Obama to Coal States: Drop Dead!

Many of us from coal states agree that our coal addiction needs to die. In fact, many pro-coal (in the sense that it brings jobs) folks in WV have been resentful of the U.S.’s coal addiction for decades. Here again, folks like you, Donald, think you’re speaking for everyday people, but you contribute nothing when it comes to justice for the people who provide you with energy. Your backwards, dying politics is literally killing people in Appalachia. Green Appalachian energy jobs now!

We’ll see about WV.

Michael, I spent a few years in the Ohio Valley, and I didn’t see much effort to move beyond the steel industry… kind of sad, actually. For a variety of reasons, it doesn’t seem that the area wants to face reality and move ahead.

Coal industry official responds to Obama’s remarks.

Michael, I spent a few years in the Ohio Valley, and I didn’t see much effort to move beyond the steel industry… kind of sad, actually. For a variety of reasons, it doesn’t seem that the area wants to face reality and move ahead.

I suspect a good part of it has to do with steel and coal jobs remaining some of the best paying jobs for those without college degrees. At the call center I worked at for nine months or so in Wellsburg, WV landing a steel mill job was seen as something akin to winning the lottery since it payed 3x what most of those guys could make anywhere else. (And the jobs were about as scarce as winning lottery numbers two, since the mills were only a gradual slope of constant downsizing.)

I’d be very, very surprised if Obama took WV, though. I was working there for the 2000 election, and everyone was pulling very hard for Bush over Gore — at least up in that region.

On the other hand, many of us from coal states look at coal as the future of our nation’s energy. If mining is becoming too hazardous in West Virginia, by all means, quit mining coal there. It means more of a market share for Wyoming. Our coal is cleaner, anyway.

I find it astounding that people are so irate against coal. Our technology has advanced to a point where we scrub out all the deleterious materials (down to maybe a few parts per billion), and if you’re worried about carbon dioxide, don’t. CO2 isn’t a problem, no matter what the hysteria says. CO2 makes us less than 5% of all greenhouse gases, and anthropogenic sources are only a tiny portion of that, anyway.

Coal is necessary for electricity until or unless we make a wholesale switch to nuclear. It has to be one of the two (given our lack of producing energy from cold fusion). Why? Because in order to power a city, you have to have a stable base load. Wind, solar, and other renewable sources just can’t foot the bill. They’re too unstable, too inconsistent. You can’t simply have the city shut down when a cloud passes overhead (yes, I know, the reality is a little more complicated than that, but hyperbole has its uses).

Moreover, unlike all the renewable sources the left touts as being the “cure” for our oil addiction, coal can actually cover that, too. Using coal-to-liquids technology, from Wyoming coal alone we can provide all the gasoline, diesel, and kerosene our nation needs for the next 250 years. We would have to fix the price at about $75 a barrel, but I’d be willing to accept that if it means $700 billion/year stays in the states and we don’t have to worry about foreign powers creating huge fluctuations in the market.

The coal/energy issues are important for my wife and myself, mainly because my wife is a Chemical Engineer, and her focus is on coal technology. If you want to know anything about coal, e-mail me, and I’ll ask her, and relay the answer.

Ryan is right. Coal is the future for the time being. For one thing, there are still tons and tons of it in the Earth. Just the stuff we have located could last centuries even with our increased usage. We already have “clean-coal” technology that will only get better.