Posted on 03/30/2016 7:42:52 AM PDT by doldrumsforgop
President Obama openly declared war on coal in his last State of the Union address. And it’s going to be a very, very expensive war.
“Now we’ve got to accelerate the transition away from old, dirtier energy sources,” Obama said. “Rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future - especially in communities that rely on fossil fuels. We do them no favor when we don’t show them where the trends are going. That’s why I’m going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources, so that they better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet.”
By “manage” coal resources, of course, he meant shut down as many coal-fired power facilities and coal mining operations as possible.
As Michael Grunwald reported for Politico magazine: “The war on coal is not just political rhetoric, or a paranoid fantasy concocted by rapacious polluters. It’s real and it’s relentless. Over the past five years, it has killed a coal-fired power plant every 10 days. It has quietly transformed the U.S. electric grid and the global climate debate.”
For families, that means higher electricity bills, higher prices at stores and fewer jobs.
“Coal plant closures harm more than just those working in the coal industry,” wrote Nicholas Loras, of the Heritage Foundation. “Just as lower energy prices save families and businesses money, artificially driving prices higher through unnecessary regulations hits consumers again and again.”
Just one front in the war on coal - the EPA’s mercury rule - has direct and indirect costs pegged at $25.6 billion per year.
The benefits of the rule are calculated to be about $6 million. Mercury emissions are already miniscule, and they’re diminishing.
And now the EPA’s Clean Power Plan is set to make things much, much worse.
(Excerpt) Read more at tylerpaper.com ...
President trump” I mandate EPA pensions are to be only funded by fossil energy stocks no taxpayer funding period.
If Trump and Cruz don’t stop this ridiculous circular firing squad now, there won’t be any ‘President Trump’ or ‘President Cruz’. Madame Benghazi will be ruling the roost, and the War on Coal (among many other wars on America) will continue unabated.
As someone who has been in the electric utility business for 40+ years, I hope your brothers and sisters are with you.
Thank you my FRiend.
“Turning our backs on cheap, plentiful energy from any source is just as bad a move. “
I wholeheartedly agree.
Wonder how cheap electricity would be right now if we had not condemned nuclear plants to closing or not being built, and directed the money thrown down the toilet at solar and wind towards what we know works like coal, oil, gas?
I’m glad I have a wood-burning stove.
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