Coal Me, Irresponsible

Donald Trump pledged to save an industry that seems to be slip-sliding away. While there was a temporary mini-blip increase in coal-industry-related jobs in 2018, the future for anything coal as a fossil fuel is a bleak as ever. “President Trump was in a celebratory mood early last spring as he prepared to sign an executive order rolling back environmental protections reviled by the nation’s coal industry… Turning to the miners beside him at the ceremony, Trump repeated a promise that he made often during his campaign for president… ‘You’re going back to work,’ he said to nods of approval and applause.

“But not much has changed for the nation’s ailing coal industry since Trump moved into the White House… Coal employment and production are up just slightly, coal consumption is down, and coal prices have fallen a little below where they were the day that Trump took office.” USA Today, April 4, 2018. Indeed, the total number of coal workers in the United States is trending down… severely. “Looking at the level of individual businesses, the coal industry in 2014 (76,572) employed about as many as Whole Foods (72,650), and fewer workers than Arby's (close to 80,000), Dollar General (105,000) or J.C. Penney (114,000). The country's largest private employer, Walmart (2.2 million employees) provides roughly 28 times as many jobs as coal.” Washington Post, 3/31/17.

While miners may covet those nasty jobs that generated an average annual wage of $78 thousand, the number of those jobs has been plummeting rather consistently since 1920, particularly in the last ten years. We’re well under 75 thousand coal workers today, and plant closings are accelerating.

“The U.S. power market hasn’t been a friendly environment for coal. Faced against subsidy-backed renewables, cheap natural gas and burdensome regulations, coal-fired plants across the country are retiring quickly with no signs of a revival on the horizon. Altogether, 14 gigawatts of coal capacity at 20 different power plants closed down in 2018, not counting the coal plants that were switched to natural gas or idled. It was the second-highest year for coal plant retirements in U.S. history.” DailyCaller.com, February 21st. Even Trump’s taxes on solar panels does not seem to have saved the coal industry, where the number of alternative energy jobs seems to be growing; solar energy alone accounts for three times the number of U.S. jobs as provided by the coal sector. Bankruptcy and increasing poverty rates in coal country are statistical evidence of the personal hardship faced by those communities. But there are jobs out there for these displaced workers. We just need to move those jobs closer to where they live.

“The United States has seen explosive growth in renewable energy jobs over the past three years, led by solar jobs (up 82 percent) and wind jobs (up 100 percent), according to new numbers released by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)… Each year, IRENA counts employment in renewable energy by technology and country, including in energy generation, related construction, manufacturing of renewable energy equipment and maintenance.

“The numbers tell the story… In 2016, solar was creating U.S. jobs at 17 times the rate of the national economy, rising to more than 260,000 jobs in the U.S. solar industry today. In the U.S. wind industry, now with over 100,000 jobs, a new wind turbine went up every 2.4 hours this past quarter. One driver of this rush to build out solar and wind capacity over the past few years was the expected expiration of key federal tax credits, which were ultimately renewed but with a phase-out over time for wind and solar.” Inside Climate News, 5/30/17. 

Rosy news, right? Not exactly, because as demand for energy around the world increases (2.3% in 2018 alone), nations around the world have had to rely on their existing fossil fuel infrastructure to meet that need. 70% of that increased demand was provided by fossil fuel, mostly coal, with a concomitant increase in greenhouse emissions. Chris Mooney and Brady Davis from the March 27th Los Angeles Times fill in the ugly details:

“In particular, a fleet of relatively new coal plants in Asia, with decades to go on their lifetimes, led the way toward a record for emissions from coal-fired power plants — exceeding 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide ‘for the first time,’ the [International Energy Agency – IEA] said… In Asia, ‘average plants are only 12 years old, decades younger than their average economic lifetime of around 40 years,’ the agency found.

“As a result, greenhouse gas emissions from the use of energy — by far their largest source — surged in 2018, reaching a record high of 33.1 billion tons. Emissions showed 1.7% growth, well above the average since 2010. The growth in global emissions in 2018 alone was ‘equivalent to the total emissions from international aviation,’ the body found.

“[A report released on March 24th by the IEA] underscores an unnerving truth about the world’s collective efforts to stop climate change: Even as renewable energy rapidly expands, many countries — including the United States and China — are nevertheless still turning to fossil fuels to satisfy ever-growing energy demand.

“‘Very worrisome’ is how Michael Mehling, deputy director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at MIT, described [the report’s] findings… ‘To me, all this reflects the fact that climate policies around the globe, despite some limited pockets of progress, remain woefully inadequate,’ he said in an email. ‘They’re not even robust enough to offset the increased emissions from economic expansion, especially in the developing world, let alone to spur decarbonization at levels commensurate with the temperature stabilization goals we’ve committed to under the Paris Agreement.’”

Instead of being part of the problem, the Trump administration could just go with the flow: encourage new jobs in alternative energy, particularly in regions most severely hurt from the decline in demand for coal. For example, Colorado is beginning new program focused not only on alternative energy but enhanced centralized battery capacity to store electricity that ebbs and flows with weather conditions.

We can create jobs, help right the planet and make a better world for us all. Mythology and trying to reverse progress never work to solve real world problems. There was a time when cars were banned from the center of towns because the backfire sound of gasoline-powered vehicles was scaring the horses. Not a lot of horses and buggies around these days. Stopping progress never works.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and as future generations face horrific issues generated by insufficiently checked global warming, exactly how will history books in that era depict our selfish stupidity?