Trump Wants to Reverse Coal’s Long Decline. It Won’t be Easy. | Coal has been displaced by cheap and plentiful natural gas and the rapid growth of wind and solar energy
Trump Wants to Reverse Coal’s Long Decline. It Won’t be Easy.
The only people who want this are West Virginians. Their entire economy is, and has been, so invested in coal that it's a 3rd world country up there. Watch some of Peter Santenello's videos, but you may cry like I did.
Who wants a coal plant?! Even conservative areas will scream NIMBY! NW Florida is as conservative as it gets and we're going mad with solar farms.
It was invested in coal. Then there were technical improvements which let mine owners replace people with equipment. So coal mining is now a fairly minor source of employment.
Somewhat related: I recently took a tour through the now-defunct local coal plant. Before 1990, there were 4 teams of 20 people each running this single coal plant.
Right now, just 4×5 people run power generation for the entire city (mostly fossil gas, but also some solar, wind and a large battery), although actually the plants are designed to work safely for 72h without manual intervention.
You absolutely shouldn’t do this, but one Japanese operator was caught running a nuclear plant where the only people on the night shift were cleaners, who hadn’t even been told what their radiation badges were. They got a minor fine.
