Barack Obama – My Plan Will Bankrupt the Coal Industry, and I’m Good with That
Coal? Feh…what did coal ever do for us besides generate all that electricity that we have to have to remain a First-World nation?
Let me sort of describe my overall policy.
What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there.
I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.
The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can.
It’s just that it will bankrupt them.
Are you paying attention, Pennsylvania? Ohio, are you listening? How about you, Kentucky?
Coal provides 49% of our energy needs. Barack Obama has no credible plan to replace the industry he wants to drive out of business nor does he have even the faintest clue how to employ the hundreds of thousands of people his dangerous belief in the global warming fiction will send to the unemployment line.
Solar? Wind? Please. Call me when he gets serious.
Hope. Change. Reading by Candlelight and Taking your Horse to Work.
Other Posts of Interest:
- If You’re Feeling Good, Don’t Talk to Harry Reid
- Obama’s New Position: Sure, Let’s Drill. Why Not?
- Who Doesn’t Want Cheap Energy? Plenty of Folks.
Category: The Obamessiah, Thinking About Energy
I hope you observed that just as soon as the McCain team started hitting on drilling now, even knowing that results wouldn't come immediately, the cost of crude oil tumbled.
Regarding drilling platforms, referring to your comment of a shortage, surely you are aware of the advances in horisontal drilling and the advances in increasing the yield of existing wells.
Solar and wind- Wind is here in Oklahoma, Texas, California and many other states in the central states and new farms are going up every day.
Did you know that the University of Oklahoma has signed a contract to have the Norman campus 100% wind powered within 2 years?
Direct solar will take a bit longer, but please remember that wind power is provided by the sun, that it really starts out as solar power.
[Typo corrected at the request of the comment author - J]
[Removed. Redundant. - J]
Yeah, we've had solar for decades, and there's large scale wind in use in the US and Europe. They're mature technologies now.
With that plus increased energy efficiency we can phase out polluting energy sources like coal and nuclear. Go for clean and green.
Better jobs in it anyway. Where would you rather be? Installing solar panels and wind turbines or mining coal?
I think the complaint isn't that wind and solar power won't work, but that the scale of the industry is far too small to make much difference. Indeed, assuming that suitable locations can be found, and new wind turbines continue to be installed at the same pace as last year, and demand for electricity doesn't go up, then wind power can replace coal in approximately a century.
The plan, as briefly stated in this post, will attempt to speed up the pace of that transition, and incidentally cause the price of electricity to rise. Since supply and demand for power are relatively inelastic, the net result is that the price will stabilize at the point where consumers are paying for the cost of power, plus the emissions taxes, whatever they are. For example, an emissions tax of, say, 10% means that the price of electricity will rise by approximately 10%.
In itself, that's not necessarily a bad thing, if your goal is to reduce CO2 emissions. If the goal is to bankrupt fossil-fuel-based electric utilities, then you can keep raising the tax, but the utilities won't go bankrupt until after the consumers do.
The problem is that wind and solar aren't anywhere near capable of replacing the energy we get from coal. As it is, we're not building enough coal plants to keep up with increased demand. There's no chance at all that wind and solar can replace what we have now much less what we'll need by 2030.
What Obama intends is to make electricity so expensive that we, as Erich notes, will use less. Unfortunately, that also means that our economy, which is heavily reliant on electricity, will slow down accordingly. So he's going to put two brakes on the economy and he's going to start doing it as we're just starting to come out of the bad patch we're in.
That's not wise.
Obama is a child. We elected a moron who hasnt a clue about how to "fix" the economy, let alone develop a sound energy policy. The next four years will be a front row seat to the ineptitude and naivete of the liberal movement.