Trump wrong to bet on coal

In gutting President Obama’s climate change policies, President Trump boasts that his latest executive order will “spark a new energy revolution” and lead to “unbelievable” American prosperity.

Doniger, who played a crucial role in formulating the Montreal Protocol, an global pact created to stop the depletion of the earth’s ozone layer, said now is the time for countries like the India and China, as also the European Union and others, to take the lead in continuing the progress on climate change.

“Natural gas is so abundant and so low-cost that it is driving the economics of energy across the board”, Ringel said. His disdain for the issue of climate change – he once tweeted that it was a Chinese scam (Nov. 6, 2012) – is well documented. President Trump and EPA chief (and climate change skeptic) Scott Pruitt have stated their belief that regulations are the chief culprit behind coal’s demise, according to CNBC.

Even so, “this is not what most people elected Trump to do”, said David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who said Trump’s actions are short-sighted and won’t bring back the jobs he promised.

President Trump’s actions will not bring back the coal industry.

But people in coal country understood then and do now that saving many miners’ jobs is beyond Trump’s control. The Clean Power Plan, Obama’s regulation to curb emissions from heavy polluters such as coal power plants, had been held up in federal courts with increasingly limited chances to succeed.

Environmental activists were willing to sacrifice America’s coal industry, and the affordable power it provides, even as coal demand continues to rise overseas. Roughly 41 percent of US coal production comes from public lands, providing a major source of electricity generation nationwide.

While these two facets of Obama’s Clean Power Plan should be undone, Trump was smart in not taking them on just yet.

But the likely rollback of the plan might not make a big difference for these states, many of which were already on track to shift away from coal-fired electricity. And third, by replacing fossil fuel energy with clean, renewable energy sources like solar and wind. States also regulate power plants.

Energy Ventures Analysis, a leading consulting firm, calculated that wholesale electricity prices would have experienced double digit percentage increases in more than 40 states. Cloud Peak, as well as Peabody and other coal companies, supply the U.S.as well as shipping their coal to markets around the globe. NPR reports that the solar industry now employs twice as many Americans as the coal industry.

The tech giants are joined by Anheuser Busch, the Gap, General Electric, Mars and WalMart, each of whom has committed to reducing their carbon emissions and to using far more renewable energy.

And the unusually mild winter of 2015/16 resulted in an enormous build up of coal stockpiles at power plants and a sharp reduction in new shipments from the mines (tmsnrt.rs/2nDS2fR).

As we heard earlier in the program this week, President Donald Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But since then the coal industry has been hit a ideal storm of stagnating electricity demand, a sharp fall in the price of gas, and a record warm winter in 2015/16.