It's just not renewable energy that threatens coal; natural gas is a far bigger threat. When a utility converts from coal to natural gas power plants there is no going back.
The benefits are immense and the costs are minimal.
Reduced emission control equipment, not just reduced emissions,
Reduced maintenance costs and increased equipment life (while the latter is not a benefit if you depend on depreciation, it's a major plus in reliability and longevity)
Reduced storage space, costs, and storage infrastructure ( consider the impact and cost difference between the infrastructure to handle mile long coal unit trains versus an 8 inch
gas pipeline); operating costs are minimal for natural gas while unit trains have to be continuously unloaded by a dedicated train crew as the coal train acts like a very long conveyor belt.
Natural gas waste products are non-existent compared to tons of coal ash that have to be disposed of daily.
Storage of coal can generate hazardous runoff, even if this pollution is allowed by current policies. Power plants can still be liable for damages resulting from their pollution.
I can only imagine the OMG moment when a utility replaces a major coal plant with a natural gas plant.
FWIW Natural gas also is a threat to oil products. I'm allergic to diesel fuel; so I have a personal health bias in favor of natural gas replacing diesel fuel. However the city buses where I live have been converted to natural gas and I don't miss the diesel smell or the fine mist of unburned diesel fuel exhausted on myself or my car.
There are many common terms it appears that The Grump does not understand, infrastructure appears to be one of them; outsourcing air traffic control will not affect the airport infrastructure problems like encroachment and heavier than designed air traffic. I concede that air traffic control problems can result in increased accidents or damage to infrastructure. The steel industry infrastructure is gone. Nobody seems to want to comment but I suspect the reality is that many of the steel smelting plants stayed in business until their facilities required complete replacement. You can't patch a hole in the hull of your super tanker after it had just sunk in the Marianas Trench. We do not need to repair infrastructure, we need to replace infrastructure which is a much higher cost and takes much more Congressional fortitude. It could be argued that the last major national infrastructure project was the Interstate Highway system, funded by DOD to replace railroads as the primary mover of freight in war time. It is by design that the major interstates routes paralleled transcontinental railroad lines, and in some cases the highway competitions forced the railroads into abandonment. Although the justification used by DOD had some 'fuzzy logic', the solution was not to repair and upgrade the existing railroads infrastructure, but to completely replace it with a new infrastructure. 70 years after that decision, we need to make similar infrastructure decisions today, not piecemeal band aid fixes.
calbear93;842844890 said:
Renewal energy is a huge opportunity for the economy. While I sympathize with those in the coal industry who would continue to lose jobs, more jobs would be created in the renewal energy industry. I understand that those new jobs won't go to those who used to work in the coal mines, but we can't play identity politics in the rights for the same reason the left doing so on a regular basis is so despicable. The corporations can still invest in renewal energy despite US leaving the Paris Agreement since no one, not even the president, can stop the global markets. There will be demand for renewable energy, and China sees big dollar signs and not clear skies for giving lip service to the environment.
