Mine union boss: Coal industry could suffer same fate as bin Laden

Mine union boss: Coal industry could suffer same fate as bin Laden
By Andrew Restuccia - 04/04/12 11:37 AM ET
The Hill


It may seem a bit ironic, but the head of the United Mine Workers of America
has made a bitter statement against the EPA !!

It sounds like he's blaming environmental regulations on the possible collapse
of the coal mining industry.

I thought the normal marching orders for Unions was to encourage safety and environmental issues.

The coal industry will suffer the same fate as Osama bin Laden under new climate regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the head of the United Mine Workers of America said this week.

“The Navy SEALs shot Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan and Lisa Jackson shot us in Washington,” Cecil Roberts, president of the powerful union, said during an interview Tuesday on the West Virginia radio show MetroNews Talkline.

Roberts blasted Jackson, the EPA administrator, over the proposed regulations, which would limit greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. Opponents of the regulations, including Roberts, say the new rules would be the death knell of the coal industry.

New coal-fired power plants would have to install technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions in order to comply with the rules. The technology, known as carbon capture and storage (CCS), “is not commercially available,” Roberts said.

“This rule is an all-out, in my opinion, decision by the EPA that we’re never going to have another coal-fired facility in the United States that’s constructed,” Roberts said.

The union chief used colorful language to underscore his point.

read the whole story.

Soon everybody will be out of a job.

People will not be able to afford the bills.

Then we will all be burning tires under an overpass to stay warm.

Lets just pass every bill that we can that will destroy the economy even further.

This will fix the problem.

How much electricity do we get from coal fired plants?

Oh thats right, almost half.

Coal power in the United States accounted for 42% of the country's electricity production in 2011.[1] Utilities buy more than 90 percent of the coal mined in the United States.[2]

In 2009, there were 1436 coal-powered units at the electrical utilities across the US, with the total nominal capacity of 338.732 GW[3] (compared to 1024 units at nominal 278 GW in 2000).[4] The actual average generated power from coal in 2006 was 227.1 GW (1.991 trillion kilowatt-hours per year),[5] the highest in the world and still slightly ahead of China (1.95 trillion kilowatt-hours per year) at that time.[6] Back in 2000, the US average production of electricity from coal was 224.3 GW (1.966 trillion kilowatt-hours per year).[5] In 2006, the U.S. consumed 1,026,636,000 short tons (931,349,000 metric tons) or 92.3% of coal for electricity generation.[7

coal

reply to post by xuenchen


What a bunch of liberal horse _____! Coal has zero effect on the temp.

What ever happened to the separation of church and state? The Church of Climatology has to go.

For every real job lost Al gore talks about 10 green jobs-what a future we have!

Even more irony; the UMWA here in West Virginia wanted Obama for President, even though he was against
the industry....

As far as the power plants; the EPA is trying to get the older plants to install mercury scrubbers, which aren't
cheap. It'll cost millions for the bigger plants, and cost too much for the smaller ones.

The mine I work at has over 140,000 clean tons on the ground at our cleaning plant (mostly steam, some met.)
Another mine with the same company 154,000. This isn't including what is at the mine sites.
I guess if we're not smart enough to sell to the countries without the EPA (China, Russia, India.....)
we deserve to be unemployed.
But that means our suppliers will have to lay off, also lay off truckers , the railroads that haul for us, plus the stores where we spend our money won't need as many employees.
Those store's suppliers won't need as many employees....

Don't get me wrong, I may work underground, I'm all for windmills and solar power, but the wind doesn't
always blow and the sun doesn't always shine.
As a mine gets bigger and further in, it needs more employees to maintain, where as the windmills may
need 300 people to build, but only 30 to maintain.
In coal mining regions, the mining jobs usually pay the best and have the best benefits. Who would pay to
have us all retrained if we were put out of a job? Who would hire someone who is 50+ years old, when all
they've done is work in the mines? The states of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama couldn't afford it.
Mining jobs are in America and STAY in America.

I've seen first hand what fracking does to our planet, from 250 feet under the surface. Natural gas isn't the
answer to our problems. Amazing how you never hear how the EPA is attacking oil burning emissions.
Gas engines put out carbon monoxide AND carbon dioxide, but that's not as bad as coal.

I could go off even more, but I better stop and cool down.....