Free Republic

Alas for Ms Tennant, nothing can hide her big problem with coal: it divides Democrats. The party’s green supporters hate this dirtiest of fuels. Many would like to see it taxed or regulated so fiercely that it stays in the ground. New federal carbon curbs are expected next January, making it uneconomic to build coal-fired power stations. Blue-collar Democrats in coal states are aghast. As a union official in Farmington said: “Coal built the middle class here.” Plenty of big-city or college-campus Democrats don’t care.

Rep. Jared Polis’s decision to sponsor a barrelful of anti-fracking initiatives is threatening to make a tough election year even rougher for Colorado Democrats, starting with Sen. Mark Udall. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper is attempting to broker a deal that would persuade Polis to pull his proposed anti-fracking initiatives, but if the governor can’t get it done, every Democratic candidate will face pressure to take a stand this year on an issue that has badly divided the state party. That starts with the Democrat Udall, who’s already under fire for refusing to stake out a position on whether to construct...

In case you ever wonder why the debate over global warming is important, remember that the left’s pushing of this notion has nothing to do with science and has everything to do with the big government expansion for which they need a rationale. And if you want a look at the real-life effect of this agenda, you can see it right now in the form of the EPA’s proposed carbon dioxide limits on new power plants. Not that liberals will listen, but the American Coal Council is doing what it can to warn of the effects this proposal will have...

Chinese production and consumption of coal increased for the 13th consecutive year in 2012. China is by far the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, accounting for 46% of global coal production and 49% of global coal consumption—almost as much as the rest of the world combined. As a manufacturing country that has large electric power requirements, China's coal consumption fuels its economic growth. China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 7.7% in 2012, following an average GDP growth rate of 10% per year from 2000 to 2011. The top 10 coal-producing countries supplied 90% of the world's coal in...

Wyoming is the first state to reject adopting new K-12 science standards proposed by national education groups. The Wyoming Board of Education decided recently that the Next Generation Science Standards need more review after questions were raised about how the standards address man-made global warming. Wyoming is the nation’s leading coal producing state. …

George Soros / AP NBC: Soros a ‘Silver Sponsor’ of ICG Dinner Honoring Hillary Clinton us imperialism Against the Obama Administration’s Imperialist Meddling in Nigeria Chevron sign D.C. Lobbying Firm to Pay Chevron $15M Super PAC Attack Ad Boomerangs on WV Dem Follow @FreeBeacon BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff May 7, 2014 7:38 pm The anti-coal House Majority PAC is out with a new ad hitting West Virginia GOP Congressional candidate Evan Jenkins for receiving donations from Massey Energy executives. Jenkins is locked in a fierce contest with 19 term incumbent Rep. Nick Rahall (D., W. Va.). Rahall is reportedly...

The plan to void 60 western Colorado energy leases.. is a looming BLM-caused disaster. Hundreds of citizens from Mesa County and other affected areas gathered May 1 in De Beque to protest a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan to void existing contracts the government made with private individuals and companies. The meeting in De Beque, a little town dependent almost entirely on gas, oil, coal and cows, was not originally planned by the BLM. Since half of the imperiled leases are in Mesa County, the Mesa County Board of Commissioners joined with various associations and individuals to demand that...

Recent news that a gas project in Queensland has been charged with environmental harm has put the spotlight on underground coal gasification, or UCG. Linc Energy’s Chinchilla project was a pilot UCG project which was completed in October 2013. Following a nine-month government investigation, the project now faces a potential fines of A$2 million over alleged “serious environmental harm”. The company has vowed to fight the charges, and claims regulation favours the rival coal seam gas industry. UCG, like coal seam gas (CSG), is an unconventional method of extracting gas from coal seams. It is also considered a “clean coal”...

em>"Probably for the next decade, the most dominate technology around the world will be coal..." -Jeff Immelt The fastest growing source of energy in the world last year was coal, and it is going to stay that way for a very long time. With that in mind, one has to wonder why President Obama has insisted on the gut-wrenching destruction of the coal industry that has costs thousands of jobs, and has sent electricity costs to all-time highs. This, combined with last month's report from the International Energy Agency, state that reaching the goal of carbon emission reduction would cost...

Can Opinion Turn Against Not-So-Jolly Green Giant?How much of a toll on the American economy does the green movement have to charge before Americans start to wake up to the dastardliness of radical environmentalism? Last month we saw firsthand one impact of Big Green on our economy with the White House announcement that the Keystone XL pipeline won't be built for at least six more months. Ten thousand blue collar jobs, almost all paying more than $50,000 a year, down the drain. It's a project that polls show almost all Americans want, except for the deep-pocketed green elite in Hollywood,...

CONSOL Energy announced in a press release Friday that they will be reducing the operating schedule at the Buchanan Mine, resulting in the lay-offs of 188 employees. (snip) "CONSOL Energy has announced it will reduce the operating schedule at its Buchanan Mine in southwest Virginia to two production shifts per day effective immediately. The announcement is in keeping with first quarter earnings results reported earlier this week, and previous guidance issued which noted that the company was prepared to exert continued production discipline, as needed, to align with current global met coal market conditions. The action will result in the...

FR is prohibited from posting from Wired.com, title and link only: http://www.wired.com/2014/03/clean-coal/

The American coal industry is accusing the Obama administration of using the Environmental Protection Agency to end the use of coal despite the president's claim of having an "all of the above" energy policy. ... the EPA's MATS rules, which go into effect in January 2016, will devastate coal production in America and .. about 60 gigawatts of coal-fired generation coming off-line .. One of Monseu’s issues is the way she said the administration is targeting coal, which currently fuels around 40 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S. "Increasingly we face a situation where policy is dictated not...

St. Clairsville, Ohio-based Murray Energy has confirmed it will terminate health benefits of almost 1,200 Consol Energy retirees who worked in mines Murray purchased one year ago. As of Dec. 31, benefits for salaried retirees, including medical, prescription drug and life insurance, will be stopped. The cutoff will not apply to union members. A letter sent out earlier this month to those affected reads, “Please be advised that Murray Energy does not provide salary retiree benefit coverage for its retirees. When Murray Energy purchased Consolidation Coal Co., it agreed to provide salary retiree benefits at a level substantially similar to...

Experts warn of a growing fragility as coal-fired plants are shut down, nuclear power is reduced and consumers switch to renewable energy.As temperatures plunged to 16 below zero in Chicago in early January and set record lows across the eastern U.S., electrical system managers implored the public to turn off stoves, dryers and even lights or risk blackouts. A fifth of all power-generating capacity in a grid serving 60 million people went suddenly offline, as coal piles froze, sensitive electrical equipment went haywire and utility operators had trouble finding enough natural gas to keep power plants running. The wholesale price...

Billionaire hedge fund operator and “green” energy magnate Tom Steyer has pledged $100 million in the 2014 election cycle to help Democratic candidates who oppose the Keystone pipeline and who favor “green” energy over fossil fuels. Steyer claims to be a man of principle who has no financial interest in the causes he supports, but acts only for the public good. That is a ridiculous claim: Steyer is the ultimate rent-seeker who depends on government connections to produce subsidies and mandates that make his “green” energy investments profitable. He also is, or was until recently, a major investor in Kinder...

McDowell County, the poorest in West Virginia, has been emblematic of entrenched American poverty for more than a half-century. John F. Kennedy campaigned here in 1960 and was so appalled that he promised to send help if elected president. His first executive order created the modern food stamp program, whose first recipients were McDowell County residents. When President Lyndon B. Johnson declared “unconditional war on poverty” in 1964, it was the squalor of Appalachia he had in mind. The federal programs that followed — Medicare, Medicaid, free school lunches and others — lifted tens of thousands above a subsistence standard...

EDMONTON — U.S. Sen. Rand Paul made a visit to Edmonton on Wednesday afternoon for a community forum during which he spoke mostly about health care and the economy and how he proposes to fix problems with each. The stop was one of several he made across the state during the week. After addressing about 30 people who turned out to hear him, the senator opened the floor for questions. One constituent asked him why he came out in support of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville. Paul declined to answer the question publicly, saying he would speak with her in private...

The average price for a kilowatthour (KWH) of electricity hit a March record of 13.5 cents, according data released yesterday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was up about 5.5 percent from 12.8 cents per KWH in March 2013. ... The BLS’s seasonally adjusted electricity price index rose to 209.341 this March, the highest it has ever been, up 10.537 points—or 5.3 percent--from 198.804 in March 2013. ... per capita electricity production peaked in the United States in 2007.

SHAMOKIN DAN — The plant in Shamokin Dam once produced enough electricity to power a city three times the size of Scranton. It is 65 years old, but few here thought the facility known as the Sunbury Steam Plant would be forced into retirement. “It’s sad to see it close down,” said Robert Hoffman of Sunbury. “The plant`s been there since I can remember. As a matter of fact when i was in high school we toured that plant.” “Since they put stack reclaimers on it, its been a fairly clean plant,” added Ed Quiggle of Shamokin Dam Sunbury Generation...