Nice piece in CNN about the decline of coal and how humanity’s survival basically hinges on ending the use of fossil fuels, and this graphic was illuminating:
If coal use in America were a covid patient, it would have been on a ventilator the last ten years. It’s time to pull the plug, and everything Manchin does to delay it is just causing more pain for the people of West Virginia, who are going to stick to our old dead past and not get the training and infrastructure to move into future industries.
RaflW
How perfect to discover that apparently Manchin rides around D.C. in a Maserati Levante suv.
According to the sticker for his model, it contains 98% non-North American parts. It is assembled in Italy and Germany is the second leading parts contribution.
Italy is lovely, but his vehicle choice doesn’t really help West Virginia miners* or other laborers/manufacturing. He’s just a run of the mill rich ahole, lookin out for number one. Dunno if the UAW or other labor unions contribute to him, but they should scorch him for this if they do.
*TBF I don’t know if WVa mines coking coal for steelmaking.
JustRuss
Manchin will be dead before coal will be, and that’s all that matters. If he gave a damn about West Virginians (the ones who aren’t millionaires I mean) he wouldn’t be stonewalling Build Back Better.
Joe Falco
If Manchin was more like Robert Byrd, West Virginia could have all the money it needs to move on from coal in a negotiated deal, but sadly, that is not the case. Here in Georgia, we’re still waiting on the Vogtle Nuclear Plant to be finally completed after 10+ years and multiple delays while Georgia Power continues to bill its customers for it.
Burnspbesq
And it wasn’t the EPA or mine safety regulators that killed it. Electric utilities found that burning coal was less profitable than alternatives—mostly natural gas, but also wind and solar.
Everybody loves the invisible hand until they get fisted by it.
raven
@Joe Falco: It went up $4 a month!
Baud
The real tragedy is that Manchin had a real opportunity to help out coal workers.
Raoul Paste
A yacht and a Maserati..
The TV ad writes itself
Cermet
As long as manchin is raking in the millions, he figures those West Virginians with black lung can just suck on lumps of coal. Besides him not giving a $hit about those poor people, he is a media darling and getting glamor shots in all the papers.
As for nuclear, thanks to subs and other military nuke powered ships, the inexpensive and utterly safe fast neutron reactors that use molten salt (the uranium is a salt) where never really given a chance. these reactors can burn the hideously radioactive waste fuel from other reactors, extract energy and create low level waste. No need for million year storage and these plants cost a fraction of the current nuke plant costs to build. Stupid that this new design (all of 1970’s!) was never given a chance but the military had their reactors and without their money, the big nuke companies wouldn’t build this new generation of reactors.
Mart
Arguing about Obama killed coal a hundred years ago I calmly explained that $/BTU killed coal – after fracking lowered the cost of natural gas. Watched a lot of sites convert boilers and bring in high pressure gas lines. All kinds of heavy metals and nasty liquid chemicals when burning coal. Plus all the transportation, crushing, limestone slurry, scrubbers, and hazardous waste disposal. Still, I would not be surprised to see them switch back to coal if gas spikes. Saw them flip flop fuels way back when.
What Burnspberg said.
Baud
@Raoul Paste:
“I am Senator Joe Manchin. I own a Maserati and a yacht.”
Don K
@Burnspbesq:
Hell. steamships converted from coal to oil eons ago. Railroads dumped steam locomotives all in a rush between the end of WWII and 1960. Homeowners went from coal heating to oil or gas. Coal has been on life support for quite a while now.
Cermet
@Mart: Very expensive to ‘flip’ back to coal. It is likely that it will take a big spike to do that – considering natural gas fracking is only just getting a start in many parts of the world, natural gas supplies will be plentiful for a while yet – we have facilities to import it cheaply as well (currently used to export it.) So prices aren’t likely to get high all that fast.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Not having an American made car around just for appearances is so tone deaf. The houseboat/yacht never really bothered me, but this is simple political malpractice.
Burnspbesq
OT: DOJ has sued Texas over its new restrictions on voting.
Omnes Omnibus
@Burnspbesq: Good.
Burnspbesq
Link
WaterGirl
@Burnspbesq: Long URLs can break the margins on phones, so I tucked your URL under the word Link.
japa21
OT. Has anyone heard how OH is doing?
Almost Retired
@Baud: That’s why Manchin opposes the miwwionaire tax.
dr. bloor
Senator Manchin would like to know what, precisely, your point is here.
WaterGirl
@japa21: Nothing from Ozark since 9:10 am yesterday when he said he had to go to his pre-op thing. (technical term)
debbie
@japa21:
What happened?
kindness
Come on John. Look at the income Manchin gets from coal every year.
He’s just a typical pig only thinking of himself and maybe his kids too.
japa21
@debbie: He had surgery yesterday.
schrodingers_cat
@Burnspbesq: Do something Twitter will find something to kvetch about.
Garland is not doing xyz. I want Sally Yates. *stomps foot*
*Writes a long Twitter thread
Redshift
While I don’t disagree that the people of WVa are getting screwed by Manchin’s antics (along with all the rest of us), I suspect his “I love coal” act is less IGMFY to his constituents and more that way too many people will turn on a politician who tries to improve their lives in a way that will require them to change, and embrace one who gives them lies about how they don’t have to and scapegoats to blame instead.
I’m really feeling that after the latest election results. “Everything sucked during the pandemic, so let’s turn on the people who handled the inevitable pain competently and vote in the people who said our kids would have been in fine being in school and we shouldn’t have to care at all about how our actions affect anyone else!”
WaterGirl
Washington Post Headlines:
Kyle Rittenhouse juror dismissed for joke about police shooting of Jacob Blake
Justice Dept. sues to stop Texas’s voting restrictions
House eyes vote on spending plan as soon as today, as moderates question costs (at least they didn’t say “breaking news!”)
Analyst who was key to Steele dossier arrested as part of special counsel John Durham’s probe into FBI’s 2016 Russia investigation (john Durham has drowned his own reputation in the toilet)
Manhattan district attorney convenes new grand jury in Trump Organization case to weigh potential charges
GOP ramps up challenges of Biden vaccine mandate (no surprise there!)
Biden rejects paying $450,000 to migrant families separated at the border during Trump administration
Earth’s lakes are warming at a feverish pace, with the Great Lakes leading the wa
World doesn’t spend enough preparing for disasters, U.N. report says (no surprise there
Manchin has no more excuses. It’s time to fix the filibuster. (Jen Rubin)
raven
@japa21: Nasty ass shoulder surgery that has a pretty long recovery.
japa21
@raven: I think this is third or fourth surgery on that same shoulder, each one worse than the one before. I’ve had to deal with one, and that was bad enough. Just a little worried because he had hoped to connect here sometime today.
debbie
@japa21:
Thanks. ?
Hoodie
@Mart: Once you shift away from coal, it tends to stay gone because a coal plant is a huge investment, much bigger than a gas turbine plant. The only flip would be extending the lifetime of existing coal plants, which is what they’re considering for Four Corners.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Huh. A day or two ago, the nutjobs were bonkers because the administration planned to make payments to the families.
Burnspbesq
@WaterGirl:
Nothing about the amazing racial makeup of the jury in the Ahmad Arbery case (defense used eight peremptory challenges to get rid of potential African-American jurors, ending up with eleven out of twelve white jurors), and the trial judge’s refusal to do anything about it?
Dan B
@RaflW: Coking steel is also about to decline since the Swedes have developed and are beginning to commercialize a renewable hydrogen system for steel. There are other players as well. Volvo and Mercedes are transitioning to this steel in a few years.
mrmoshpotato
Great! And I see that Superior is doing a superior job of turning into a giant hot tub!
WaterGirl
@debbie: The article itself is filled with conflicting information. Some say that Biden just hasn’t been briefed on the numbers. Then there’s the fussing about whether the DOJ is truly independent if Biden is making comments like that about what the DOJ has chosen to do. More discussion that Biden ran on how awful Trump was to separate families so why is he turning his back on the families now. I skimmed the whole article and i have no idea what’s true. Success!
trollhattan
I don’t have much faith in China doing the right thing until really, really late but fucking Australia has no fucking excuse to keep the shovels running 24/7-365 plus opening up a huge new field, because profits!
You can fucking well find something fucking else for those fucking coal workers to do, Bruce!
WaterGirl
@Burnspbesq: I did not see anything on that. I hadn’t heard that, but it’s awful.
Frank Wilhoit
Training isn’t going to happen unless it is fully Federally funded, not just in the first year but ongoing. This is because training is an operational expense.
Baud
@Burnspbesq:
I recall that’s unconstitutional, but I can’t remember what the remedy is for the prosecutor.
Jeffro
I think I saw something about how Macy’s has 2-3x more workers than the entire coal industry at this point. I haven’t blasted it far and wide because I haven’t looked into it yet, but if it’s even close…have at it, (non-Manchin) Dems!
trollhattan
@Jeffro:
TBF you can still get black lung working in the Goth Clothing Department.
randy khan
The right side of that chart is, uh, interesting – after decades of steady declines independent of what has happened to energy prices generally, it predicts that use of coal will go up 15 to 20 percent THIS YEAR, with the decline resuming in 2022.
debbie
@Baud:
Didn’t the judge basically hand them a free retrial ticket?
senyordave
@Baud: Missing word, I am Joe Manchin, millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7dCTwlAI8Y
Adam L Silverman
@Burnspbesq: This would appear to be part of the problem:
https://www.wjcl.com/article/ahmaud-arbery-jury/38109914
Adam L Silverman
There are only approximately 11,000 or so coal jobs left in West Virginia. If Manchin were really transactional then he would’ve been holding out for money to keep the people doing those jobs afloat and paying their bills, for retraining them, and giving them priority for hiring for whatever they’re being retrained for in exchange for supporting the reconciliation bill in general and the environmental portions in specific. Similarly, he would have been holding out for money to cover transitioning businesses like his son’s coal brokerage to brokering new, environmentally friendly green energy. You’ll notice he did neither.
dr. bloor
Unless GA is completely and utterly different from every jurisdiction I’ve ever lived in (entirely possible), the low show rate itself likely has nothing to do with the case, since you’re simply summoned to be in the jury pool for a few days without any foreknowledge of what case you’ll be examined for.
I’d make a snarky comment about how Georgia’s citizens seem to take their civic responsibilities somewhat less than seriously, although I can’t convince myself the turnout rate is significantly better anywhere else.
dr. bloor
@Adam L Silverman:
The really surprising thing is that Biden hasn’t taken the initiative to do this himself. Subsidizing 11K families for a three to five year period with a stipend until the Breadwinner is trained to keep windmills running instead of contracting black lung is a rounding error in the federal budget.
Butter Emails
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m going to guess that most of the people still employed in the coal industry want to keep working in the coal industry and aren’t particularly interested in hand-outs and job retraining at this point. Not necessarily because they enjoy working in the coal industry, but because that’s what they do. They don’t want government handouts and they don’t want to be retrained just because some libtard enviroweenies in Congress and California hate coal.
Adam L Silverman
@dr. bloor: I would not be surprised that Biden pitched it to Manchin and got nowhere with it. Notice that both of them have been very, very tight lipped about what they discuss.
I’d go so far as to say it should be put in to cover all remaining working in coal regardless of state. We’re probably not talking more than 30,000 or 40,000 people total. They should make a big deal out of it. Make McConnell have to defend why he opposes it given that the largest batch of those working in coal outside of WVA is in KY.
But until someone reports something about it, we won’t know if it was ever brought up.
Adam L Silverman
@dr. bloor: The CNN reporting that is pulled from by one of the local news stations seems to imply that a lot of people in the area are scared of what will happen to them if they’re on the jury and the case goes against the defendants.
gene108
Hi John Cole,
This question is kind of pointless, because I doubt you’ll read it, but how does Sen. Manchin stack up against Sen. Capito for getting things done for your state?
Just curious what the differences are between Senators in states with a split delegation in the Senate.
Adam L Silverman
@Butter Emails: It wouldn’t surprise me. Frankly, we could just buy all of them out. If there’s 11,000 in WVA, just budget to pay each $100,000 early retirement one time, tax free payout to retire. If they take the payout, they can’t work in coal anymore. That would do it and it would be a rounding error in the bill. If you throw in the couple of thousand still working in coal in PA, and however many in KY and the couple of other states, it’s still a budgetary rounding error.
gene108
@randy khan:
I believe China is bringing a lot of coal plants online in the near future.
sab
@RaflW: What the fuck. He is just a senator. Only billiomaires and neurosurgeons drive those things. Nobody else has a sufficiently inflated ego to even gas the thing up.
Peale
How about we give California 2 years to complete its high speed rail and if it doesn’t it will be forced to have WV coal fueled choo choo trains run on it? Can put it into the BBB better bill.
Peale
@RaflW: His political ideology is stuck in the 1990s and his car indicates he’s still stuck in the midlife crisis he started having then, too.
Another Scott
I don’t see it mentioned here, but this seems to me to be a big deal from COP 26 today.
My fuzzy recollection from school is that the US has the world’s largest coal reserves, enough to supply (the then annual consumption) for around 1000 years (far longer than the world’s proven oil reserves). Of course, the planet would be uninhabitable if we burned even a large fraction of it… :-/
It’s good that statements and commitments are getting closer to the needed reality. Now, we need to make sure those commitments (and more!) are kept.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cameron
@Baud: “I am Senator Joe Manchin. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”
Another Scott
@RaflW: Made me look.
It looks like they go for as little as $77k. One can spend more than that on an F-150, if one tries hard enough.
It looks like the Levante was originally promoted to be Jeep-based and made in Detroit, but ended up being based on the old Chrysler 300 chassis instead (with a “Maserati” motor and drivetrain).
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Who saw Pete Rose driving a Ferrari 512BB (IIRC) in Cincinnati once. Bouncing like mad over the potholes…”)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott:
I’ve been looking at the F150, because of the Lighting, you don’t have to try that hard….
WV Blondie
@Jeffro: And Macy’s has a major fulfillment center in … WV! It runs 24/7 – I talked to a woman waiting at DMV at 7:30 one morning last week. She got off her shift at 3:30 a m.
Cameron
@Adam L Silverman: This is one of the best ideas I’ve heard in a while.
BruceJ
@Adam L Silverman: Employment in the coal industry has declined steadily since 1923
Ksmiami
@sab: not to be a snob but he’s pretty provincial as far as millionaires go…
Adam L Silverman
@Cameron: Thank you.
It’ll never happen because it is simple and makes sense. Hell we could throw in ACA health care plans including vision and dental for them and it would be a rounding error in the budget.
Adam L Silverman
@BruceJ: So I’ve heard.
John Cole
@gene108: He defends social security and medicare most of the time and gives us (sort of) control of the Senate. Other than that…
Geminid
@BruceJ: I was looking up Presidential electoral votes and saw that West Virginia had six Congressional districts as recently as 1960. They will have only three after next year.
Geminid
@John Cole: Manchin also voted for the $1.9 trillion American Recovery Act, and voted to convict trump twice. And he’s helped to confirm Biden’s judges. The best thing Manchin has done was to vote to make Schumer Majority Leader.
But he sure has been devious on this BBB bill. And I still don’t know if he’ll vote for it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid: All of this is why I can’t join in the wholesale condemnation of him.
Another Scott
@Geminid:
Horse’s mouth:
He’s getting as much as he can for his views while he can. He’s not going to kill it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: I think you are right, but that and $2.79 gets you a gallon of milk.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: I keep agreeing with you, and each time I die a little bit inside….
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Good and good.
Renie
Late to the thread but if John is still around I’m wondering how the WV media is handling what Machin has been doing?
Another Scott
Relatedly, kinda, … ProPublica:
Justice should get on board with the BBB, also too. But he probably won’t as long as he can claim such valuable paper losses against his income taxes…
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
superdestroyer
There is no reason to build new industrial facilities in West Virginia as compared to other states. And if one is going to work from home, why live in West Virginia?
rikyrah
@japa21:
????????
WV Blondie
@Geminid: Actually, we’ll only have two congressional districts next year – thank God. My “representative” (HAH!), Alex Mooney (a/k/a “ALEC Money”), will be going against John Cole’s representative, David McKinley – much of their two districts have been mashed together. Of the two, if I have to be represented by a Republican, McKinley is much superior. (Though I’m clearly grading on a curve.)
chopper
why is the forecast in the figure showing a bounce up in coal?
Burnspbesq
@sab:
You’d be surprised how much pathology is embedded in people’s vehicle choices. How else to explain things like F-350 Super Duty and Tesla Model S Plaid?
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Burnspbesq:
I have never loved the invisible hand. I’ve never even seen it!
Another Scott
Pretty soon – sausage!
TheHill:
It won’t be long.
Cheers,
Scott.
dopey-o
i think the CNN article discussed recent spikes in the price of natural gas. Coal will be a cheaper alternative until increased fracking pumps more gas into the equation.
The CNN article is a long read, informative and exhaustive. Covers the role of China and South Pacific nations, among others. Excellent graphics.
TL;DR summary: Abandon hope.
R. Beck
@RaflW: i think the business hes in actually goes through waste coal wth recently developed technology that enables them to extract dirty coal which is usable, barely, but highly polluting