Free Republic

A new alliance of 19 nations committed to quickly phasing out coal has been launched at the UN climate summit in Bonn, Germany. It was greeted as a “political watershed”, signalling the end of the dirtiest fossil fuel that currently provides 40% of global electricity. New pledges were made on Thursday by Mexico, New Zealand, Denmark and Angola for the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which is led by the UK and Canada. “The case against coal is unequivocal,” said UK climate minister Claire Perry, both on environmental and health grounds – air pollution from coal kills 800,000 people a year...

As Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine nears its fifth calendar year—and as Ukraine’s infamously cold winter draws near—American companies are incrementally cutting into Russia’s de facto monopoly as a supplier of nuclear fuel and coal to Ukraine, thereby undermining a longtime coercive lever of Russian influence over Kyiv.

BERLIN - Environmental policy dominated negotiations on forming a new German coalition on Friday, as the Greens pushed their would-be partners for a quicker exit from coal power. “What’s lying on the table isn’t enough for us,” said Greens chairwoman Simone Peter in response to a suggestion by the two other camps that 10 coal-fired power stations be shuttered. The Greens are holding out for carbon dioxide emissions cuts that would require the closing of 20 coal plants. Earlier, a discussion paper seen by Reuters showed that the two more pro-business partners wanted to cut coal power by 3-5 gigawatts...

When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing. He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course. "I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner. Despite broad consensus about coal's bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget. Trump has promised to revive...

Custom Staffing Services is recruiting 215 surface and underground miners for partners in the Tri-State. Custom Staffing specializes in finding long-term placement for miners, resulting in full-time employment. The pay rate will be up to $22/hour. There will be a job fair for coal mining jobs at Custom Staffing Services at 1820 N. Green River Rd. on Monday, October 30 from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. If you can't make the job fair, you can visit the Evansville office Monday-Friday, apply online, or visit Custom Staffing in West Frankfort, Illinois every Tuesday from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. at the...

Democrats in Washington state, like their counterparts in the other Washington, don’t always think the law applies to them. They can create elaborate procedures to trip up Republicans in, say, election law. But those requirements are quite optional where they are concerned.Part of this is they see themselves as the good guys, fighting for right – no matter how many jobs are lost, how much damage is done to the economy or how little the measure does to help the environment. If they have to bend a few rules to make it happen – hey, it was the right thing...

We’re three weeks out from Virginia’s gubernatorial race and it’s been mostly relegated to the backburner thanks to the endless news that emanates from the Trump White House. It’s an off-year election, but it’s in D.C.'s backyard. The state has increasingly become more bluish since the Bush years, albeit the state legislature is Republican. The House of Delegates, the lower chamber, is reliably Republican where they hold a supermajority. The state Senate is more competitive. Anti-gun groups under the Bloomberg umbrella tried and failed to flip the Senate in 2015. Those groups are mounting a second invasion of the state...

Did you happen to catch CNN's latest smear? Anderson Cooper's show recently featured a "two-part exclusive" that claims Donald Trump's EPA director had conspired with the CEO of a mining company to "withdraw environmental restrictions" so the company could dig "the largest open pit mine in the world in an extremely sensitive watershed in wild Alaska." The report was enough to horrify any caring person. CNN showed beautiful pictures of colorful salmon swimming in Bristol Bay, and the reporter intoned dramatically, "EPA staffers were shocked to receive this email obtained exclusively by CNN which says 'we have been directed by...

WASHINGTON, DC, Oct 13 – “The ‘climate changers’ came out in full force when the EPA announced earlier this week that it was ending the Obama-era war on coal by scrapping Mr. Obama’s Clean Power Plan. But, America has the world’s largest reserves of coal—an asset that should not be dismissed out of hand for a variety of reasons, according to Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC].Weber says that extreme restrictions on the use of coal to generate electricity “acted like a national energy tax. They minimized the positive impact of our lowest cost and...

Link only (Bloomberg)

HAZARD, Ky. (AP) — A coalition of left-leaning states and environmental groups are vowing to fight the Trump administration's move to kill an Obama-era effort to limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. Speaking Monday in the coal-mining state of Kentucky, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said he would be issuing a new set of rules overriding the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's drive to curb global climate change. "The war on coal is over," Pruitt declared, adding that no federal agency should ever use its authority to "declare war on any sector of our...

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told coal miners in Kentucky on Monday that he will move to repeal a rule limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, assuring them, “The war against coal is over.” Speaking at an event in Hazard, Ky., with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Pruitt said his agency will publish the new proposed rule Tuesday. “Tomorrow, in Washington, D.C., I’ll be a signing a proposed rule to withdraw the so-called Clean Power Plan of the past administration, and thus begin the effort to withdraw that rule,” Pruitt said.

The Trump administration this week is expected to formally repeal the Clean Power Plan, taking direct aim at former President Barack Obama’s climate change legacy and delivering a major win for the coal industry. A draft proposal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s looming decision, leaked late last week and posted online, says the plan — which would have limited carbon emissions from power plants and, in the process, drastically reduced the amount of coal-generated electricity in the U.S. — goes beyond the bounds of federal law and unnecessarily hikes energy prices for consumers. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, as Oklahoma’s attorney...

The Trump administration is pushing for changes in the way electricity is priced to better reward coal and nuclear power, which face growing competition from natural gas and renewables. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Friday called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to act within 60 days to adopt rules raising payments to power plants that are considered more resilient. He maintained that a diverse mix of energy sources would strengthen the power grid, especially during natural disasters, by ensuring an adequate supply of backup power. The decline of traditional sources of power, on the other hand, would undermine reliability....

In 2001, Colorado electricity consumers enjoyed some of the lowest electric rates in the country. The 15 years since haven’t been so kind to ratepayers. For more than a decade, elected officials, PUC commissioners, industry and advocates have told Colorado ratepayers that they could transform the state’s electricity generation away from coal and toward industrial wind, solar and natural gas with little cost to ratepayers. However, the actual numbers tell a much different story. Colorado electricity rates have risen sharply – 62.1 percent – across residential, commercial and industrial sectors, despite a slight decrease in recent years. Colorado electricity rates...

Turns out if you look close you find out two things. First, in 1990, 88 percent of the world’s energy came from fossil fuels. After more than 25 years and over a trillion dollars in subsidies for “renewable” energy, in 2015 the world’s share of energy from fossil fuels was . . . 86 percent. (See figure immediately below.) At this rate, it will take 150 years to get fossil fuel energy down to 75 percent of the world’s total energy supply. I’m sure just $200 trillion in subsidies will do the trick.

The first shipment of U.S. anthracite coal to Ukraine is now heading from the U.S. port Baltimore, with a ceremony to mark the launch of the trade broadcast live on Facebook by the Embassy of Ukraine in the United States on Aug. 21. Pennsylvania-based XCoal Energy and Resources signed a contract with Ukrainian state energy company Centerenergo on July 31, guaranteeing the provision of 700,000 tons of anthracite coal in the next few months. The deal followed talks by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s with U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s administration in June. The first shipment of 62,000 tons, which cost...

CALHOUN, Ky. (AP) — Construction is underway on a new underground coal mine in western Kentucky that would employ about 280 miners. Paringa Resources says it is planning to begin mining coal at the McLean County site next year. The mine would sell coal that's used to generate electricity at power plants, a sector of coal that has been in steep decline in Kentucky and parts of Appalachia.....

Quick: What was the No. 1 source of electricity production in the U.S. during the first half of 2017? If you answered renewable energy, you were wrong by a mile. If you answered natural gas, you were wrong by a tiny amount. According to the Energy Information Administration, which tracks energy use in production on a monthly basis, the single largest source of electric power for the first half of 2017 was coal. That's an amazing finding, because liberals, especially environmental groups, keep telling us that coal is a dead industry. They ridiculed Donald Trump and called him a liar...

Coal has been the driving force behind the U.S. rail system for more than a century. The stories of locomotives chugging along as workers fed shovels full of coal into the burners may be a thing of the past, but that chunky byproduct has still been largely responsible for keeping the American rail system afloat. According to the American Association of Railroads, coal amounted to almost a third of gross tonnage carried by U.S. rail in 2016. It also amounted to more than 13 percent of rail revenue. And while that may not sound like a large percentage, 70 percent...