Obama Makes Good on Promise to Bankrupt Coal Industry
31st July 2012
Enter 2012, and a record number of coal-fired generators are set to be shut down. As the Daily Caller reported, because of the “stiff federal environmental regulations” the Obama administration has put in place, 175 generators are scheduled to be phased out. That represents “8.5 percent of the total coal-fired capacity in the United States.”
Of these 175 generators, 57 are scheduled to be taken offline in 2012.
In other words, the “cost of compliance” with Obama-era regulations is simply too high, thus coal-fired plant owners find themselves right where Obama said they would were he elected. Now they can either shut the generators down or keep them online and inch ever closer to bankruptcy.
How’s that for “hope and change”?
July 31st, 2012 at 05:31
“How’s that for “hope and change”?” It’s good. Thanks for asking.
There is no such thing as ‘clean coal’. And I don’t accept the false dichotomy of choosing between electricity and mercury poisoning.
July 31st, 2012 at 14:04
The “O” Administration just recently blocked the construction of a power plant designed to burn waste petroleum coke (which is just carbon) because of greenhouse gas emissions. The same thing is happening to the described coal plants; it’s not mercury emissions that are being used to shut them down.
Of course as those piles of coke sit out in the sun, they slowly oxidize into (gasp!) carbon dioxide, so not recovering the heat content is just stupid.
So, if Dennis doesn’t want electricity generated from coal, and he doesn’t want gas produced by fracking, and he doesn’t want offshore drilling or drilling in Alaska, or construction of pipelines from Canada, or (horror!) nuclear power, then just where in the hell does he expect to get power for all those Detroit built Chevy Volts?
Probably wouldn’t be a good time to mention how sausage is made either.