Posted on 02/28/2013 9:33:39 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Wednesday that the United States’ coal industry’s days are numbered.
“Even though the coal industry doesn’t totally know it yet or is ready to admit it, its day is done. … Here in the U.S., I’m happy to say, the king is dead. Coal is a dead man walking,” Bloomberg said at the Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy (ARPA-E) Energy Innovation Summit near Washington, D.C.
Bloomberg has been a vocal advocate for killing coal-fired power. He said health problems from pollution and climate change-exacerbated events like Hurricane Sandy have fomented growing recognition that coal “doesn’t deserve” its reputation as a cheap energy source.
For now, coal is still the leading supplier of electricity. It accounted for 37.4 percent of the nation's electricity mix last year, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration statistics released Tuesday.
But that figure also represented a 12.5 percent drop from the previous year. Natural gas, on the other hand, spiked 21.4 percent to provide 30.4 percent of the nation's power.
Bloomberg attributed coal's struggles to the Environmental Protection Agency's regulations to curb emissions in the name of public health, grassroots environmental efforts and low natural-gas prices.
But Bloomberg noted the U.S. still has a long way to go to achieve “the sustainable future that we all want.”
Coal-fired power plants still account for 40 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions, he noted. And while one-sixth of those facilities are slated for retirement, he said that still leaves a majority standing.
Imposing emissions rules on existing coal-fired plants could be one way to shutter more coal-fired generation, which green groups are pushing Obama to do.
Bloomberg said public health-advocates and those concerned about climate change are ready for a long "regulatory trench war" regarding coal-fired power.
Industry and congressional Republicans, however, have pushed back against many of the EPA emissions regulations. They say the rules are economically burdensome, and have accused the White House of targeting the coal industry.
While industry and many Republicans have fought to protect coal-fired power, Bloomberg has had his hands in many areas in an attempt to end it.
Bloomberg Philanthropies awarded a $50 million grant to Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, which aims to retire one-third of the nation’s coal-fired fleet by 2020.
Bloomberg Philanthropies also gave a $6-million grant to the Environmental Defense Fund to work on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, regulations.
The process injects a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals into tight-rock formations to unlock oil-and-gas deposits deep underground. Green groups are concerned the practice could contaminate drinking water, while industry contends it’s safe.
Bloomberg, who touted natural gas’ lower carbon content compared with coal, said companies should work with environmental groups to design regulations with which they can live.
This insufferable son of a bitch needs to be introduced to his maker. One small body piece at a time.
I looked up the word “jackass” in the dictionary, and there was a picture of Bloomberg.
He should be put on an uninhabited island where he could pass all the regulations he wanted, and he would be the only one who had to suffer under the weight of them.
Tell it to the Chinese, ya Pygmy.
True commonsense is dead man walking, worldwide!
The unmitigated arrogance of people like this is driven by madness for power. Obama has it, Holder has it, Bloomberg has it.
They actually don’t care that their illogical hatred (at least seemingly) doesn’t amount to a hill of beans compared to the noxious outputs from China, Eastern Europe, developing nations, et al.
It really isn’t about the environment. It is about pure, unbridled power; and, with that kind of power comes the arbitrary ever changing petulance of the ‘ooga booga’ de jour.
If he really wanted to save NYC or NY or the US, the best thing he could do is submit to early euthanizing like the kind he’ll eventually get around to proposing for the elderly masses.
As to your question, "They got coal in NYC?" I grew up in Queens, and our first house was heated by coal, though we converted to natural gas when I was little. There has not been a coal-fired power plant in NYC at least since 1965.
I remember growing up having a coal bin in the cellar, and the way the basement always smelled of coal dust. If you dug a hole in our back yard, you hit a seam of coal ash about two feet down. (Wonder if it was cheap landfill at one time?) The coal truck would deliver it, the truck had chutes that dispensed coal into a barrel, and the driver would roll the barrel down our driveway shared with our neighbor, to pour it in a basement window. If you ran out, down the block, on Rockaway Boulevard a tiny old Sicilian man ran a little shed heated by a coal stove, that sold it by the bucket for a quarter. Anthracite and bitumen, different in color and the quality of the ash. I don't think my parents missed it.
Getting real tired of the “sustainability” hoax.
especially now that (USA() scientists have found out how to extract energy from coal without releasing polltuon, right Bloomie?
So let’s keep shipping it to China and let them pollute the world with it. Turn the UMW into the world’s biggest industrial coolie workforce- no worries about jobs.
HTH did this man found a business empire?
I wish Bloomberg was a dead man walking. The world will be a better place when he is pushing up daisies.
Bloomberg is just one player, an influential one, of the vast anti-coal lobby.
Other key players include Barack Obama, Lisa Jackson & whatever dumbass they get to replace her at EPA, and various media shills .... they’re all working together, openly, towards the same goal, and have been for some time now .... remind me again, how many coal-producing/using states voted for Obama last fall?
Maybe the coal companies should take a cue from the gun companies and refuse to sell coal to NY power plants.
Bloomberg to a T... one creepy little control freak.
Mayor Bloomberg is little more than a Big Mouth talking.
Emperor Bloomberg is not a D or an R, liberal or conservative, he is a freelance tyrant. He is above ideology and parties.
When you have billions and an ego, mental issues and an agenda you are as dangerous as Caligula.
I thought he would only pick on smokers.
In fairness, he is an equal opportunity dictator...he hates all the little people equally.
I'll agree so long as your definition of "funeral" includes 10,000 conservatives pissing on his grave.
Thanks for the ping!
But, of course, their goal is certainly NOT to bankrupt this country... despite spending at unconscionable levels, refusing to cut any spending, taxing ever-greater amounts of money from the economy, and putting ever-increasing amounts of resources off-limits to US companies.
How about we burn coal and declare Bloomberg a dead man walking!
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