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[kirblar]

This guy is basically the best choice Trump has made. For all the people who think he's going to destroy parks to put in coal, it's a much better alternative to giving that land back to the states who can't manage the parks, and will then let private companies buy it up and do whatever with it... and Zinke's an outdoorsman from a state that depends on national park tourism, so he's vociferously against it (and against party lines as a result.)

This is my read on it. He opposes selling off federal land, which is far, far better than the median GOP opinion nowadays.

 

[triplestation]

The goal here is to forget everything that happened after the 1950s, especially Obama

Heil Trump! /Nazi salute

 

[Empyrean Heaven]

Coal mines got hit hard with Obama favoring natural gas, solar, wind. Clean energy.

Coal is of course not that. Coal is seen as a working man's energy source.

It's also essentially like cigarette smoke for the atmosphere. It absolutely wrecks the environment. If there is such a thing as clean coal, the cost of installing things that would clean up the burning would be absolutely ridiculous, especially in states where coal is a major resource IE West Virginia.

 

[Jeffrey]

This was the state of things before Obama though. Lots of people loved to shit on renewables for being subsidized 10-15 years ago, without realizing how much was going towards fossil fuels. Solar is getting cheaper and significantly more efficient, but people building these plants go where the money is (or because they're forced to meet minimum renewable generation requirementsthat have been put in place).

People say coal is dead, but with the right incentives and policy, we'll be right back where we were. Based on who's calling the shots, I have little faith they won't subsidize the crap out of coal and/or get rid of those renewable targets entirely.

Edit: Look at Texas banning local bans on fracking.

even with the right incentives, it still seems risky for a business to just hedge bets on the government, that can flop blue in 4+ years.

Dems seem keen to employee GOP lawsuit tactics as well, so its all gonna be a mess.

 

[RumblingRosco]

This guy is basically the best choice Trump has made. For all the people who think he's going to destroy parks to put in coal, it's a much better alternative to giving that land back to the states who can't manage the parks, and will then let private companies buy it up and do whatever with it... and Zinke's an outdoorsman from a state that depends on national park tourism, so he's vociferously against it (and against party lines as a result.)

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/...hunter-and-outdoorsman-zinke-to-lead-interior

Don't get me wrong, he's not the guy I'd pick, but he's probably the least damaging guy in the cabinet at this point.

Short and sweet of it: better this guy, and we keep our national parks, then some party-line idiot who will sell off land that the public will never see again.

Yep. There are too many battles to fight right now than to be upset about this guy. He's not my choice either, but it could be so much worse that I'll settle for this.

 

[plagiarize]

Here's one thing I know.

The only way coal can stage a comeback, is if they heavily regulate fracking.

Which isn't going to happen.

The majority of coal's loss, has been fracking's gain.

And Trump seems all about fracking too.

 

[SpaceWolf]

Disappointing choice.

 

[kirblar]

Here's one thing I know.

The only way coal can stage a comeback, is if they heavily regulate fracking.

Which isn't going to happen.

spoiler: coal isn't going to make a comeback. It's just too inefficient.

 

[Xe4]

Coal mines got hit hard with Obama favoring natural gas, solar, wind. Clean energy.

Coal is of course not that. Coal is seen as a working man's energy source.

Coal wanst really hit by solar and wind. It was more hurt natural gas, which is cleaner than coal, but certainly not "clean".

Its surge would've happened with or without Obama's support, and will continue to cost coal miners their jobs into Trump's presidency, no matter what he does. Coals' time has passed, people just refuse to accept that.

 

[BriGuy]

Maybe we can convince Trump to bring back blacksmiths and switchboard operators too.

 

[Lubricus]

even with the right incentives, it still seems risky for a business to just hedge bets on the government, that can flop blue in 4+ years.

Dems seem keen to employee GOP lawsuit tactics as well, so its all gonna be a mess.

From Wired 2014:

Germany, though often celebrated for its embrace of solar and wind energy, not only gets more than half its power from coal but opened more coal-fired power plants in 2013 than in any year in the past two decades. In neighboring Poland, 86 percent of the electricity is generated from coal. South Africa, Israel, Australia, Indonesia—all are ever more dependent on coal. (The US is a partial exception: Coal’s share of American electricity fell from 49 percent in 2007 to 39 percent in 2013, largely because fracking has cut the price of natural gas, a competing fuel. But critics note, accurately, that US coal exports have hit record highs; an ever-increasing share of European and Asian coal is red, white, and blue.) According to the World Resources Institute, an environmental research group, almost 1,200 big new coal facilities in 59 countries are proposed for construction. The soaring use of coal, a joint statement by climate scientists warned in November, is leading the world toward “an outcome that can only be described as catastrophic.”

https://www.wired.com/2014/03/clean-coal/

I believe we do have some high quality coal. Maybe increase exports?

 

[Palmer_v1]

do you think coal mines are in national parks?

I'm sure there were coal mines in some places that became national parks, and I'm also sure that some National Parks have coal deposits that some people would happily mine regardless of the impact it had on the park and environment.

 

[grumble]

Coal is a dead end. Convert those coal towns to something else.

There IS nothing else. The knowledge economy isn't going to go there in scale. They only have manufacturing and resource extraction. With both dying it's either subsidize them (aka indirect welfare) or just straight up pay them, or let their communities rot in a welter of opiates, poverty and suicide.

Retraining can help a little but the return on investment for a 45 year old is awful.