The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It
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Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It
#2Coal was dead long before Trump was elected. The fact that he and the majority of the GoP continue to lack the political will to tell their people the truth does not change this.
The worst victims of all of this are of course the people being told that coal is coming back, that the way that their fathers made a solid living will someday return so they continue sitting in a pit of addiction and despair, waiting for their ship to come in while the politicians get ever fatter.
Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It
#3Coal was dead long before Trump was elected. The fact that he and the majority of the GoP continue to lack the political will to tell their people the truth does not change this. The worst victims of all of this are of course the people being told that coal is coming back, that the way that their fathers made a solid living will someday return so they continue sitting in a pit of addiction and despair, waiting for th…
I fail to see how anyone would even think that it's possible to bring back coal.
Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It
#4Coal was dead long before Trump was elected. The fact that he and the majority of the GoP continue to lack the political will to tell their people the truth does not change this. The worst victims of all of this are of course the people being told that coal is coming back, that the way that their fathers made a solid living will someday return so they continue sitting in a pit of addiction and despair, waiting for th…
I fail to see how anyone would even think that it's possible to bring back coal.
You have the luxury of not depending on it coming back in order to earn a living again.
I'm not saying it's a good thing they believe it, I'm saying the conned is still the victim: it's the conartist that should be punished, and the GOP has been conning Appalachia for decades.
Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It
#5More and more people are turning to Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors, like Liquid Fluoride Thorium Breeders, If Kirk Sorensen and others are right this will revolutionize energy (and probably not just energy but mining, water desalination etc.) as we know it unlike wind or solar ever could. Natural gas and coal should die once and for all as they are as dirty as it gets. I strongly believe we are ready for truly nuclear future.
Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It
#6More and more people are turning to Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors, like Liquid Fluoride Thorium Breeders, If Kirk Sorensen and others are right this will revolutionize energy (and probably not just energy but mining, water desalination etc.) as we know it unlike wind or solar ever could. Natural gas and coal should die once and for all as they are as dirty as it gets. I strongly believe we are ready for truly nuclear…
Are there any of these types actually created yet?
Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It
#7Coal was dead long before Trump was elected. The fact that he and the majority of the GoP continue to lack the political will to tell their people the truth does not change this. The worst victims of all of this are of course the people being told that coal is coming back, that the way that their fathers made a solid living will someday return so they continue sitting in a pit of addiction and despair, waiting for th…
I fail to see how anyone would even think that it's possible to bring back coal.
You should talk to some folks involved in economic development who have experience with politics and attitudes in W. Virginia. What I've heard is the coal lobby still has the most money and power and politicians are behaving in a short sighted manner in order to appease coal and protect themselves. It would take a lot of courage and political capital to burn (no pun intended) to tell the truth to the state about the future of coal. It's part hope part cronyism.
W. Virginians are notoriously undereducated. So it will take a while but eventually the truth will be known and a day of reckoning will come.
To be fair my undereducated family in neighboring rural Virginia truly believed Trump "will bring the jobs back". They were aghast when I showed them a video of Tim Cook on 60 minutes explaining that those (manufacturing) jobs aren't coming back.
Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It
#8More and more people are turning to Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors, like Liquid Fluoride Thorium Breeders, If Kirk Sorensen and others are right this will revolutionize energy (and probably not just energy but mining, water desalination etc.) as we know it unlike wind or solar ever could. Natural gas and coal should die once and for all as they are as dirty as it gets. I strongly believe we are ready for truly nuclear…
Are there any of these types actually created yet?
One was created in 1960 and ran for 5 years but was shut down under Nixon administration due to various unrelated reasons.
But it was not creating fuel itself and it had some issue with corrosion which would have been fixed. There was not one built since and a lot of documentation was lost but luckily saved by NASA.
In last 10 years more and more people are working on them, specially India and China but also USA (Bill Gates is working on similar thing among others)
Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It
#9Coal was dead long before Trump was elected. The fact that he and the majority of the GoP continue to lack the political will to tell their people the truth does not change this. The worst victims of all of this are of course the people being told that coal is coming back, that the way that their fathers made a solid living will someday return so they continue sitting in a pit of addiction and despair, waiting for th…
Not defending Trump, but what you expect?
"We are backing nuclear"
"This time it will be good"
Can you see a populist saying that?
Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It
#10Coal was dead long before Trump was elected. The fact that he and the majority of the GoP continue to lack the political will to tell their people the truth does not change this. The worst victims of all of this are of course the people being told that coal is coming back, that the way that their fathers made a solid living will someday return so they continue sitting in a pit of addiction and despair, waiting for th…
I fail to see how anyone would even think that it's possible to bring back coal.
For about a century, coal has been the cheapest, most reliable fuel for utility-scale power generation. For most of the eastern seaboard, coal has only been supplanted by natural gas (slowly) over the last ten years. Competing fuel price fluctuations dictated the change. Natural gas prices before fracking were both higher and much more volatile. There have been periods of ebb and flow that many workers and their families have managed to "wait out" in the past.
Further, if you've lived your entire life in a coal town, the sheer scale of the plants, mines, railroads, and other infrastructure can make them seem permanent, reliable. It is very difficult to imagine so much specialized infrastructure simply ... going away.
Imagine if you had spent your entire life as a datacenter tech, as had your father. You knew the business inside and out, understood the network of suppliers, the customers, the hardware, everything. You've gotten into arguments about different rack configurations and which you prefer to work on. This is your career. You got into this business because it would provide a stable life for you and your family, and you were damn good at it. Then people started telling you that we would no longer need datacenters - at all - in 5 years because there were now cheaper, better alternatives. You wouldn't believe them.