Coal-Hearted Truth

In late 2016, when Donald Trump pledged to save “King Coal,” restoring that most-polluting fossil fuel to its glory days, to reopen coal mines and coal-fired electrical power plants under vastly reduced environmental controls, while restoring thousands of high-paying coal mining jobs, coal accounted for 30% of this nation’s electrical power generation. While a few token mines announced a very few new hires since, mostly in specialized coal used for limited industrial processes, the number of coal miners continued to decline, more coal mines closed, demand for coal exports continued to fall and no one seemed to take up the U.S. government’s proselytizing industry to return to using more coal. The major fossil fuel gaining traction was a much cleaner natural gas.

The U.S. Department of Energy, issuing its Short-Term Energy Outlook as of July 10, 2018 through its U.S. Energy Information Administration website, noted the slippage in coal demand for power-generation: “EIA expects the share of U.S. total utility-scale electricity generation from natural gas-fired power plants to rise from 32% in 2017 to 34% in 2018 and to 35% in 2019. In this outlook, coal's forecast share of electricity generation falls from 30% in 2017 to 28% in 2018 and to 27% in 2019. The nuclear share of generation was 20% in 2017 and is forecast to be slightly less than that share in 2018 and in 2019. Non-hydropower renewables provided slightly less than 10% of electricity generation in 2017 and are expected to provide more than 10% in 2018 and nearly 11% in 2019. The generation share of hydropower was 7% in 2017 and is forecast to be slightly less than that share in 2018 and in 2019.”

A decline in demand for coal despite a very cold winter and a really hot summer – the hottest on record? Yup! And all of this was also factored without any reference to additional negative consequences that are likely under Trump’s misshaped trade war with most of the rest of the high-trade-volume world or what is likely to happen as the United States insists on applying sanctions on companies and nations (including several European powers) continuing to trade with Iran (as of September 1^st) under the very same accord to which the United States was itself a signatory until last May.

One has to wonder how strong denial is when reading or watching the interviews of members of Trump’s base. Those who have rotting and unsold crops that China isn’t buying anymore. Construction workers laid off because steel and aluminum costs have made their projects unaffordable. And the hundreds of thousands of American workers who justifiably fear for their jobs.

Trumpers seem to think all of Trump’s promises will fall in place. They are confident, despite a tsunami of evidence to the contrary, that after a short while Trump’s trading partners will succumb to the Art of the Deal grand master, fixing the balance of trade and negotiating one-on-one as The Donald has predicted. They will cave, they expect, because The Donald is an experienced businessman who knows what he is doing. And they believe with all their hearts that the repeal of environmental regulations will bring their 20^th century jobs back at full pay. While acknowledging the need to accept “short term” sacrifices, they just know Trump will deliver.

They probably aren’t aware of what is happening around them even as U.S. power companies know that the prognosis for coal as a staple fuel is abysmal (its use has been declining for a century), or as nations dig in their heels to resist a very unpopular Trump and scramble to create and support the very multinational trade agreements Trump is trying to blow away in favor of his one-on-one approach… like the one with the UK which will unravel if Britain continues with its soft-Brexit approach. Or like Japan’s flat refusal to negotiate one-on-one with the U.S. and instead announcing this massive new trade agreement (Donald’s nightmare) on July 17^th: “The European Union and Japan have signed a trade deal that promises to eliminate 99 percent of tariffs that cost businesses in the EU and Japan nearly $1.17 billion annually.

“According to the European Commission, the EU-Japan ‘Economic Partnership Agreement’ (EPA) is the largest trade deal ever negotiated by the EU and will create a trade zone covering 600 million people and nearly a third of global GDP.” USA Today, July 17^th. Or “Bromance Partner” Putin’s special relationship with Iran, supporting the latter’s right to sell oil to the world despite U.S. sanctions. Or China’s reassembling a trading coalition that looks a lot like the now-extinct Trans Pacific Partnership that Trump sank… except the new alliance is a work-around that excludes the United States.

What makes this equally unpalatable is a combination of “good economic numbers” (which fall apart on detailed analysis) and the pretty secure bet that when Trump’s promises are obviously unfulfilled, Trump will be able successfully to shift blame for his growing list of failures on somebody else: Obama, immigrants, Congress, liberals, an “enemy of the people fake-news-driven press,” etc. Anybody but the village idiot who dun thunk he was the smartest operative in the world and his revolving-door cabinet backed by a GOP Congress that refuses to confront the President’s obvious mistakes. And his base will buy that, hook, line and sinker.

I’m Peter Dekom, and despite all the passionate belief by all those Trump supporters, neither facts nor time are on their side.