Trump signs four executive orders to boost US coal mining and production
Donald Trump has signed four executive orders on coal.
The first directs all departments and agencies to “end all discriminatory policies against the coal industry” including by ending the leasing moratorium on coal on federal land and accelerate all permitted funding for coal projects.
The second imposes a moratorium on the “unscientific and unrealistic policies enacted by the Biden administration” to protect coal power plants currently operating.
The third promotes “grid security and reliability” by ensuring that grid policies are focused on “secure and effective energy production” as opposed to “woke” policies that “discriminate against secure sources of power like coal and other fossil fuels”.
And the fourth instructs the justice department to “vigorously pursue and investigate” the “unconstitutional” policies of “radically leftist states” that “discriminate against coal”.
Yesterday I was looking at the IBKR screen. BTU was sitting at $10 and I was thinking “I have to buy this at $10, right?”
Coal has been unloved for many years, but maybe it is set to get a boost?
And especially totally useless. From a mere economical point, coal power plants are among the most expensive… Without the high subsidies it is already beneficiating from, coal mining and burning would be dead ages ago.
Not even speaking about the damage the mining does.
I would be really surprised. Solar/Wind are so much cheaper in cost already. Battery prices (not the small once) are dropping also… And coal is just too slow to react (starting up time of a several hours) that it is not useful to use in a Renewable Energy Mix. (and despite Trumps ranting, investments are flowing there because it is just so much more profitable-especially also in Red States like Texas).
He [Trump] paused the expansion of windmills, recognizing their detrimental environmental impact, particularly on wildlife, often outweighs their benefits.
I don’t get it, the politico article actually says that the measures will not make coal more viable. The economics just don’t work, just in the mind of some old coal barons.
Look, no one will plan a new power plant for 4 years. At best, they will remain longer in the grid. At the end the quarterly numbers will decide, and replaced by alternate sources. (Gas, nuclear if they want to pay for it → the last French reactor will cost, at best, 12-14 cts/kWh or renewable)
That’s because politics has been mixed with reason. In Greece we have and burn a lot of lignite, it’s the worst form of coal: weak calorific value, high moisture content, very high % of poisonous compounds mixed in like sulphur and mercury, yet we use it because we have loads and also have the infrastructure to mine and use it so it’s very cheap. It’s an environmental disaster (coal overall but lignite is the worst), the area around the coal mines and electricity plants is irrevocably polluted, vegetables grown there have a metallic taste and are inedible, the topsoil is yellow from the sulphur, yet the Communist Party is staunchly pro coal/lignite, likely for historical reasons because coal/steel harkens back to the working class of the 1930s-60s, against oil (because Americans…and Greek oligarchs) but pro gas (likely because Russia) and dead against renewables because reasons. Also against nuclear. They (and their right wing pals) have the gal to talk about “windmills being an aesthetic and environmental disaster” and conveniently ignore every statistic about the harms of coal.
None of it makes any economic or scientific sense, it’s all short-term politics and emotions.
Yep, it is proven that renewable will create so much more better paid jobs with less health hazard then coal industry, somehow left wing parties (not only communists, also social democrats in Germany for instance) have fought with massive subsidies to keep up coal running.
In my mind, it is ok to plan a staggered exit of a big industry to give the chance for other industries to develop and people to reconvert, as well as infrastructure systems, but what has been done is keeping brain dead patient alive for several decades.
And of course mining is one of the worst industries, and our mining activity is increasing exponantially (it is projected that we will take more out of the earth in the next 20-25 y than in the whole humanity) - and more than 60% of the growth is due to electric vehicles.
I have the feeling Trump want to go back to the USA of its childhood, which doesn’t makes sense in today’s world. Reopenning coal mines, re-industrializing the country,…
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