Coal Industry????

[JustShootIt]

Curious what some of your thoughts are on the coal industry????????

As we all know the EPA and barefoot hippie tree huggers think we need to eliminate the coal industry and replace it with windmills and solar energy and some large scale cases natural gas etc........Thing is they are getting rid of coal without having a sufficient back up plan. So where does that leave us?

All this sounds good in theory, but I don't think we can replace coal and continue life as we know it......1) prices for electricity will soon sky rocket to prices we can't afford (already too high) 2) Due to lack of availability we will see rolling black out's/brown out's even in rural areas like they see in large cities.........What else?

Personally, I think they are trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist by getting everyone to believe that the world will no longer exist if we continue to use coal, just like they try to make us believe that carbon monoxide from gas and diesel engines is the root of all evil. It's easy to sit back and think there's nothing we can do about it, or "deal with it when it happens" but we've already seen gas/oil prices rise to an out of control rate. I know we've heard the lib's bark about coal for a while now, but it looks like they are successfully going to eliminate it...........

Just curious where some of you thinks that leaves us? I know that if it comes down to it we could survive day to day without electricity if need be, however, if we get to a point where that can't create power efficiently enough to provide it for us and/or it's too exspensive for us to use what happens then?

[Ian]

I think we would supply but I believe in the long term if a sufficient back up was designed and put into place they would start rationing electricity.

What's next.. get rid of nuclear power?

[ChopperDoc]

There are some folks that can't survive day to day without electricity.

It's great that we are trying to reduce emissions in our energy production, but we can't just cut over cold turkey when there is no reason to place that kind of hardship on the population IMNSHO

[ssracer]

Funny thing, this is EXACTLY what I am dealing with at work right now. Our system is old and they have been telling us for years that it needs to be replaced, but no one has ever come up with a solution for a replacement.

It's all the same mentality.

We have A. A is bad and we need to get rid of A. And that's as far as anyone wants to plan. No one wants to figure out how to get to B, or even what B is. All they know is getting to this mythical B is going to cost money and no one wants to spend any money, so you are stuck with A, but A has to go away.

[Livewire]

When the all knowing government fixes everything and there's no pollution and we will all have our own solar panels and windmills that the government gives us for free that's when we won't need coal.

Thanks to coal many of my friends and family and myself make a decent living. Imagine how many people would be out of work if coal wasnt allowed to be burned anymore. China buys a huge amount of the high sulfur coal that we can't burn here in the states because they son have EPA to regulate them. If we can't burn coal then the market price drops and then the market is flooded so now more miners are out of work. Imagine the trickle down effect from so many people across the country out of work.

[Niceguy]

I think they are f'ing stupid! I'm all for not living in excess but I don't think this country can afford to make it without coal. It's not nearly as harmful as days gone by. I think basically giving it away is stupid also. I know for a fact that just out of one port in Portsmith Va that 1-4 full coal trains a day go to China. That's ruffly 15,000 TONS per train of coal a day out of one port! We need to be a little more selfish of a country. I think a huge part of problems come from not taking care of ourselves as a country be it coal, petroleum, grain, whatever... Just my 2 cent.

[Niceguy]

I know that because I delievered some of them while working for CSX out of Richmond Va...

[JustShootIt]

I know it sounds really cruel, but I don't buy into the "we are burning a whole into the ozone layer" and "global warming" stuff........It can't hurt to be mindful and resourceful but I really think mother earth is much tougher and adaptive than we give it credit..........Over millions of years mother nature has went thru many, many changes and held up to numerous climate changes and adapted to various conditions etc........

Not too long ago I would have said they will never eliminate coal.......and there is a million reasons why I thought that........Now, I believe they will eliminate it quicker than we can imagine.......perhaps I'm wrong? Common sense says they can't, because we don't even have a good "plan B" but I think its where we are headed.......

Right now the .gov is working to make it either illegal or so damn expensive to use that power plants can't afford to use it

[justang1997]

I really think solar energy has a future. What holds it back is once you buy a panel it lasts for 30 years. That's good for the consumer but bad for the government. Imagine how much money would be lost to energy taxes if everyone was off the grid. Lots of money saved for one person equals money not earned to another.
For $26,000 in solar panels and batteries I could be 100% off the grid for about 30 years. And that's with my energy hog appliances. I could get by with half the panels if I chose more energy sipping lighting and heating and cooling systems.
Solar power is dangerous for a controlling gov because the sun is free.

[scorpionmain]

Without Coal, I am without a job.

[JustShootIt]

The economical impact would be huge.........some argue that those in the coal industry would have to transition to the "green" power industry for jobs and in the end it would even out...........?????

It doesn't seem possible that coal could be eliminated, however, it seems that they are giving it a good effort. Is it possible or feasible???

This isn't something that I am well educated on, but something I seem to hear more and more........there was an in depth discussion on the radio this morning and it got me thinking.........

[Lio]

I find myself somewhat in the middle of this debate. I defly don't think that the coal industry needs to be eliminated entirely, however, there is no doubt that there is a right and wrong way to go about obtaining coal. I don't see how anyone can morally justify mountain top coal mining. It's not a necessary method to obtain coal, it's just a fast and easy way that coal companies use without considering the devastating impact it has on our land. I know ppl who live in areas that have been completely fucked over because of mountain top mining and, I am positively against it.

I love the hills and mountains of eastern Ky and it's a shame that coal companies would want to destroy those beautiful landscapes (and eliminate important and irreplacable ecosystems) for profit.

Check this before image out:



And after:

[JustShootIt]

If you go to these Towns I think you will find differently......locals aren't as against mountain top mining as you would think.....find some pics of what some of these places look like after the mining companies rehab these mountain tops.....not only does the mining create jobs it also opens up land that otherwise was unuseable....I say there is more good than bad that comes from it.....

Btw, who was it on here that worked on these sites and posted some pics a while back of the work they done??

[scorpionmain]

I live in eastern KY, work within the coal industry and don't mind mountain top removal. Those pics aren't the full job. Reclamation is performed after the area has been mined. It opens up our area with useful land. Towns, recreation areas, and animal reserves have been placed on these reclaimed mine sites. We now have a thriving elk population due to usable land. We now have an ATV park that is bringing in tourism from northern states. A golf course and plans to construct an electrical plant that could give my area lots of much needed jobs. Not much you can do with a steep ass mountain, but look at it.

[son of liberty]

It is deceiving to claim that some picture of a scorched earth mine is the end result, that is so far from the truth that I would doubt anyone saying it is has ever even been there. Its manBearPig you idiot.

Thats from a white dude who cant dance, but I had an Asian crunch the numbers so take it for what its worth.

[scorpionmain]

Some real pics of reclaimed land from strip mining:

[scorpionmain]

[scorpionmain]

[scorpionmain]

[JustShootIt]

Nice pics Scorp..........

[Ian]

Do the companies pay you to do the reclaiming or do individuals or people outside the coal companies buy up the land and have it reclaimed?

[son of liberty]

Do the companies pay you to do the reclaiming or do individuals or people outside the coal companies buy up the land and have it reclaimed?

The coal companies do some, its in there best interest to have the land wooded or grassed , it controls erosion and helps protect the roads and landscapes. It greatly increases the value of land as well both its value for sale as well as its usable value. In some cases the land is managed by the state in efforts to shape the land to what they desire. Our Elk population is in part thanks to the forage that both the state and coal companies make possible, in the years before man really made his mark on the area huge areas of land would devastated by wild fire and would provide the destruction necessary for the rebirth , and with that birth came the animals of nature that survived on that rebirth untill the land completed a cycle and started all over again. Even without the physical planting of that land , the land itself would birth new life and continue the cycle. First the weeds would come conditioning the soil and leaving its annual decay to build a soil capable of supporting the next tier or guild of plants to move in, its the way of things and always has been. The only thing man is actually doing is speeding the erosion of the mountains, they are and have always been eroding but the rate has increased

[dbh]

It is requirement for the coal operator to do it. Plus, there is a tax on every ton of coal mined today that goes into a fund to reclaim land that was left in bad shape before the requirements were in place.

[scorpionmain]

Look around some here:
http://dmre.ky.gov/Pages/default.aspx
and here:
http://www.osmre.gov/index.shtm