Free Republic

White House National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs banking executive, has reopened the U.S. government’s war on coal in direct contravention of directions from President Donald Trump. “Coal doesn’t even make that much sense anymore as a feedstock,” Cohn said in Europe on Air Force One, while speaking for the White House to the press, the New York Times’ Brad Plumer noted. “Natural gas, which we have become an abundant producer, which we’re going to become a major exporter is, is such a cleaner fuel,” Cohn continued. Cohn’s comments against the coal industry come as he...

Four Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration for reversing a moratorium on issuing coal mining leases on federal lands. Three of the Democratic AGs — California, New York and Washington — come from states that do not produce coal. Only New Mexico AG Hector Balderas comes from a coal-producing state. All four Democratic AGs are part of the “Green 20” coalition of top state prosecutors working together to keep Obama administration environmental policies from being repealed and investigate “whether fossil fuel companies misled investors and the public on the impact of climate change on their businesses,” according to a...

Boulder - Remember that unsuccessful attempt in the legislature to toughen penalties for vandalizing oil and gas equipment? Child’s play. It turns out the author of a letter to the editor in Boulder’s Daily Camera that got a national media mention last week — for appearing to endorse outright violence against fracking operations — is the author of a pending statewide ballot issue to hike Colorado’s severance tax on oil and gas production. Reached by phone today, Andrew O’Connor, of Lafayette, unapologetically reiterated his hardline stance ... “I wouldn’t have a problem with a sniper shooting one of the workers”...

A coal-export terminal proposed in Washington state would increase cancer risks for some residents, make rail accidents more likely and add millions of metric tons of climate-changing greenhouse gas globally every year, according to an environmental study released Friday. Millennium Bulk Terminals-Longview wants to build the facility along the Columbia River near the city of Longview to handle up to 44 million tons of coal a year. Coal would arrive by train from Montana, Wyoming and other states to be stored and loaded on ships heading to energy-hungry markets in Asia. The yearslong fight over the deep-water port comes as...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he wants a long-term fix for miners’ healthcare benefits in the next government funding bill, moving Congress closer to a deal on the issue. “I’m in favor of a permanent fix on miners’ healthcare. It’s my hope that that will be included in the final package,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday after meeting with the GOP caucus. The question of what to do about the government-backed healthcare benefits for coal miners has complicated congressional spending debates in the past.

Britain went a full day without using coal to generate electricity for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, the National Grid says. The energy provider said Friday's lack of coal usage was a "watershed" moment. Britain's longest continuous energy period without coal until now was 19 hours - first achieved last May, and again on Thursday. The government plans to phase out Britain's last plants by 2025 in order to cut carbon emissions. Friday is thought to be the first time the nation has not used coal to generate electricity since the world's first centralised public coal-fired generator opened...

Guest post by David Middleton THE 240MWE FACILITY IS THE LARGEST POST-COMBUSTION CARBON CAPTURE PROJECT IN THE WORLD WASHINGTON, D.C. — Secretary of Energy Rick Perry took part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony today to mark the opening of Petra Nova, the world’s largest post-combustion carbon capture project, which was completed on-schedule and on-budget. The large-scale demonstration project, located at the W.A. Parish power plant in Thompsons, Texas, is a joint venture between NRG Energy (NRG) and JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation (JX).“I commend all those who contributed to this major achievement,” said Secretary Perry. “While the Petra Nova...

Buried in an otherwise-humdrum jobs report was the jaw-dropping pronouncement by the Department of Labor that mining jobs in America were up by 11,000 in March. Since the low point in October 2016, and following years of painful layoffs in the mining industry, the mining sector has added 35,000 jobs. What a turnaround. Liberals have been saying that Donald Trump was lying to the American people when he said that he could bring coal jobs back. Well, so far, he has delivered on his promise. There's more good news for the coal industry. Earlier this month, Peabody Energy — America's...

Buried in an otherwise humdrum jobs report for March was the jaw-dropping pronouncement by the Labor Department that mining jobs in America were up by 11,000 in March. Since the low point in October 2016 and following years of painful layoffs in the mining industry, the mining sector has added 35,000 jobs. What a turnaround. ‎It comes at a time when liberals have been saying that Donald Trump has been lying to the American people when he has said that he can bring coal jobs back. Well, so far he has brought them back. There’s more good news for the...

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told dozens of Pennsylvania coal miners Thursday that the “regulatory assault” on their industry is over, and that the environment can be protected without hurting business. “We’re going to do it the American way, grow jobs and show the rest of the world how it’s done,” Pruitt said before going on a mine tour about 50 miles south of Pittsburgh. “The regulatory assault is over,” he said, referring to tightened environmental and other regulatory standards on coal and other energy industries under former President Barack Obama. “We’re going to partner together with you.” Pruitt...

On April 6th and 7th, last week, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a two day summit discussing trade and North Korea. The United States and China are the two largest economies in the world. Now see this: A fleet of North Korean cargo ships is heading home to the port of Nampo, the majority of it fully laden, after China ordered its trading companies to return coal from the isolated country, shipping data shows.

During the February 2016 GOP primary debate candidate Trump told the world what he would do in response to continued North Korean missile aggression –SEE HERE– In January of 2017 President Trump repeated the message –SEE HERE– On April 6th and 7th, last week, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a two day summit discussing trade and North Korea. The United States and China are the two largest economies in the world. Now see this: A fleet of North Korean cargo ships is heading home to the port of Nampo, the majority of it fully laden, after China...

SINGAPORE, April 10 (Reuters) – China’s customs department has issued an official order telling trading companies to return their North Korean coal cargoes, said a trading source at Dandong Chengtai Trade Co., the biggest buyer of coal from the isolated country.

Full title................The War on Coal is over! President Trump signs executive order to roll back Obama-era environmental regulations .............................. President Donald Trump paid a visit to the Environmental Protection Agency today to sign an executive order that would roll back Obama's climate actions Coal miners were invited to the event as the president proclaimed that his administration 'is putting an end to the War on Coal' Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which he has labeled as a job killer

President Donald Trump is expected to lift a moratorium on federal coal-mining leases -- though it probably won’t do the industry much good until years after he’s left office. That’s because U.S. coal companies including Peabody Energy Corp. won’t be looking to secure new reserves of the fossil fuel on federal land for years, especially as mining slows amid the sector’s worst downturn in generations. Production in Wyoming and Montana, where much of government coal is located, fell 18 percent in 2016 from the prior year. Coal’s share of U.S. power generation has plunged in the face of competition from...

Shipping containers full of coal ash from China, Poland and India have come into the U.S. through the Port of Virginia as foreign companies find a market for the same industrial waste that America's utilities are struggling to dispose of.

Louisville, KY Kentucky Exposition Center

“If you could pick just one thing to reduce poverty, by far you would pick energy,” Bill Gates has said. “Access to energy is absolutely fundamental in the struggle against poverty,” World Bank VP Rachel Kyte and Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Amartya Sen agree. The UN Development Program calls energy “central to poverty reduction.” And International Energy Agency Executive Director Dr. Fatih Birol notes that “coal is raising living standards and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.” In fact, all fossil fuels are doing so.  Indeed, fossil fuels created the modern world and the housing, transportation, other...

The fact that it’s being proposed by Republicans doesn’t make it any more economically palatable. Madness is rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule — Friedrich Nietzsche ‘Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way,” Barack Obama declared after Democrats’ disastrous losses in the 2010 midterm elections. That shellacking finally killed off the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. From it was born the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and the Obama administration’s war on coal, in turn a contributory factor to Donald Trump’s election and Republicans’...

Households in New England paid electricity prices last month that were 47 percent higher than the national average.. Consumer energy information released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for its Boston region showed the area's households paid an average of 19.5 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity, compared to the national average of 13.3 cents. The region includes Hampden and Worcester counties as well as Greater Boston and parts of New Hampshire, Connecticut and Maine. The figures came out one day after energy utility Eversource proposed a 10 percent increase in its electricity distribution rates beginning early next year. The...