Powerline: One of my favorite Milton Friedman stories concerns the time he was driving along in postwar West Germany in the late 1940s, on his way I think to the first Mont Pelerin Society meeting, when he spotted a large number of workers shoveling out a building site. Milton asked his German host, “Why don’t you get a tractor and some mechanized equipment for that?”
“Ah, but Prof. Friedman, you don’t understand—this provides jobs!”
Milton, quick as always, responded: “Well in that case why don’t you give them spoons.”
The only thing that will bring coal-fired electric generation back will be when the Utica and Marcellus shale plays peter out and the price of natural gas skyrockets like it did after Hurricane Katrina. Until then, coal is dead.
Well! If we wanted the greatest number of jobs for Congress, we should take away their computers and telephones and up the number of House seats appropriately, say to 20,000 or so.
Coal is not dead. And it is not a “fossil fuel”. It is a carbon based fuel, and the distinction in titles is significant.
As a carbon based fuel it is renewable (granted it takes a long time for nature to complete the conversion process, but it is renewable none the less).
The planet still has vast supplies of coal, enough to last into the next century with no difficulties, even at expected increased usage.
@flip you’re wrong on 2 counts:
1. Utility companies need a stockpile of coal in the event there is a disruption in natural gas. India and China can’t get enough coal since it is their power generation fuel of choice.
2. Coal is in high demand in the steel industry and will be as long as it is an essential component in steel manufacturing and steel is in demand.
I was speaking primarily of power production. There is very, very little new coal generation coming on line in the US. As I watch gigawatts of coal capacity close down around the US, with no end in sight, I stand by my statement.
Flip, are you saying that coal is too expensive to extract, so it has been permanently replaced by shale oil, a fuel once deemed too expensive to extract?
Thirdtwin, I am saying that coal-fired electric generation can no longer compete with gas-fired generation in the wholesale power markets. Nuclear generation is facing similar difficulties. Add outrageous environmental regs to it all, and coal is out of the picture. My original comment indicated that cheap shale gas would reign until it’s gone, then coal would come back.
Flip, you are close to hitting the nail, but let’s stop dancing around the hat and finally stomp on the hat.
The reason coal can’t compete is because of liberal policies that have intentionally created the imbalance through those regulations you’ve referenced. Liberalism is killing the energy industry, via the heavy-handed and onerous, unnecessary regulations.
Have you not heard then-candidate Obama’s open declaration of war on the coal industry? “It’s not necessarily that I would shut down the coal businesses, it’s that my regulations would cause them to go bankrupt”, or something like that.
By eliminating just the blatantly obnoxious (and environmentalist wet-dream) regulations coal can be sustainable. Cut all of the bs regulations (not all regulations, still need to maintain law-n-order and do it safely) and coal will be the cheapest again in no time.
Menotu, I agree with all your assertions. I started in coal-fired power generation back in 1980. Back then we didn’t know what the term “opacity” meant when it came to smokestack emissions. Today power plants have to consider even simple procedures such as washing down a galvanized steel roof lest they spike the zinc content in one of their NPDES outfalls. As one engineer put it to me the other day, coal-fired power plants have “essentially become chemical plants that occasionally produce electricity.” Billions have been spent on environmental controls that serve to not only reduce emissions, but to reduce the efficiency and reliability of coal-fired generation. Until Obama’s “we’ll bankrupt you” prophecy is overturned, coal is essentially dead.
22 and a half years of coal-fired plant operations, 14 and a half years of competitive power marketing and dispatch, I’ve seen a lot, and it’s been an ugly ride watching this industry eviscerated from all sides. As for coal, though, short of the occurrence of an all-out war effort, faced with a decade of flat demand for power, and the very cheap availability of shale gas, I believe it’ll be quite a while before we see any resurgence in base-load coal plant construction. Power plant closures like those seen in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and all over the Midwest the last few years will continue to dominate the headlines. And believe me, the Sierra Club celebrates every one of the closures.
Thorium nuclear
Just goes to show that even Milton Freidman could stupid
once in awhile.