That story is extremely saddening 
Indeed. Difficult to feel sorry for people who won’t take measures to protect their families.
Wait do the numbers have more or less credibility if they emanate from Don and Rick’s Randian Slaughterhouse of Regulations?
No, the worst thing that could happen to the coal miners is that they get trapped in a cave-in, or the die slowly and horribly of black lung disease, or they hit a gas seam and asphyxiate or explode, or get caught in some piece of machinery and mangled, or…
For starters, they deserve better jobs than coal mining. Coal mining is perhaps the worst legal job in the First World.
I’m not usually one to get on the victim blame bandwagon, but coal is going away. It has been going away for decades, and “their political leaders” have done nothing but offer them opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to move themselves and their families to something–anything–else. Retraining, subsidies, actual jobs.
But the remaining folks keep spitting in the faces of those offering help, eventually so much as to throw their weight behind the ultimate con man, even after his party has failed to live up to their promises repeatedly. Yeah, the miners are being repeatedly lied to, but they refuse to accept evidence or critical thinking even when it’s their lives at risk. Trumpism and its GOP history is their religion now, and it’s immune to rational evaluation.
At some point you can only do so much to help before they have to choose to help themselves – or at least their children. Let’s hope it happens before Trump sets the last of the lifelines on fire.
I bet they will feel so much better knowing people are willing to make their decisions for them by bravely supporting laws.
How quickly do you think >40% of the world’s electricity production (including 80% in China and 75% in India) will be replaced? Yes coal is going away, but so are smartphones. In the meantime, billions of individuals rely on coal to maintain their standard of living.
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Again the mine bankruptcy thing is the wrong way around.
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Yes, certainly because of natural gas. Renewables really being cheaper is more debatable. But as I said lots of renewable projects are to meet state mandates. And/or they are subsidized more than fossil fuels by federal policies. But anyway it’s true an increase in renewables comes mainly out of coal (and old nuclear plants shutting down) in an electricity market not growing very fast.
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However my point should be easy to follow because it’s very simple. Regardless of what Trump claims, people who live in areas dependent on coal should rationally look to govt to have less anti-coal policies and judge it accordingly. The govt can’t make natural gas more expensive*. It can reverse policies which force coal plants to shut down for reasons other than gas being cheap. The Clean Power Plan would do that on a significant scale. The govt could also reduce renewable mandate/subsidies so those forms have to compete on their actual costs, which would slow their adoption. Not saying it should necessarily do either thing. But it could, and it is, as far as Trump’s policy to reverse the Clean Power Plan.
And that’s what rational coal state interests would look at. What is the admin doing to reverse policies which force coal plant shutdowns for reasons other than the economics of fracked gas? They shouldn’t look at what Trump claims, nor at left wing political bloggers’ semi-clueless ramblings about the coal market. 
*well except by banning fracking as the Democrats have done in NY for example. PA is now the No. 2 gas producing state based on the Marcellus Shale; NY is nowhere, though a big portion of that formation is under NY. If PA or the federal govt did the same, NG would be more expensive, and more coal would be used.
I can count on one finger the number of coal plant owners that told me that CPP was even in the top-3 factors for their decision to shut down.
I wish I knew what was really going to happen with coal in this country. After working for 25 years in the industry I’m still not really sure if coal production will level off, fall steadily, or fall precipitously. I do know that no one has the “inside scoop” on this, because there are too many variable factors at the Federal, State, corporate, local economic, environmental, fuel supply, and other levels. I’m working at 4 coal plants right now where they are on a knife-edge - do they stay, or do they go? - and the decision process is insanely difficult. Even at the plants that don’t have any significant gas access potential.
I’ll tell you one thing that surprised me is a growing sense that natural gas prices in the US may stay elevated, giving coal a break, due to the potential for a “gold rush” market of LNG sales from the US. There is talk of enormous gas terminals and compressing stations, along with fleets of ships, for the US to start exporting outrageous amounts of gas to Europe and further. My understanding is that Trump and his advisors are really pushing for this, which could keep gas prices at or above $3.50/MBtu, perhaps higher. At that level of gas cost, coal probably stands pat in terms of our current production rate.
My business has shifted overseas, where coal is still booming, and likely will for the next 15 years. Long past the end of my career. OEMs are designing plants with expected lives to 2075 and beyond. I saw an RFQ last month for a “100 year coal plant” of 4 GW size.