Quote (NetflixAdaptationWidow @ 6 Nov 2021 21:48)
Coal companies are retaining profit by automating. They can ship less coal over time with a higher margin using technology. That's the simple reason why coal stocks are not going down.
Not a convincing argument. I don't see why automating the processes of coal mining should only have become available in recent years, so that an increase in their profit margins coincides with declining long-term prospects.
Quote
Also, coal jobs in all of the U.S. are only like 40k. That's.... not a lot of jobs. At all. The suffering that will be caused by even a total elimination of coal jobs is about one week of new jobs numbers in the U.S.
Families and whole communities depend on these jobs. The shop owners in coal towns, the manufacturers of mining equipment, and so on and forth.
But okay, I'll admit that even then, it's still not a ton of jobs at stake when we look at the national level (the whole US). The impact would of course be a lot bigger in certain places, like WV.
Quote
"Human infrastructure" is accurate. Sorry you would prefer a term that's more loaded in favor of the side you support, but you don't control language. The number one piece of infrastructure any country has is their skill acquisition infrastructure, which is education.
And which share of the multi-trillion dollar spending in this "human infrastructure" bill is slated for actual education?
According to
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/budget-reconciliation-bill-build-back-better-act/only less than $400 billion out of the $1750 billion left in the latest proposal are going to pre-K while the rest is intended for non-education things like climate change, housing, child tax credits or medicare expansion.
Quote
Solar has been cheaper than coal for over 10 years now before you account for subsidy. After you account for subsidy (which massively favors fossil fuels) it's been cheaper for several years. That's why you see renewables going up fucking everywhere, and virtually no new coal plants outside of third world countries that are still industrializing.
True. The key problem with solar is still that supply cannot be steered to meet demand like with fossil energy. Even if solar/renewables are cheaper than fossils, we still cannot rely on them for the entirety of our energy production.
Quote
Your middle line is massively dishonest. You are in favor of government distorting market forces towards keeping these jobs longer than they are economically viable. If we had allowed the market to find a solution we would have been actively fining fossil fuels for the long-term damage they cause to the environment, and the long-term damage they cause to their surrounding communities in the form of pollution and medical costs to their workers.
If we were working in a strictly market system with all factors accounted for, we would not be dependent on fossil fuels. The natural rate of elimination of these jobs is that they would virtually all be eliminated decades ago.
All of this is only true if we posit that the economy should always follow a holistic approach that takes fairness and externalities into full account.
Simply put, wasting desolate shitholes in the middle of nowhere, like West Virginia, the Dakotas or the Middle East, with pollution, contaminated water and any such things, so that the rest of society can thrive based on cheap and reliable energy, has been a worthwhile tradeoff for the longest time. Only recently has a worsening global warming tipped this calculus against the use of fossils.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 6 2021 04:14pm