Before I actually get to the meat of my rant, let me toss some quotes out from the above article that shows a bit of what is wrong with a lot of people today.
"Murray is lobbying Congress to stop rules including one from the Office
of Surface Mining (OSM) aimed at protecting streams from the adverse
effects of coal mining; a Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA)
proposal for stricter requirements on the dust levels allowed in mines;
and EPA rules to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions."
"Lieser, the longtime coal miner, remembers another regulatory campaign
in the 1980s, when concerns over acid rain eventually led to a meaty
section of Clean Air Act of 1990. Burning coal releases toxins such as
mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, the latter two contributing
to acid rain."
In the first quote, Murray complains that regulations designed to keep Coal Companies from literally burying or polluting streams and to make the air in Coal Mines more breathable and safer are bad things because it hurts coal production. In the second one, Lieser is complaining that actions designed to clean up factors leading to Acid Rain also damaged the coal industry.
Big Industry (Not just Coal/Oil/Gas etc) cries, "Regulations are killing our industries! Stop over regulation!" I will admit that many of the regulations passed over the past 40 or so years have indeed done dramatic damage to many types of industry, but our air is cleaner now, our water is cleaner now and pollution emissions have have dropped to record levels. We still pump too much garbage into our air and water, but it is slowly getting better.
However, this rant isn't about that. I guess you could say it is another one of my buggy whip arguments. Here is a fact too many people don't want to admit. COAL INDUSTRY IS DOOMED! Course, you could also add in Gas and Oil too if you really feel the urge, but lets stick with Coal right now.
Coal is a very expensive, extremely labor intensive (even with modern machinery) industry. It is easily the most expensive energy industry out there. It is also very dangerous and unhealthy. Comparatively speaking Natural Gas and Oil are much cheaper to operate and nowhere near as dangerous. And much like Oil and Gas, there is a finite supply.
As the world moves on from fossil fuel systems (and it will, maybe not today or tomorrow but it will), there is going to be less and less demand for things like coal. As the world moves toward cleaner and more accessible forms of energy, "dirty" fuels like coal will be phased out. Even ignoring these factors, as the more readily accessible sources of coal are mined out Coal will simply become to expensive to produce. Basically, we are moving beyond it.
As an aside here, I personally think it is about time we move beyond energy generation such as Coal Fired Power Plants. Not out of any sense of environmental protection or hatred of fossil fuels, but because we should have long since moved beyond it. Ponder this. We have reached out to other worlds in our system. We have set foot on the Moon. We split the atom. In the past 80 years we have done so many amazing things, but we still generate power pretty much the same way we did when the Industrial Revolution first started. It is time to move on.
Okay, aside over with so lets get back to the rant. I grok that people are afraid. I understand that as less and less of Coal is being used that more and more people are in danger of losing their jobs and livelihoods, but that is the way things work.
New things come along and old ways fall to the wayside. Sailing Ships fall aside as Steam Ships come of age. Steam Ships fall to the side as Diesel Powered Ships move on. Teamsters driving horse and wagon watch as Steam Engines roll past them. Old industries and old jobs are always being replaced with newer, more efficient ones. That is the natural order of Industry.
In this situation, Natural Gas has become more plentiful and cheaper than coal. It is being used more and more for power generation. It is easier and cheaper to gather and produce than coal AND it is cleaner for the environment. Eventually, something will come along to replace natural gas and another article will be written bemoaning the loss of jobs and profits for those poor souls. Like I said, it is just way things work. People have basically two choices. They can either accept the inevitable and try to mitigate the damage or they can continue to rail and cry while Doomsday slowly approaches.
End of Rant
(For those who are curious about my "buggy whip" comment, there are two previous blogs that cover the source of that comment and the general ideas. Both have Buggy Whip in the titles.)
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