing that the regulations impact future plants is a non-issue. Now that Obama isn't President anymore, I would be interested to see if you can find any coal company that filed for bankruptcy strictly due to stringent regs put in place by the Obama administration. Since you are so up in arms about something he said 10 years ago, you know as a Senator. I didn't respond to your other parts because it was nothing but fallacious arguments.   

As an aside, a good recent article with a link to a published study showing regulations accounted for roughly about 3.5% of coals decline while NG accounted for about 49%.
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/02/531255253/fact-check-is-president-trump-correct-that-coal-mines-are-opening

You are making my argument for me.  If the market was going to push coal out by itself (which low natural gas prices due to fracking would have displaced a lot of coal generation regardless), why did threats need to be made?  That shows even more animosity towards coal.  They don't have to do anything for coal to go away, and they go out of their way to take "credit" for coal's decline just to virtue signal about how much they dislike coal, and now that they are getting the credit they asked for, they are acting like people are rubes for giving it to them. 

And also, you realize how nonsensical it must sound to people in coal country (or anybody else that can use logic) to use the fact that power companies are switching away from coal in an environment where politicians in the democratic party and partisans at the EPA have expressed a commitment to make coal more expensive, as evidence of the regulations not having any impact? 

And what does it matter how many electric utility companies went bankrupt?  The point of the threat was to prevent people from building new or reinvesting in existing coal plants, and if you look at the coal retirements around the country, it was pretty successful.  Obviously it wasn't the only factor and the ideological makeup of the EPA, as exhibited by things like CAMR, MATS, CSAPR, etc., was also a big (bigger?) factor, and electricity demand and the relative costs of natural gas and subsidies for renewable energy all play into it, but decisions about plant construction and reinvestment are made on the margins, and fear of stranded investments due to new regulations absolutely are big enough to flip decisions.   

But hey, all the "smart" people say people in coal country are idiots for thinking that people looking at investments millions or billions of dollars in coal plants take the risk of future regulatory costs into account before making investments, and how can you argue with them?

Yo. First of all, relax. It really comes across that you have some sort of animosity toward Democrats akin to the one you claim Democrats have toward coal country.

To your point, yeah, Democrats would love to eliminate coal and all dirty energy as an industry. They made no attempt to hide it and no one is claiming that democrats didn't anger people with that attitude.

HOWEVER, Democrats also trust in the science of climate change/global warming (a market externality) so they want to get rid of dirty fuels as fast as possible. So they made it harder to open more coal plants and it resulted in layoffs in the coal industry. But the idea in economics is that those coal workers would be able to find new jobs. Maybe they need training and maybe the government should provide it. Fine. But to say that the solution to this is to continue supporting coal jobs is misplaced. Climate change is a problem and Democrats used regulations to fight it.

This isn't about Democrats thinking coal country people are idiots. This is about climate change. The context in which these various comments made by Democrats that you refer to is important to consider.

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Prairie Stash

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Re: Coal
« Reply #60 on: June 27, 2017, 04:29:31 PM »
By old technology, you must mean technology that actually exists.  Because at the time, their still hadn't been a commercial demonstration of carbon sequestration at a commercially operating coal plant.  To my knowledge their still hasn't been.  There was a Southern Company plant intended to be the first one, but it has had construction issues that have delayed its commercial operation. 

But regardless, does it really change things from the perspective in coal country for the President to say, "we're only going to bankrupt companies that build coal fired plants that can generate electricity economically?  The ones that spend enough on carbon sequestration to make their electricity uneconomical, they can build all they want."
http://www.saskpower.com/our-power-future/carbon-capture-and-storage/boundary-dam-carbon-capture-project/

There is an active Carbon Capture plant in Canada, online since 2014. It is a commercially operating plant, their have been numerous presentations at various Coal Power symposiums. The EERC is watching and evaluating the facility, there is an information sharing arrangement between this facility and the USA Coal producers. It is also widely watched in Canada, its a pretty big deal for anyone watching the Coal industry.

WhiteTrashCash

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Re: Coal
« Reply #61 on: June 27, 2017, 06:53:42 PM »
The worst part of coal power plants for me when I was growing up on Hillbilly Mountain was the damage from acid rain. There are so many lakes up there that are completely devoid of life now due to that type of pollution.

MasterStache

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Re: Coal
« Reply #62 on: June 28, 2017, 05:58:07 AM »
You are making my argument for me.  If the market was going to push coal out by itself (which low natural gas prices due to fracking would have displaced a lot of coal generation regardless), why did threats need to be made?  That shows even more animosity towards coal.

Your animosity seems to be more with Obamas words as a Senator. I am not going to argue your emotional state. You perceived threats where there were none.

Quote
They don't have to do anything for coal to go away, and they go out of their way to take "credit" for coal's decline just to virtue signal about how much they dislike coal, and now that they are getting the credit they asked for, they are acting like people are rubes for giving it to them. 

No, you give them credit with false claims of regulations destroying communities, straw-man arguments like Obama threatened coal companies, Dems hate coal, and false talking points like "war on coal." And continue the appeal to emotion. Dems are not doing it. The conservatives are, as are you. There is no war on coal. Implemented regulations added very to the decline of coal.

But facts don't really matter. Only emotion. And Trump is bringing coal jobs back by rolling back all these regs that destroyed communities, except the jobs aren't coming back no matter how many regs they roll back. So you can relax.
 

« Last Edit: June 28, 2017, 06:00:32 AM by BeginnerStache »

Davnasty

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Re: Coal
« Reply #63 on: June 28, 2017, 08:56:30 AM »
I very much dislike the phrasing of "war on ____". But if there is a war on coal it is fought by the Sierra Club, not the EPA.

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/05/inside-war-on-coal-000002

And remember, animosity towards coal is not animosity towards miners. It's perfectly natural for someone from a coal mining town, whether they work in the mines or not, to feel like it is a personal attack, but it's not. We take pride in what we do and anything we identify with. They identify with coal. Add to that politicians telling them that there is a war on coal and the fact that their livelihood or their family and friends may depend on coal their feelings are not surprising. But that doesn't mean their feelings are correct.

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Coal
« Reply #64 on: June 28, 2017, 09:14:08 AM »
And as this piece by John Oliver shows, coal miners are pretty angry at coal companies themselves.  It also reveals that coal miners can be retrained if there is any effort toward doing so, but that funding is getting cut by Republicans.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=john+oliver+and+coal&view=detail&mid=BB91E943AA33B77A4AFEBB91E943AA33B77A4AFE&FORM=VIRE

Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #65 on: June 28, 2017, 10:06:56 AM »

The problem I have here is that where you see threats and animosity others see more fair market at work. Regulations that require coal-fired plants to be as clean as those LNG plants - even ignoring CO2 - may indeed require expensive scrubbers and pre-screening the coal.  However, that doesn't make those regulations 'evil.'
  I never claimed those regulations were evil, just that it was unreasonable to expect people losing jobs because of them not to resent them, especially when many of them are legally suspect, and dishonest (or ignorant) to think that they haven't caused job losses.  Unfortunately, good policy has only a tenuous connection to good politics (and the same goes for bad policy and bad politics).   

Finally, your argument above seems to be that if current and anticipated regulations are enough to tip the scales (perhaps out of fear of stranded investments) then we can blame the regulations in their entirety.
  Not my argument at all.  I'm just pointing out to the person that loses his or her job because of regulation (or has a close family member lose his or her job by regulation), it doesn't lessen the sting to point out that other people would have lost jobs because of market conditions.  If anything, it increases the sting that they were positioned to survive a tsunami of market forces, but couldn't withstand the government regulation.   

This doesn't pass the sniff test for me - all forms of electricity have to undergo such analyses.  Natural gas plants have to consider whether fracking will be curtailed. Hydro is vulnerable to seismic activity as well as the current 'tear-down-those-dams!" mentality. Wind farms permits get scrapped because they're not pretty and turbines get shut down when endangered birds and bats can't avoid their blades. Nuclear still suffers from no long-term storage options for spent rods.
The same arguments you seem to be making for coal could be made for just about any of the others.
  Can't speak to Hydro, but not even close to the others.  Natural gas just doesn't require the initial investment and therefore it's periodic cap-ex expenditures for normal capital maintenance are not as significant, and then they haven't been subject to anything near the requirements to retrofit environmental technology.  You can build a natural gas combined cycle for $800M.  A scrubber retrofits could cost $700M.  Nuclear is a little different.  Regulatory uncertainty to build new is huge, but it's a different burden.  Once you get up and running, to date we have not had a lot of noise about shutting down functioning and well run nuke plants.  That certainly could change in teh future, but it's not on the foreseeable horizon.  Not as familiar with wind turbines, you used to get a huge tax credit up front like you do with solar (I believe that's been traded out for a production based credit now) and I think it's something like a 15-20 year asset, not a 40 year asset.  And really no clue what ongoing capital requirements for Hydro are, although I've always been told that building new hydro is basically a non-starter under current U.S. laws and regulations, but that's not something I have any particular knowledge on, so don't know if that's accurate or not. 
 

Prairie Stash

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Re: Coal
« Reply #66 on: June 28, 2017, 10:09:29 AM »
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060056398

Coal Power industry met with the new EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.
"The power sector has nearly outpaced the regulation that EPA finalized in 2015, as natural gas has stayed inexpensive and renewable power has gotten cheaper. One industry source said Pruitt wasn't hearing that message.

What I got back from it was the only time the administrator really perked up was when he heard the word 'coal,'" he said. "None of our people are ever going to be building a coal plant again. It's devoid of reality." - Anonymous Industry Source

Sometimes technology changes and the rules are redundant, natural gas has a strong economic case and coal doesn't. At this point its a lot of posturing, none of the regulations will matter since nobody was planning new coal plants. As plants get old and decommissioned, coal will slowly phase out, the only choice is how short is the timeline? In Canada its being phased out at 2030 now, the previous government set a deadline of 2046. The old deadline was based on the life expectancy of the newest facility in Canada, it was an easy rule to comply with, no new plants could be built unless they used clean coal technology.

In reality the rule is useless, there wasn't any plans for coal plants after fracking hit. But it got a lot of votes...

stackorstarve

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Re: Coal
« Reply #67 on: June 28, 2017, 10:34:45 AM »



The problem I have here is that where you see threats and animosity others see more fair market at work. Regulations that require coal-fired plants to be as clean as those LNG plants - even ignoring CO2 - may indeed require expensive scrubbers and pre-screening the coal.  However, that doesn't make those regulations 'evil.'
  I never claimed those regulations were evil, just that it was unreasonable to expect people losing jobs because of them not to resent them, especially when many of them are legally suspect, and dishonest (or ignorant) to think that they haven't caused job losses.  Unfortunately, good policy has only a tenuous connection to good politics (and the same goes for bad policy and bad politics).   

Finally, your argument above seems to be that if current and anticipated regulations are enough to tip the scales (perhaps out of fear of stranded investments) then we can blame the regulations in their entirety.
  Not my argument at all.  I'm just pointing out to the person that loses his or her job because of regulation (or has a close family member lose his or her job by regulation), it doesn't lessen the sting to point out that other people would have lost jobs because of market conditions.  If anything, it increases the sting that they were positioned to survive a tsunami of market forces, but couldn't withstand the government regulation.   

...


If your point is that people get angry when their jobs are threatened, then of course; people can get angry about anything.  But it did seem that you had made the implication that increased regulations causing people to lose jobs was somehow championed by Democrats. It was an unfortunate side effect to combat climate change.

Because coal jobs were already on the decline, it would mean that stepping on the gas (so to speak) would not be detrimental.

I don't think any of us here on this thread are surprised that people are angry about coal jobs; we just think that the anger is misplaced.



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nereo

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Re: Coal
« Reply #68 on: June 28, 2017, 10:35:12 AM »

This doesn't pass the sniff test for me - all forms of electricity have to undergo such analyses.  Natural gas plants have to consider whether fracking will be curtailed. Hydro is vulnerable to seismic activity as well as the current 'tear-down-those-dams!" mentality. Wind farms permits get scrapped because they're not pretty and turbines get shut down when endangered birds and bats can't avoid their blades. Nuclear still suffers from no long-term storage options for spent rods.
The same arguments you seem to be making for coal could be made for just about any of the others.
  Can't speak to Hydro, but not even close to the others.  Natural gas just doesn't require the initial investment and therefore it's periodic cap-ex expenditures for normal capital maintenance are not as significant, and then they haven't been subject to anything near the requirements to retrofit environmental technology.  You can build a natural gas combined cycle for $800M.  A scrubber retrofits could cost $700M.  Nuclear is a little different.  Regulatory uncertainty to build new is huge, but it's a different burden.  Once you get up and running, to date we have not had a lot of noise about shutting down functioning and well run nuke plants.  That certainly could change in teh future, but it's not on the foreseeable horizon.  Not as familiar with wind turbines, you used to get a huge tax credit up front like you do with solar (I believe that's been traded out for a production based credit now) and I think it's something like a 15-20 year asset, not a 40 year asset.  And really no clue what ongoing capital requirements for Hydro are, although I've always been told that building new hydro is basically a non-starter under current U.S. laws and regulations, but that's not something I have any particular knowledge on, so don't know if that's accurate or not.

My point IS that these costs are not uniform, nor should they be. Yes, a scrubber retrofit to bring coal emissions in line with natural gas might cost about as much as a new natural gas plant, which means that the market dictates retrofitting a coal plant is not an economically viable solution.
You are blaming the regulations, and not acknowledging that these are inherent to their respective technologies.
The per-ton cost of coal may be cheap, transport of said coal is reasonable and safe, but using it to generate electricity isn't.

Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #69 on: June 28, 2017, 11:19:30 AM »

This doesn't pass the sniff test for me - all forms of electricity have to undergo such analyses.  Natural gas plants have to consider whether fracking will be curtailed. Hydro is vulnerable to seismic activity as well as the current 'tear-down-those-dams!" mentality. Wind farms permits get scrapped because they're not pretty and turbines get shut down when endangered birds and bats can't avoid their blades. Nuclear still suffers from no long-term storage options for spent rods.
The same arguments you seem to be making for coal could be made for just about any of the others.
  Can't speak to Hydro, but not even close to the others.  Natural gas just doesn't require the initial investment and therefore it's periodic cap-ex expenditures for normal capital maintenance are not as significant, and then they haven't been subject to anything near the requirements to retrofit environmental technology.  You can build a natural gas combined cycle for $800M.  A scrubber retrofits could cost $700M.  Nuclear is a little different.  Regulatory uncertainty to build new is huge, but it's a different burden.  Once you get up and running, to date we have not had a lot of noise about shutting down functioning and well run nuke plants.  That certainly could change in teh future, but it's not on the foreseeable horizon.  Not as familiar with wind turbines, you used to get a huge tax credit up front like you do with solar (I believe that's been traded out for a production based credit now) and I think it's something like a 15-20 year asset, not a 40 year asset.  And really no clue what ongoing capital requirements for Hydro are, although I've always been told that building new hydro is basically a non-starter under current U.S. laws and regulations, but that's not something I have any particular knowledge on, so don't know if that's accurate or not.

My point IS that these costs are not uniform, nor should they be. Yes, a scrubber retrofit to bring coal emissions in line with natural gas might cost about as much as a new natural gas plant, which means that the market dictates retrofitting a coal plant is not an economically viable solution.
You are blaming the regulations, and not acknowledging that these are inherent to their respective technologies.
The per-ton cost of coal may be cheap, transport of said coal is reasonable and safe, but using it to generate electricity isn't.

If you define "market" to mean government, then yes, that's correct.  But there is no market or even a government program intended to mimic setting a market price for emissions.  Again, that doesn't mean it's bad policy, but it does mean that government regulations are shutting down coal plants, and consequently costing jobs related to the coal industry.   

Prairie Stash

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Re: Coal
« Reply #70 on: June 28, 2017, 11:30:40 AM »

This doesn't pass the sniff test for me - all forms of electricity have to undergo such analyses.  Natural gas plants have to consider whether fracking will be curtailed. Hydro is vulnerable to seismic activity as well as the current 'tear-down-those-dams!" mentality. Wind farms permits get scrapped because they're not pretty and turbines get shut down when endangered birds and bats can't avoid their blades. Nuclear still suffers from no long-term storage options for spent rods.
The same arguments you seem to be making for coal could be made for just about any of the others.
  Can't speak to Hydro, but not even close to the others.  Natural gas just doesn't require the initial investment and therefore it's periodic cap-ex expenditures for normal capital maintenance are not as significant, and then they haven't been subject to anything near the requirements to retrofit environmental technology.  You can build a natural gas combined cycle for $800M.  A scrubber retrofits could cost $700M.  Nuclear is a little different.  Regulatory uncertainty to build new is huge, but it's a different burden.  Once you get up and running, to date we have not had a lot of noise about shutting down functioning and well run nuke plants.  That certainly could change in teh future, but it's not on the foreseeable horizon.  Not as familiar with wind turbines, you used to get a huge tax credit up front like you do with solar (I believe that's been traded out for a production based credit now) and I think it's something like a 15-20 year asset, not a 40 year asset.  And really no clue what ongoing capital requirements for Hydro are, although I've always been told that building new hydro is basically a non-starter under current U.S. laws and regulations, but that's not something I have any particular knowledge on, so don't know if that's accurate or not.

My point IS that these costs are not uniform, nor should they be. Yes, a scrubber retrofit to bring coal emissions in line with natural gas might cost about as much as a new natural gas plant, which means that the market dictates retrofitting a coal plant is not an economically viable solution.
You are blaming the regulations, and not acknowledging that these are inherent to their respective technologies.
The per-ton cost of coal may be cheap, transport of said coal is reasonable and safe, but using it to generate electricity isn't.

If you define "market" to mean government, then yes, that's correct.  But there is no market or even a government program intended to mimic setting a market price for emissions.  Again, that doesn't mean it's bad policy, but it does mean that government regulations are shutting down coal plants, and consequently costing jobs related to the coal industry.
https://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/acid-rain-program
Do you mean like this market for emissions used in the USA?

It was a government program signed into law in 1990 to set up a market to let the market decide the best way to stop acid deposition, which was killing lakes. It was intended to mimic setting a market price for emissions. It was widely hailed as a great policy with excellent results, most people forgot it ever happened.

Davnasty

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Re: Coal
« Reply #71 on: June 28, 2017, 11:55:38 AM »
  I never claimed those regulations were evil, just that it was unreasonable to expect people losing jobs because of them not to resent them, especially when many of them are legally suspect, and dishonest (or ignorant) to think that they haven't caused job losses.  Unfortunately, good policy has only a tenuous connection to good politics (and the same goes for bad policy and bad politics).   
Is this the core of your argument? Which regulations specifically are legally suspect? Are they coal specific?

stackorstarve

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Re: Coal
« Reply #72 on: June 28, 2017, 12:20:23 PM »

This doesn't pass the sniff test for me - all forms of electricity have to undergo such analyses.  Natural gas plants have to consider whether fracking will be curtailed. Hydro is vulnerable to seismic activity as well as the current 'tear-down-those-dams!" mentality. Wind farms permits get scrapped because they're not pretty and turbines get shut down when endangered birds and bats can't avoid their blades. Nuclear still suffers from no long-term storage options for spent rods.
The same arguments you seem to be making for coal could be made for just about any of the others.
  Can't speak to Hydro, but not even close to the others.  Natural gas just doesn't require the initial investment and therefore it's periodic cap-ex expenditures for normal capital maintenance are not as significant, and then they haven't been subject to anything near the requirements to retrofit environmental technology.  You can build a natural gas combined cycle for $800M.  A scrubber retrofits could cost $700M.  Nuclear is a little different.  Regulatory uncertainty to build new is huge, but it's a different burden.  Once you get up and running, to date we have not had a lot of noise about shutting down functioning and well run nuke plants.  That certainly could change in teh future, but it's not on the foreseeable horizon.  Not as familiar with wind turbines, you used to get a huge tax credit up front like you do with solar (I believe that's been traded out for a production based credit now) and I think it's something like a 15-20 year asset, not a 40 year asset.  And really no clue what ongoing capital requirements for Hydro are, although I've always been told that building new hydro is basically a non-starter under current U.S. laws and regulations, but that's not something I have any particular knowledge on, so don't know if that's accurate or not.

My point IS that these costs are not uniform, nor should they be. Yes, a scrubber retrofit to bring coal emissions in line with natural gas might cost about as much as a new natural gas plant, which means that the market dictates retrofitting a coal plant is not an economically viable solution.
You are blaming the regulations, and not acknowledging that these are inherent to their respective technologies.
The per-ton cost of coal may be cheap, transport of said coal is reasonable and safe, but using it to generate electricity isn't.

If you define "market" to mean government, then yes, that's correct.  But there is no market or even a government program intended to mimic setting a market price for emissions.  Again, that doesn't mean it's bad policy, but it does mean that government regulations are shutting down coal plants, and consequently costing jobs related to the coal industry.
Hurting coal jobs isn't a problem long term. In the short term, the government or someone could retrain these workers (or in any industry) to make it up to them. But to let coal fire plants to continue to pollute the environment just to keep a few jobs around was considered to be a bad idea by Democrats. Sure, people are angry for losing their jobs, but people losing jobs isn't a justification for everything.

And moreover coal mining jobs have been declining looong before Obama. So it's misplaced anger toward Obama-era regulations.

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Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #73 on: June 28, 2017, 12:36:00 PM »
https://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/acid-rain-program
Do you mean like this market for emissions used in the USA?

It was a government program signed into law in 1990 to set up a market to let the market decide the best way to stop acid deposition, which was killing lakes. It was intended to mimic setting a market price for emissions. It was widely hailed as a great policy with excellent results, most people forgot it ever happened.

No, although a well-designed and non-corrupt allowance trading program is a good way to achieve emissions reductions economically, once you've set a given emissions amount. 

Getting a market value of the emissions themselves is a transaction cost problem.  If it weren't for the transaction costs, the Coase theorem would ensure that emissions received a market price (subject to known distortions such as the endowment effect).  I'm not sure if anybody has tried to come up with mechanisms to approximate the market value of the right to emit/be free from emissions.  Surely someone has, I'm just not aware of it.  There have been plenty of cost/benefit tests applied, but they are uncertain at best and more likely hopelessly biased if not dishonest.   

AlanStache

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Re: Coal
« Reply #74 on: June 28, 2017, 01:42:11 PM »
Am half way into the politico article, they say that 5500 fewer people are ding from air pollution now than when the program to oppose coal plaints started in the early 00's.  Not all those can be attributed to fewer coal plaints but just looking at the numeric magnitudes here 5500 people * 10 years = 55,000 this is about what the total employment of the coal industry is! 

Prairie Stash

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Re: Coal
« Reply #75 on: June 28, 2017, 02:33:57 PM »
https://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/acid-rain-program
Do you mean like this market for emissions used in the USA?

It was a government program signed into law in 1990 to set up a market to let the market decide the best way to stop acid deposition, which was killing lakes. It was intended to mimic setting a market price for emissions. It was widely hailed as a great policy with excellent results, most people forgot it ever happened.

No, although a well-designed and non-corrupt allowance trading program is a good way to achieve emissions reductions economically, once you've set a given emissions amount. 

Getting a market value of the emissions themselves is a transaction cost problem.  If it weren't for the transaction costs, the Coase theorem would ensure that emissions received a market price (subject to known distortions such as the endowment effect).  I'm not sure if anybody has tried to come up with mechanisms to approximate the market value of the right to emit/be free from emissions.  Surely someone has, I'm just not aware of it.  There have been plenty of cost/benefit tests applied, but they are uncertain at best and more likely hopelessly biased if not dishonest.   
I'll humour you some more, what emissions from power plants are you searching out markets for? Apparently it was nothing historical that worked extremely well to reduce mortality rates.

As an aside, can you name 1 single coal facility closed by government regulations in the USA? Then pull up the economic case study to show that the plant, even without the regulation, was viable?

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: Coal
« Reply #76 on: June 28, 2017, 03:30:32 PM »
Coal fired utility plants cause toxic emissions. 55,000 lives could be saved as a result of implementing closing these down.
What more needs to be said ?

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/06/28/534594373/u-s-air-pollution-still-kills-thousands-every-year-study-concludes
« Last Edit: June 28, 2017, 03:44:51 PM by DavidAnnArbor »

Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #77 on: June 28, 2017, 03:59:57 PM »
Am half way into the politico article, they say that 5500 fewer people are ding from air pollution now than when the program to oppose coal plaints started in the early 00's.  Not all those can be attributed to fewer coal plaints but just looking at the numeric magnitudes here 5500 people * 10 years = 55,000 this is about what the total employment of the coal industry is!

Not sure what politico article you're referencing, but if you buy those numbers, then things get pretty easy.  Using the EPA's estimate of a human life being worth ~$9M, that would mean they calculate the value of air pollution reduction in the U.S. to be worth over 49trillion per  year? 


Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #78 on: June 28, 2017, 04:29:19 PM »
https://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/acid-rain-program
Do you mean like this market for emissions used in the USA?

It was a government program signed into law in 1990 to set up a market to let the market decide the best way to stop acid deposition, which was killing lakes. It was intended to mimic setting a market price for emissions. It was widely hailed as a great policy with excellent results, most people forgot it ever happened.

No, although a well-designed and non-corrupt allowance trading program is a good way to achieve emissions reductions economically, once you've set a given emissions amount. 

Getting a market value of the emissions themselves is a transaction cost problem.  If it weren't for the transaction costs, the Coase theorem would ensure that emissions received a market price (subject to known distortions such as the endowment effect).  I'm not sure if anybody has tried to come up with mechanisms to approximate the market value of the right to emit/be free from emissions.  Surely someone has, I'm just not aware of it.  There have been plenty of cost/benefit tests applied, but they are uncertain at best and more likely hopelessly biased if not dishonest.   
I'll humour you some more, what emissions from power plants are you searching out markets for? Apparently it was nothing historical that worked extremely well to reduce mortality rates.
  I'm not searching for any markets.  Just pointing out that billions of dollars of regulatory costs is not a "result of the market". 

As an aside, can you name 1 single coal facility closed by government regulations in the USA? Then pull up the economic case study to show that the plant, even without the regulation, was viable?
  Yes.  And again, that type of argument is probably another thing that probably convinces people in coal country of the animosity of people on the left.  You have probably heard this type argument from somebody on your political "team", so you are making the argument.  But even with dirt cheap natural gas and expensive regulatory costs, the U.S. still gets almost a third of its electricity from coal.  Anybody that has ever had even a passing exposure to how life cycle maintenance costs work for any heavy industrial plant/equipment etc., making the argument that there coal plants aren't being shut down by regulations seems so asinine it's hard to believe they are making the argument in good faith.  I'm sure it seems infuriating to them that the people on the left are so dismissive that they don't even bother to come up with an argument that could even plausibly be believed.  Again, I know you are just repeating an argument, but somebody originated this argument with the full knowledge of how laughable it is, and still trotted it out in front of voters that know better.   

It's the equivalent of people on the right saying "can you name one person that would be worse off if we just eliminated the safety net?"  You would think the person was being a callous smart ass, not that they actually believed the what they are saying.   

AlanStache

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Re: Coal
« Reply #79 on: June 28, 2017, 06:29:24 PM »
Am half way into the politico article, they say that 5500 fewer people are ding from air pollution now than when the program to oppose coal plaints started in the early 00's.  Not all those can be attributed to fewer coal plaints but just looking at the numeric magnitudes here 5500 people * 10 years = 55,000 this is about what the total employment of the coal industry is!

Not sure what politico article you're referencing, but if you buy those numbers, then things get pretty easy.  Using the EPA's estimate of a human life being worth ~$9M, that would mean they calculate the value of air pollution reduction in the U.S. to be worth over 49trillion per  year? 

I very much dislike the phrasing of "war on ____". But if there is a war on coal it is fought by the Sierra Club, not the EPA.

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/05/inside-war-on-coal-000002

And remember, animosity towards coal is not animosity towards miners. It's perfectly natural for someone from a coal mining town, whether they work in the mines or not, to feel like it is a personal attack, but it's not. We take pride in what we do and anything we identify with. They identify with coal. Add to that politicians telling them that there is a war on coal and the fact that their livelihood or their family and friends may depend on coal their feelings are not surprising. But that doesn't mean their feelings are correct.

Link was half way up thread. 

That is billion not trillion. 

https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-valuation
from the epa link:
"The EPA does not place a dollar value on individual lives. Rather, when conducting a benefit-cost analysis of new environmental policies, the Agency uses estimates of how much people are willing to pay for small reductions in their risks of dying from adverse health conditions that may be caused by environmental pollution.
In the scientific literature, these estimates of willingness to pay for small reductions in mortality risks are often referred to as the "value of a statistical life.” This is because these values are typically reported in units that match the aggregate dollar amount that a large group of people would be willing to pay for a reduction in their individual risks of dying in a year, such that we would expect one fewer death among the group during that year on average. This is best explained by way of an example. Suppose each person in a sample of 100,000 people were asked how much he or she would be willing to pay for a reduction in their individual risk of dying of 1 in 100,000, or 0.001%, over the next year. Since this reduction in risk would mean that we would expect one fewer death among the sample of 100,000 people over the next year on average, this is sometimes described as "one statistical life saved.” Now suppose that the average response to this hypothetical question was $100. Then the total dollar amount that the group would be willing to pay to save one statistical life in a year would be $100 per person × 100,000 people, or $10 million. This is what is meant by the "value of a statistical life.” Importantly, this is not an estimate of how much money any single individual or group would be willing to pay to prevent the certain death of any particular person."

I dont think I need so much procrastination materiel tonight to fully study mortality risk valuations, but that seems to be the guts of it.  Within the link the also discuss the terminology.

But I might need to poke around data.gov to look up air pollution related mortality trends :-)

Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #80 on: June 28, 2017, 09:49:49 PM »
Am half way into the politico article, they say that 5500 fewer people are ding from air pollution now than when the program to oppose coal plaints started in the early 00's.  Not all those can be attributed to fewer coal plaints but just looking at the numeric magnitudes here 5500 people * 10 years = 55,000 this is about what the total employment of the coal industry is!

Not sure what politico article you're referencing, but if you buy those numbers, then things get pretty easy.  Using the EPA's estimate of a human life being worth ~$9M, that would mean they calculate the value of air pollution reduction in the U.S. to be worth over 49trillion per  year? 

I very much dislike the phrasing of "war on ____". But if there is a war on coal it is fought by the Sierra Club, not the EPA.

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/05/inside-war-on-coal-000002

And remember, animosity towards coal is not animosity towards miners. It's perfectly natural for someone from a coal mining town, whether they work in the mines or not, to feel like it is a personal attack, but it's not. We take pride in what we do and anything we identify with. They identify with coal. Add to that politicians telling them that there is a war on coal and the fact that their livelihood or their family and friends may depend on coal their feelings are not surprising. But that doesn't mean their feelings are correct.

Link was half way up thread. 

That is billion not trillion. 

https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-valuation
from the epa link:
"The EPA does not place a dollar value on individual lives. Rather, when conducting a benefit-cost analysis of new environmental policies, the Agency uses estimates of how much people are willing to pay for small reductions in their risks of dying from adverse health conditions that may be caused by environmental pollution.
In the scientific literature, these estimates of willingness to pay for small reductions in mortality risks are often referred to as the "value of a statistical life.” This is because these values are typically reported in units that match the aggregate dollar amount that a large group of people would be willing to pay for a reduction in their individual risks of dying in a year, such that we would expect one fewer death among the group during that year on average. This is best explained by way of an example. Suppose each person in a sample of 100,000 people were asked how much he or she would be willing to pay for a reduction in their individual risk of dying of 1 in 100,000, or 0.001%, over the next year. Since this reduction in risk would mean that we would expect one fewer death among the sample of 100,000 people over the next year on average, this is sometimes described as "one statistical life saved.” Now suppose that the average response to this hypothetical question was $100. Then the total dollar amount that the group would be willing to pay to save one statistical life in a year would be $100 per person × 100,000 people, or $10 million. This is what is meant by the "value of a statistical life.” Importantly, this is not an estimate of how much money any single individual or group would be willing to pay to prevent the certain death of any particular person."

I dont think I need so much procrastination materiel tonight to fully study mortality risk valuations, but that seems to be the guts of it.  Within the link the also discuss the terminology.

But I might need to poke around data.gov to look up air pollution related mortality trends :-)
Oomph that was some innumeracy in my part. Missed that 55,000 was over ten ten years and still was off by an order of magnitude.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2017, 08:59:37 AM by Jrr85 »

Prairie Stash

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Re: Coal
« Reply #81 on: June 29, 2017, 08:50:22 AM »
https://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/acid-rain-program
Do you mean like this market for emissions used in the USA?

It was a government program signed into law in 1990 to set up a market to let the market decide the best way to stop acid deposition, which was killing lakes. It was intended to mimic setting a market price for emissions. It was widely hailed as a great policy with excellent results, most people forgot it ever happened.

No, although a well-designed and non-corrupt allowance trading program is a good way to achieve emissions reductions economically, once you've set a given emissions amount. 

Getting a market value of the emissions themselves is a transaction cost problem.  If it weren't for the transaction costs, the Coase theorem would ensure that emissions received a market price (subject to known distortions such as the endowment effect).  I'm not sure if anybody has tried to come up with mechanisms to approximate the market value of the right to emit/be free from emissions.  Surely someone has, I'm just not aware of it.  There have been plenty of cost/benefit tests applied, but they are uncertain at best and more likely hopelessly biased if not dishonest.   
I'll humour you some more, what emissions from power plants are you searching out markets for? Apparently it was nothing historical that worked extremely well to reduce mortality rates.
  I'm not searching for any markets.  Just pointing out that billions of dollars of regulatory costs is not a "result of the market". 

As an aside, can you name 1 single coal facility closed by government regulations in the USA? Then pull up the economic case study to show that the plant, even without the regulation, was viable?
  Yes.  And again, that type of argument is probably another thing that probably convinces people in coal country of the animosity of people on the left.  You have probably heard this type argument from somebody on your political "team", so you are making the argument.  But even with dirt cheap natural gas and expensive regulatory costs, the U.S. still gets almost a third of its electricity from coal.  Anybody that has ever had even a passing exposure to how life cycle maintenance costs work for any heavy industrial plant/equipment etc., making the argument that there coal plants aren't being shut down by regulations seems so asinine it's hard to believe they are making the argument in good faith.  I'm sure it seems infuriating to them that the people on the left are so dismissive that they don't even bother to come up with an argument that could even plausibly be believed.  Again, I know you are just repeating an argument, but somebody originated this argument with the full knowledge of how laughable it is, and still trotted it out in front of voters that know better.   

It's the equivalent of people on the right saying "can you name one person that would be worse off if we just eliminated the safety net?"  You would think the person was being a callous smart ass, not that they actually believed the what they are saying.
Lets do some fact checks.

The scrubbers that you claim cost $700 million were brought in to curb SOx and NOx emissions, a direct result of the Clean air act amedment of 1990, passed by REPUBLICAN president George Bush. ?  https://www.epa.gov/history/epa-history-clean-air-act-amendments-1990  Which regulations are you referring to that has killed coal if not this one? Feel free to teach me, I'm willing to learn, are you?

BTW, I'm Canadian and don't belong to either party,  stop trying to make politics out of everything. I also happen to be an expert in coal pollution, in the interest of disclosure, I do contract work for the coal industry. The loss of coal is a serious threat to my livelihood, I like my coal research contracts.

Since you can't name any coal facilities, I'll assist.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Welsh_Power_Plant
If you take the time to read, you'll see the facility is closing because of the cost of scrubber retrofits, due to President Bush's republican amendment of the clean air act in 1990. Maybe I'm wrong, can you tell me what Democrat regulation that was passed that is closing a facility in Texas?

Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #82 on: June 29, 2017, 09:26:16 AM »
https://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/acid-rain-program
Do you mean like this market for emissions used in the USA?

It was a government program signed into law in 1990 to set up a market to let the market decide the best way to stop acid deposition, which was killing lakes. It was intended to mimic setting a market price for emissions. It was widely hailed as a great policy with excellent results, most people forgot it ever happened.

No, although a well-designed and non-corrupt allowance trading program is a good way to achieve emissions reductions economically, once you've set a given emissions amount. 

Getting a market value of the emissions themselves is a transaction cost problem.  If it weren't for the transaction costs, the Coase theorem would ensure that emissions received a market price (subject to known distortions such as the endowment effect).  I'm not sure if anybody has tried to come up with mechanisms to approximate the market value of the right to emit/be free from emissions.  Surely someone has, I'm just not aware of it.  There have been plenty of cost/benefit tests applied, but they are uncertain at best and more likely hopelessly biased if not dishonest.   
I'll humour you some more, what emissions from power plants are you searching out markets for? Apparently it was nothing historical that worked extremely well to reduce mortality rates.
  I'm not searching for any markets.  Just pointing out that billions of dollars of regulatory costs is not a "result of the market". 

As an aside, can you name 1 single coal facility closed by government regulations in the USA? Then pull up the economic case study to show that the plant, even without the regulation, was viable?
  Yes.  And again, that type of argument is probably another thing that probably convinces people in coal country of the animosity of people on the left.  You have probably heard this type argument from somebody on your political "team", so you are making the argument.  But even with dirt cheap natural gas and expensive regulatory costs, the U.S. still gets almost a third of its electricity from coal.  Anybody that has ever had even a passing exposure to how life cycle maintenance costs work for any heavy industrial plant/equipment etc., making the argument that there coal plants aren't being shut down by regulations seems so asinine it's hard to believe they are making the argument in good faith.  I'm sure it seems infuriating to them that the people on the left are so dismissive that they don't even bother to come up with an argument that could even plausibly be believed.  Again, I know you are just repeating an argument, but somebody originated this argument with the full knowledge of how laughable it is, and still trotted it out in front of voters that know better.   

It's the equivalent of people on the right saying "can you name one person that would be worse off if we just eliminated the safety net?"  You would think the person was being a callous smart ass, not that they actually believed the what they are saying.
Lets do some fact checks.

The scrubbers that you claim cost $700 million were brought in to curb SOx and NOx emissions, a direct result of the Clean air act amedment of 1990, passed by REPUBLICAN president George Bush. ?  https://www.epa.gov/history/epa-history-clean-air-act-amendments-1990  Which regulations are you referring to that has killed coal if not this one? Feel free to teach me, I'm willing to learn, are you?

BTW, I'm Canadian and don't belong to either party,  stop trying to make politics out of everything. I also happen to be an expert in coal pollution, in the interest of disclosure, I do contract work for the coal industry. The loss of coal is a serious threat to my livelihood, I like my coal research contracts.

Since you can't name any coal facilities, I'll assist.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Welsh_Power_Plant
If you take the time to read, you'll see the facility is closing because of the cost of scrubber retrofits, due to President Bush's republican amendment of the clean air act in 1990. Maybe I'm wrong, can you tell me what Democrat regulation that was passed that is closing a facility in Texas?

Your confusion may be because of the differences between Canadian and US law.  Statutes and amendments to statutes are passed by congress and signed into law by the president.  Even though they may be regulatory in nature, when people in the U.S. refer to regulations of the U.S. government, they are typically referring to administrative rules and regulations promulgated by administrative agencies.  In theory, these administrative agencies are subject matter experts first and insulated from politics.  In practice, you have a political appointment at the top that how ideological they are depends on the president (and to a lesser extent how protective Congress is of the approval process), and the staffers tend to be more statist, partly because of the nature of bureaucracies, and partly because the agencies themselves are obviously more attractive to people that are "true believers".  In the U.S., that tends to result in all of our federal agencies leaning hard towards the left/democratic party. 

MasterStache

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Re: Coal
« Reply #83 on: June 29, 2017, 09:32:30 AM »
As an aside, can you name 1 single coal facility closed by government regulations in the USA? Then pull up the economic case study to show that the plant, even without the regulation, was viable?
  Yes.  And again, that type of argument is probably another thing that probably convinces people in coal country of the animosity of people on the left.  You have probably heard this type argument from somebody on your political "team", so you are making the argument.

So you can name one but would rather rant about your animosity toward Dems. The hypocrisy is mind boggling. Prairie simply asked a question relating to claims you have made. In other word back up your claims. Ranting and raving about Dems isn't answering the question. It's a misdirection tactic.

While you are at it, feel free to state the number of coal jobs specifically lost to regulations and state which communities were adversely affected as a result. All claims you have made but failed to back up. Just curious how the regulations attributing to a mere 3% of the total decline of coal constitutes the catastrophic outcomes you claim and leads one to keep claiming "war on coal."   

Prairie Stash

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Re: Coal
« Reply #84 on: June 29, 2017, 11:03:22 AM »
Lets do some fact checks.

The scrubbers that you claim cost $700 million were brought in to curb SOx and NOx emissions, a direct result of the Clean air act amedment of 1990, passed by REPUBLICAN president George Bush. ?  https://www.epa.gov/history/epa-history-clean-air-act-amendments-1990  Which regulations are you referring to that has killed coal if not this one? Feel free to teach me, I'm willing to learn, are you?

BTW, I'm Canadian and don't belong to either party,  stop trying to make politics out of everything. I also happen to be an expert in coal pollution, in the interest of disclosure, I do contract work for the coal industry. The loss of coal is a serious threat to my livelihood, I like my coal research contracts.

Since you can't name any coal facilities, I'll assist.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Welsh_Power_Plant
If you take the time to read, you'll see the facility is closing because of the cost of scrubber retrofits, due to President Bush's republican amendment of the clean air act in 1990. Maybe I'm wrong, can you tell me what Democrat regulation that was passed that is closing a facility in Texas?

Your confusion may be because of the differences between Canadian and US law.  Statutes and amendments to statutes are passed by congress and signed into law by the president.  Even though they may be regulatory in nature, when people in the U.S. refer to regulations of the U.S. government, they are typically referring to administrative rules and regulations promulgated by administrative agencies.  In theory, these administrative agencies are subject matter experts first and insulated from politics.  In practice, you have a political appointment at the top that how ideological they are depends on the president (and to a lesser extent how protective Congress is of the approval process), and the staffers tend to be more statist, partly because of the nature of bureaucracies, and partly because the agencies themselves are obviously more attractive to people that are "true believers".  In the U.S., that tends to result in all of our federal agencies leaning hard towards the left/democratic party.
[/quote]
I'm super confused. When a Republican president passes something, its because of democrats?  Even the democrats under Bill Clinton gave credit to republican President Bush, why can't you?
"An EPA study completed near the end of the Clinton administration showed that the health benefits of the 1990 amendments exceeded their costs by a margin of four to one. The study projected that the health and environmental benefits would total about $110 billion by 2010, compared with about $27 billion in estimated costs."

I did your work, I showed the cost of the regulations, the benefits, the originator and its all democrats? 

I assume President Bush also got lucky with his Ozone rules too, even though the science is in backing the results, the ozone layer is getting better, its democrats we can thank for that? Is it really so hard for everyone to praise Republicans when they pass laws to make the county better? Does everything need to be partisan, even basic history?

I think its ironic that I'm defending republicans to a person bashing democrats.

Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #85 on: June 29, 2017, 12:11:35 PM »
Lets do some fact checks.

The scrubbers that you claim cost $700 million were brought in to curb SOx and NOx emissions, a direct result of the Clean air act amedment of 1990, passed by REPUBLICAN president George Bush. ?  https://www.epa.gov/history/epa-history-clean-air-act-amendments-1990  Which regulations are you referring to that has killed coal if not this one? Feel free to teach me, I'm willing to learn, are you?

BTW, I'm Canadian and don't belong to either party,  stop trying to make politics out of everything. I also happen to be an expert in coal pollution, in the interest of disclosure, I do contract work for the coal industry. The loss of coal is a serious threat to my livelihood, I like my coal research contracts.

Since you can't name any coal facilities, I'll assist.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Welsh_Power_Plant
If you take the time to read, you'll see the facility is closing because of the cost of scrubber retrofits, due to President Bush's republican amendment of the clean air act in 1990. Maybe I'm wrong, can you tell me what Democrat regulation that was passed that is closing a facility in Texas?
Your confusion may be because of the differences between Canadian and US law.  Statutes and amendments to statutes are passed by congress and signed into law by the president.  Even though they may be regulatory in nature, when people in the U.S. refer to regulations of the U.S. government, they are typically referring to administrative rules and regulations promulgated by administrative agencies.  In theory, these administrative agencies are subject matter experts first and insulated from politics.  In practice, you have a political appointment at the top that how ideological they are depends on the president (and to a lesser extent how protective Congress is of the approval process), and the staffers tend to be more statist, partly because of the nature of bureaucracies, and partly because the agencies themselves are obviously more attractive to people that are "true believers".  In the U.S., that tends to result in all of our federal agencies leaning hard towards the left/democratic party.

I'm super confused. When a Republican president passes something, its because of democrats?  Even the democrats under Bill Clinton gave credit to republican President Bush, why can't you?
"An EPA study completed near the end of the Clinton administration showed that the health benefits of the 1990 amendments exceeded their costs by a margin of four to one. The study projected that the health and environmental benefits would total about $110 billion by 2010, compared with about $27 billion in estimated costs."

I did your work, I showed the cost of the regulations, the benefits, the originator and its all democrats? 

I assume President Bush also got lucky with his Ozone rules too, even though the science is in backing the results, the ozone layer is getting better, its democrats we can thank for that? Is it really so hard for everyone to praise Republicans when they pass laws to make the county better? Does everything need to be partisan, even basic history?

I think its ironic that I'm defending republicans to a person bashing democrats.
I guess I didn't do a good job explaining how U.S. law works.  The Clean Air Act (and its amendments) are what are sometimes called enabling statutes.  Basically, they set a goal to be achieved, and delegate the responsibility for achieving that goal to an administrative agency within the executive branch.  The executive agency can then pretty much do anything to achieve that goal that is not contrary to the written language of the statutes.  They also have some procedural requirements imposed by the administrative procedures act and general due process requirements.   

How broad this delegation of authority was subject to some dispute.  Congress cannot delegate its legislative authority to administrative agencies because that would violate constitutional provisions related to separation of powers.  But in the caselaw fleshing this principle out, the jurists/scholars/practicioners arguing for a more constrained administrative state lost decisively, and the courts essentially settled on a test where as long as Congress gives the regulatory agency an intelligible principle on which to base their regulation, the delegation is fine.  This has turned out to not be much of a constraint at all in practice;  if an administrative agency wants to do something with respect to something within the general subject matter of their jurisdiction, the only limitations are specific limitations included in the applicable enabling statute. 

So an enabling statute might be passed by on Congress, and then years or even decades later a rule may come out that was never contemplated by members of congress on either side (e.g., regulations of CO2 as a pollutant) but that are nonetheless considered proper and valid rules. 

So a rule promulgated pursuant to a statute signed into law by a president would not typically be considered "his" rule. 

Even a rule that is imposed during a president's administration may or may not be "his" rule.  If a president is willing to take the political heat, he can pretty much stop any rule from being promulgated, even ones under process before he came into office.  But a president may let a rule move forward that he disagrees with because it is not a high priority for him or because he thinks it would be politically costly to interfere. 

On the flip side, presidents cannot in practice effectively move rules through that members of the administrative agency disagree with. Once a rule is in effect, in order to reverse it, there are APA requirements that must be met in order to survive a claim that the change in policy was arbitrary and capricious.  The burden is not very hard to meet because of Chevron deference, but if rank and file are not on board and depending on how technical the original rule was, they can gum up the works. 
 
« Last Edit: June 29, 2017, 12:18:09 PM by Jrr85 »

Prairie Stash

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Re: Coal
« Reply #86 on: June 29, 2017, 05:03:07 PM »
Lets do some fact checks.

The scrubbers that you claim cost $700 million were brought in to curb SOx and NOx emissions, a direct result of the Clean air act amedment of 1990, passed by REPUBLICAN president George Bush. ?  https://www.epa.gov/history/epa-history-clean-air-act-amendments-1990  Which regulations are you referring to that has killed coal if not this one? Feel free to teach me, I'm willing to learn, are you?

BTW, I'm Canadian and don't belong to either party,  stop trying to make politics out of everything. I also happen to be an expert in coal pollution, in the interest of disclosure, I do contract work for the coal industry. The loss of coal is a serious threat to my livelihood, I like my coal research contracts.

Since you can't name any coal facilities, I'll assist.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Welsh_Power_Plant
If you take the time to read, you'll see the facility is closing because of the cost of scrubber retrofits, due to President Bush's republican amendment of the clean air act in 1990. Maybe I'm wrong, can you tell me what Democrat regulation that was passed that is closing a facility in Texas?
Your confusion may be because of the differences between Canadian and US law.  Statutes and amendments to statutes are passed by congress and signed into law by the president.  Even though they may be regulatory in nature, when people in the U.S. refer to regulations of the U.S. government, they are typically referring to administrative rules and regulations promulgated by administrative agencies.  In theory, these administrative agencies are subject matter experts first and insulated from politics.  In practice, you have a political appointment at the top that how ideological they are depends on the president (and to a lesser extent how protective Congress is of the approval process), and the staffers tend to be more statist, partly because of the nature of bureaucracies, and partly because the agencies themselves are obviously more attractive to people that are "true believers".  In the U.S., that tends to result in all of our federal agencies leaning hard towards the left/democratic party.

I'm super confused. When a Republican president passes something, its because of democrats?  Even the democrats under Bill Clinton gave credit to republican President Bush, why can't you?
"An EPA study completed near the end of the Clinton administration showed that the health benefits of the 1990 amendments exceeded their costs by a margin of four to one. The study projected that the health and environmental benefits would total about $110 billion by 2010, compared with about $27 billion in estimated costs."

I did your work, I showed the cost of the regulations, the benefits, the originator and its all democrats? 

I assume President Bush also got lucky with his Ozone rules too, even though the science is in backing the results, the ozone layer is getting better, its democrats we can thank for that? Is it really so hard for everyone to praise Republicans when they pass laws to make the county better? Does everything need to be partisan, even basic history?

I think its ironic that I'm defending republicans to a person bashing democrats.
I guess I didn't do a good job explaining how U.S. law works.  The Clean Air Act (and its amendments) are what are sometimes called enabling statutes.  Basically, they set a goal to be achieved, and delegate the responsibility for achieving that goal to an administrative agency within the executive branch.  The executive agency can then pretty much do anything to achieve that goal that is not contrary to the written language of the statutes.  They also have some procedural requirements imposed by the administrative procedures act and general due process requirements.   

How broad this delegation of authority was subject to some dispute.  Congress cannot delegate its legislative authority to administrative agencies because that would violate constitutional provisions related to separation of powers.  But in the caselaw fleshing this principle out, the jurists/scholars/practicioners arguing for a more constrained administrative state lost decisively, and the courts essentially settled on a test where as long as Congress gives the regulatory agency an intelligible principle on which to base their regulation, the delegation is fine.  This has turned out to not be much of a constraint at all in practice;  if an administrative agency wants to do something with respect to something within the general subject matter of their jurisdiction, the only limitations are specific limitations included in the applicable enabling statute. 

So an enabling statute might be passed by on Congress, and then years or even decades later a rule may come out that was never contemplated by members of congress on either side (e.g., regulations of CO2 as a pollutant) but that are nonetheless considered proper and valid rules. 

So a rule promulgated pursuant to a statute signed into law by a president would not typically be considered "his" rule. 

Even a rule that is imposed during a president's administration may or may not be "his" rule.  If a president is willing to take the political heat, he can pretty much stop any rule from being promulgated, even ones under process before he came into office.  But a president may let a rule move forward that he disagrees with because it is not a high priority for him or because he thinks it would be politically costly to interfere. 

On the flip side, presidents cannot in practice effectively move rules through that members of the administrative agency disagree with. Once a rule is in effect, in order to reverse it, there are APA requirements that must be met in order to survive a claim that the change in policy was arbitrary and capricious.  The burden is not very hard to meet because of Chevron deference, but if rank and file are not on board and depending on how technical the original rule was, they can gum up the works.
After that diversion, would you care to comment on what regulations the democrats passed to kill coal? 

I think you clearly illustrated the Clean Air Act bringing in scrubbers was promulgated by the Republican party, you proved my point so thank you for that one.

nereo

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Re: Coal
« Reply #87 on: June 29, 2017, 07:57:18 PM »
Quote
In the U.S., that tends to result in all of our federal agencies leaning hard towards the left/democratic party. 

what? huh?  Sorry, i stepped away from the conversation for a bit and just came back to this.
explain to me how federal agencies tend to lean hard towards the left when the GOP has overwhelming controlled the house and senate over the last 20+ years.
Most of what you seem to be railing against (the EPA) was founded by a Republican (Nixon), and many of the regulations were put into place by W. with a GOP house.  H.W. Bush greatly expanded the Clear Air Act (also passed under Nixon). The GOP has pushed carbon taxes and cap-and-trade bills multiple times.
Hisorically these have been largely bipartisan issues pushed forward by the GOP.  only recently have they suddenly become "leftist, democratic ideals".

know your history.

MasterStache

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Re: Coal
« Reply #88 on: June 30, 2017, 05:23:17 AM »
Quote
In the U.S., that tends to result in all of our federal agencies leaning hard towards the left/democratic party. 

what? huh?  Sorry, i stepped away from the conversation for a bit and just came back to this.
explain to me how federal agencies tend to lean hard towards the left when the GOP has overwhelming controlled the house and senate over the last 20+ years.
Most of what you seem to be railing against (the EPA) was founded by a Republican (Nixon), and many of the regulations were put into place by W. with a GOP house.  H.W. Bush greatly expanded the Clear Air Act (also passed under Nixon). The GOP has pushed carbon taxes and cap-and-trade bills multiple times.
Hisorically these have been largely bipartisan issues pushed forward by the GOP.  only recently have they suddenly become "leftist, democratic ideals".

know your history.

+1. I laughed when I read it. Under Bush Sr. the head of the EPA and the Secretary of Energy were both Republicans as well. Maybe they were all secretly Dems? Fuck if I know. I do know the Dems and Repubs used to actually work together to solve issues relating to the environment and health and well being of the people. Because the conservatives actually cared about those things.  Now a days apparently climate change is some neo liberal super secret squirrel hoax perpetuated by the globes scientist to steal everyone's money.

WhiteTrashCash

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Re: Coal
« Reply #89 on: June 30, 2017, 07:52:56 AM »
I laugh sometimes when Trump bleats about the importance of fossil fuels, when I produce all the electricity I use with solar panels on my roof and I run all my errands in town on a bicycle fueled by a bowl of frosted mini wheats. Fossil fuels are not long for this world.

Aelias

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Re: Coal
« Reply #90 on: June 30, 2017, 07:54:57 AM »
There's an excellent deep dive piece in the most recent New Yorker entitled "The Future of Coal Country"  http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/03/the-future-of-coal-country

A lot of good insight in there (bottom line--automation and natural gas / renewables are mostly the cause of coal's decline), but there was one piece that really stuck with me.  I've attached an excerpt below for reference.

They profile this couple in their early 30s with two daughters in living in rural PA.  He works in the mine, she's a stay at home mom. They live in a home they rent from their company at $600 a month, a sweetheart deal even by local standards (of course, I checked).  Recently, when his hours were cut down to 3 days a week, she had to start waitressing at 8 mos pregnant to make ends meet.  When she had a C-section, they had to pay $8,000 out of pocket.  They said they voted for Trump because they were voting for coal-- "We just need 10 more years" of coal, they say, because they've got car loans, and student loans, and kids.

This all seems pretty sympathetic, until you realize HE WAS MAKING $110,000 A YEAR!!!  After taxes, that's gotta be at least $80K.  In rural PA!  With no daycare and laughably tiny rent. 

WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY SPENDING THEIR MONEY ON?

The only other detail they gave was that they were planning to take their daughters to Build-A-Bear to get bears that cost 80 bucks each.

And they "just need 10 more years"--To do what, exactly? If you can't build up savings earning money like that with a crazy cheap cost of living, what are you going to do in 10 more years?

And!  And!  Because they're renting a home from his employer, as soon as he loses his job (which he will sooner or later), they'll be broke AND homeless!

I just . . . I don't even know what to say.  It blows my fucking mind.



Here's the full excerpt:

Among the marchers were Christina and Frank Zaccone, a married couple in their early thirties. Frank didn’t mind the cold: every workday, he travelled an hour underground to reach the face, where he sheared coal from the Pittsburgh seam. Christina was excited to be part of something, although she wished she’d designed a sign of her own, instead of simply carrying the one handed to her by a Consol public-relations employee. She and the other miners’ wives had been talking on the phone late into the night, while their husbands were underground, worrying about the lawsuit. Christina noted that the industry claimed the fight over the Bailey mine could cost as many as two thousand jobs. “That’s a lot of jobs lost over a stream,” she said. “My husband could lose his job over this for sure.”

Christina was a good ally for the mining industry, posting support on a Facebook page called “A Coal Miner’s Wife.” When I met her one morning, a few weeks after the protest, she suggested that the activists were outside agitators. “If this Center for Coalfield Justice was a bunch of farmers who grew up in Ryerson State Park, then I probably wouldn’t have marched,” she said. She suspected that Coptis was the only C.C.J. member who’d actually “set foot” in the county. She knew that the Sierra Club, based in California, was part of the suit. “I almost feel like they’re bullies,” she said. “Maybe that’s why Trump won, because people were getting bullied.”

She and Frank lived with their two young daughters near the town of Prosperity, in a red brick Colonial they rented from Consol. The house had once been worth a hundred thousand dollars, but in 2013 Consol, which was then buying properties in the area, paid more than eight times that amount, intending to rent it to employees, who were unlikely to complain about the effects of undermining. In subsequent years, mining spoiled the water supply and damaged the foundation. The Zaccones now rented the house for six hundred dollars a month and paid a local company to fill the water buffalo—a portable tank that sat on a trailer outside. “I’ve seen what coal does,” Christina said. “It’s not pretty, but it’s necessary.”

Frank, who had worked the graveyard shift, was still sleeping. The Zaccones were planning to take their daughters to the Build-a-Bear store that day, to fashion Teddy bears from the movie “Trolls.” The bears were expensive, eighty dollars apiece, but Frank made good money: a hundred and ten thousand dollars a year, enough to allow Christina to stay home. During the recent downturn in the industry, Frank’s work had dwindled to three days a week, and Christina, who was then eight months pregnant, had waited tables. Their deductibles shot up; when Christina needed a C-section, she had to pay eight thousand dollars out of pocket. Many miners blamed Obamacare for the change in insurance fees. Since companies were forced to help provide insurance for everyone in America, the argument went, they could no longer afford the same standard of care for employees.

The Zaccones voted for Trump. “We’re not a bunch of toothless, uneducated miners,” Christina said. Her daughters ran into the dining room; the older one, who was four, wore a T-shirt that read, “NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A GIRL.” “No one wants to repress anyone else, no one wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned,” she added. “We voted for coal here, and just crossed our fingers that Trump wouldn’t go too far.”

By the time Frank woke up, the girls had got into a box of doughnuts on the dining-room table. He rifled through, looking for a chocolate one. Voting for Trump was the first time he felt that his opinion mattered, he said: “People like me made it happen.” Since the election, his overtime hours had increased. Trump might not be able to change the market, but in the short term he could restore jobs. “Coal will never go back to the way it was, but if Trump cuts back on regulation he can give us jobs for the next ten years,” he said. “We’ve got car loans and school loans and kids,” Christina added. “Honest to God, if we can make it ten more years, we’re cool.” But ten more years of burning coal will continue to help drive up the earth’s temperature, as well as increase the costs of health problems from pollution, which in Pennsylvania have been estimated at more than six billion dollars a year.

Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #91 on: June 30, 2017, 08:53:50 AM »
Lets do some fact checks.

The scrubbers that you claim cost $700 million were brought in to curb SOx and NOx emissions, a direct result of the Clean air act amedment of 1990, passed by REPUBLICAN president George Bush. ?  https://www.epa.gov/history/epa-history-clean-air-act-amendments-1990  Which regulations are you referring to that has killed coal if not this one? Feel free to teach me, I'm willing to learn, are you?

BTW, I'm Canadian and don't belong to either party,  stop trying to make politics out of everything. I also happen to be an expert in coal pollution, in the interest of disclosure, I do contract work for the coal industry. The loss of coal is a serious threat to my livelihood, I like my coal research contracts.

Since you can't name any coal facilities, I'll assist.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Welsh_Power_Plant
If you take the time to read, you'll see the facility is closing because of the cost of scrubber retrofits, due to President Bush's republican amendment of the clean air act in 1990. Maybe I'm wrong, can you tell me what Democrat regulation that was passed that is closing a facility in Texas?
Your confusion may be because of the differences between Canadian and US law.  Statutes and amendments to statutes are passed by congress and signed into law by the president.  Even though they may be regulatory in nature, when people in the U.S. refer to regulations of the U.S. government, they are typically referring to administrative rules and regulations promulgated by administrative agencies.  In theory, these administrative agencies are subject matter experts first and insulated from politics.  In practice, you have a political appointment at the top that how ideological they are depends on the president (and to a lesser extent how protective Congress is of the approval process), and the staffers tend to be more statist, partly because of the nature of bureaucracies, and partly because the agencies themselves are obviously more attractive to people that are "true believers".  In the U.S., that tends to result in all of our federal agencies leaning hard towards the left/democratic party.

I'm super confused. When a Republican president passes something, its because of democrats?  Even the democrats under Bill Clinton gave credit to republican President Bush, why can't you?
"An EPA study completed near the end of the Clinton administration showed that the health benefits of the 1990 amendments exceeded their costs by a margin of four to one. The study projected that the health and environmental benefits would total about $110 billion by 2010, compared with about $27 billion in estimated costs."

I did your work, I showed the cost of the regulations, the benefits, the originator and its all democrats? 

I assume President Bush also got lucky with his Ozone rules too, even though the science is in backing the results, the ozone layer is getting better, its democrats we can thank for that? Is it really so hard for everyone to praise Republicans when they pass laws to make the county better? Does everything need to be partisan, even basic history?

I think its ironic that I'm defending republicans to a person bashing democrats.
I guess I didn't do a good job explaining how U.S. law works.  The Clean Air Act (and its amendments) are what are sometimes called enabling statutes.  Basically, they set a goal to be achieved, and delegate the responsibility for achieving that goal to an administrative agency within the executive branch.  The executive agency can then pretty much do anything to achieve that goal that is not contrary to the written language of the statutes.  They also have some procedural requirements imposed by the administrative procedures act and general due process requirements.   

How broad this delegation of authority was subject to some dispute.  Congress cannot delegate its legislative authority to administrative agencies because that would violate constitutional provisions related to separation of powers.  But in the caselaw fleshing this principle out, the jurists/scholars/practicioners arguing for a more constrained administrative state lost decisively, and the courts essentially settled on a test where as long as Congress gives the regulatory agency an intelligible principle on which to base their regulation, the delegation is fine.  This has turned out to not be much of a constraint at all in practice;  if an administrative agency wants to do something with respect to something within the general subject matter of their jurisdiction, the only limitations are specific limitations included in the applicable enabling statute. 

So an enabling statute might be passed by on Congress, and then years or even decades later a rule may come out that was never contemplated by members of congress on either side (e.g., regulations of CO2 as a pollutant) but that are nonetheless considered proper and valid rules. 

So a rule promulgated pursuant to a statute signed into law by a president would not typically be considered "his" rule. 

Even a rule that is imposed during a president's administration may or may not be "his" rule.  If a president is willing to take the political heat, he can pretty much stop any rule from being promulgated, even ones under process before he came into office.  But a president may let a rule move forward that he disagrees with because it is not a high priority for him or because he thinks it would be politically costly to interfere. 

On the flip side, presidents cannot in practice effectively move rules through that members of the administrative agency disagree with. Once a rule is in effect, in order to reverse it, there are APA requirements that must be met in order to survive a claim that the change in policy was arbitrary and capricious.  The burden is not very hard to meet because of Chevron deference, but if rank and file are not on board and depending on how technical the original rule was, they can gum up the works.
After that diversion, would you care to comment on what regulations the democrats passed to kill coal? 

I think you clearly illustrated the Clean Air Act bringing in scrubbers was promulgated by the Republican party, you proved my point so thank you for that one.

I guess you're still not understanding the difference between statute and administrative rules...

But the Clean Power Plan was pretty significant.  And it was one where even the political appointments at the EPA were uncomfortable with it, but imposed it on top down orders.  They freely admitted that the reduction imposed was not a result of working backwards from BACT, but picking a political based target and then coming up with a way to meet it, by hook or by crook, which is how you got regulation of things like energy efficiency. 

CSPR was painful also and was an Obama era rule. 

But even when W was in office, the EPA was involved in ethically questionable sue and settle plans with environmental groups that allowed them to effectively gut the normal notice and comment procedures and insulate itself from political oversight from the administration. 


Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #92 on: June 30, 2017, 09:00:00 AM »
Quote
In the U.S., that tends to result in all of our federal agencies leaning hard towards the left/democratic party. 

what? huh?  Sorry, i stepped away from the conversation for a bit and just came back to this.
explain to me how federal agencies tend to lean hard towards the left when the GOP has overwhelming controlled the house and senate over the last 20+ years.


Executive agencies are in the executive branch, not the legislative branch, so outside of the cabinet appointments, not much input from Congress.  I'll agree that Congress could have and should have done more to prevent the politicization of government bodies, but they didn't.  So you have agencies that are going by political contributions, something like 90%+ democrats, like the EPA. 

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Re: Coal
« Reply #93 on: June 30, 2017, 09:08:59 AM »
This all seems pretty sympathetic, until you realize HE WAS MAKING $110,000 A YEAR!!!  After taxes, that's gotta be at least $80K.  In rural PA!  With no daycare and laughably tiny rent. 
With PA's low flat income tax of 3.07% it's more like $88,000 take home not including any 401k match, if they take it. Maybe coal miners aren't interested in replacement jobs because the replacements won't pay nearly that well.

To be fair, this isn't a typical mine workers salary, http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Industry=Coal_Mining/Salary

« Last Edit: June 30, 2017, 09:11:14 AM by Dabnasty »

Aelias

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Re: Coal
« Reply #94 on: June 30, 2017, 09:27:51 AM »
This all seems pretty sympathetic, until you realize HE WAS MAKING $110,000 A YEAR!!!  After taxes, that's gotta be at least $80K.  In rural PA!  With no daycare and laughably tiny rent. 
With PA's low flat income tax of 3.07% it's more like $88,000 take home not including any 401k match, if they take it. Maybe coal miners aren't interested in replacement jobs because the replacements won't pay nearly that well.

To be fair, this isn't a typical mine workers salary, http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Industry=Coal_Mining/Salary

Right, and I understand there are plenty of people working in coal who are in truly difficult situations where there aren't a lot of options.  But this story just kept pinging around in my head.  Like, I was trying to empathize with the situation, but with the financial details available, I just couldn't.

aaahhrealmarcus

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Re: Coal
« Reply #95 on: June 30, 2017, 10:17:33 AM »
Finally got around to watching the John Oliver video this morning. Very thought-provoking! Especially the bit about how JC Penney's employs more people than the coal industry. I know it was a joke, but I think that's a comparison that needs to be made. With all the department stores going out of business, why is there no effort being made to "save" those jobs? Where's the attack on Amazon? That is, if this was really about "saving jobs," which it's not. To paraphrase one YouTube commenter, fighting clean energy to save coal is like fighting Netflix to save Blockbuster.

Jrr85

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Re: Coal
« Reply #96 on: June 30, 2017, 11:05:28 AM »
This all seems pretty sympathetic, until you realize HE WAS MAKING $110,000 A YEAR!!!  After taxes, that's gotta be at least $80K.  In rural PA!  With no daycare and laughably tiny rent. 
With PA's low flat income tax of 3.07% it's more like $88,000 take home not including any 401k match, if they take it. Maybe coal miners aren't interested in replacement jobs because the replacements won't pay nearly that well.

To be fair, this isn't a typical mine workers salary, http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Industry=Coal_Mining/Salary

Right, and I understand there are plenty of people working in coal who are in truly difficult situations where there aren't a lot of options.  But this story just kept pinging around in my head.  Like, I was trying to empathize with the situation, but with the financial details available, I just couldn't.

Part of it is that a lot of people view these blue collar jobs that offer a middle or upper middle class income without a college degree to be a part of the american dream.  But I think a bigger part of it is that people are loss averse and so sympathize more with people that are losing a sweet deal than to those that never had it to begin with.  Just the same as with auto workers.  In isolation, when considering a low skilled auto worker that is losing a $30 or $40 job with benefits after having it for 15 years versus a low skilled service industry worker who has been scraping by for 15 years at around $15 per hour with no benefits, it would make sense to focus any government help on the person who never got the relatively high wage job.  But in practice, that's almost never how people respond, so we get multibillion dollar payouts to auto unions despite the fact that the beneficiaries were the lucky ones compared to other workers with similar abilities. 

And then part of it is just politics.  Auto unions are obviously important to democrat politicians, so they get a disproportionate amount of democrat focus.  People associated with the coal industry happen to be a valuable swing population in a couple of states, so they get a disproportionate amount of attention from republicans.   

Car Jack

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Re: Coal
« Reply #97 on: June 30, 2017, 12:13:05 PM »
The issue of coal is simple.  Even without regulations.  Even without paying for scrubbers.  It simply is not economical anymore.  Sure, old coal plants will run themselves down, then they'll close.  The last coal plant in Massachusetts just closed.  The rest are running on natural gas.....which by the way costs double here what the rest of the US pays because we don't have adequate pipelines bringing it in.  So at double what the rest of you guys pay, it's still cheaper than coal.

Manufacturing has changed in the same way.  Go into a car factory.  Heck....as an extreme, go into a really new factory.  Instead of thousands of workers, there's thousands of Fuji robots and a few technicians.  The jobs weren't exported.....they are gone. 

Who knows what new energy or technology will reduce cost next.  Heck, if the power plant find that just by drilling down into the ground far enough, they get an endless supply of magical pixi dust that cleanly creates heat to boil that water to turn the steam turbines, guess what?  Natural gas workers are going to be in a world of hurt.

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Re: Coal
« Reply #98 on: June 30, 2017, 05:22:15 PM »
Quote
In the U.S., that tends to result in all of our federal agencies leaning hard towards the left/democratic party. 

what? huh?  Sorry, i stepped away from the conversation for a bit and just came back to this.
explain to me how federal agencies tend to lean hard towards the left when the GOP has overwhelming controlled the house and senate over the last 20+ years.

Most of what you seem to be railing against (the EPA) was founded by a Republican (Nixon), and many of the regulations were put into place by W. with a GOP house.  H.W. Bush greatly expanded the Clear Air Act (also passed under Nixon). The GOP has pushed carbon taxes and cap-and-trade bills multiple times.
Hisorically these have been largely bipartisan issues pushed forward by the GOP.  only recently have they suddenly become "leftist, democratic ideals".

know your history.


Executive agencies are in the executive branch, not the legislative branch, so outside of the cabinet appointments, not much input from Congress.  I'll agree that Congress could have and should have done more to prevent the politicization of government bodies, but they didn't.  So you have agencies that are going by political contributions, something like 90%+ democrats, like the EPA.

Stop editing my quotes to misrepresent me (I re-inserted it above in Red to show how I addressed your very criticism), and stop taking credit away from the GOP and saying all regulations are the fault of leftest dems.  It's so untrue it's sad.
The EPA was created under Nixon, as was the clean water act.  George W. Bush expanded it.  George H. W. Bush pushed the acid rain trading program (something Prairie Stash pointed out and is directly the kind of regulation you seem to be railing against).  This isn't to say that all actions were considered environmental wins, but jeez man, this is way off base.

waltworks

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Re: Coal
« Reply #99 on: June 30, 2017, 06:18:37 PM »
Better question: why did the Republican party switch from caring deeply about preserving the environment/not letting industry poison the whole country to calling every form of environmental regulation a threat to freedom and the American way?

It baffles me. Take ozone: scientists said, "this is some bad shit, we gotta do something." Politicians of both parties said, "holy crap, this is bad, let's do something!"

They did something, problem solved, you don't have to wear SPF5000 sunscreen and a big hat when you go near the poles. No muss, no fuss.

You could never pull that off now. I have no idea why the GOP lost their minds on this issue, but they did.

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