Two Ohio coal-fired plants to close, deepening industry decline
Source: Reuters
Mon Mar 20, 2017 | 4:55pm EDT
By Emily Flitter | NEW YORK
Electricity company Dayton Power & Light said on Monday it would shut down two coal-fired power plants in southern Ohio next year for economic reasons, a setback for the ailing coal industry but a victory for environmental activists.
Republican President Donald Trump promised in his election campaign to restore U.S. coal jobs that he said had been destroyed by environmental regulations put into effect by his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.
Dayton Power & Light, a subsidiary of The AES Corporation, said in an emailed statement that it planned to close the J.M. Stuart and Killen plants by June 2018 because they would not be "economically viable beyond mid-2018." Coal demand has flagged in recent years due to competition from cheap and plentiful natural gas.
The plants along the Ohio River in Adams County employ some 490 people and generate about 3,000 megawatts of power for coal.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal-closures-idUSKBN16R2D4
Maeve
(42,271 posts)Make coal great again! (or was that something about a coal grate???)
cstanleytech
(26,227 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Salviati
(6,008 posts)... it's going to be the invisible hand of the market that the conservatives love so much. Coal just isn't profitable in the era of cheap natural gas and ever cheapening renewable energy.
erpowers
(9,350 posts)I am not a fan of coal; I am just asking because one of the hosts on NPR said regulations did play a role in making natural gas cheaper. Now, I realize there was a pro-coal guy who was going to be interviewed on NPR and he said that to make coal cheap enough to compete with natural gas the EPA and the Energy Department had to be shut down and just about all regulations, if not all regulations, had to be removed. I do not want to get rid of all or most environmental regulations, but have regulations made coal more expensive than natural gas, or is natural gas just naturally cheaper than coal? In addition, if you can explain it, what, aside from regulations, makes natural gas so cheap? Is it easier to get out of the ground? Is it cheap because there is a large amount of natural gas in the ground?
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)revmclaren
(2,497 posts)And don't forget biplanes. So much cheaper and easier to maintain than stealth fighters.
rpannier
(24,328 posts)At least they were real people
As for coal... not so much
Kolesar
(31,182 posts)Instead of getting one of those great coal mining jobs.
Send the wife to work to support "the family" in perpetuity.
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,321 posts)Or nuclear power.
I don't know if wind/sun is mature enough to power the country.
JI7
(89,239 posts)IronLionZion
(45,380 posts)Or blame immigrants or something nonsensical?
Blame anything except the free market forces and fracking that cause natural gas to be cheaper and easier to get.
Blame socialism and college educated snowflakes or literally anything else.
SpankMe
(2,956 posts)...as well as losing a large part of their identities as hearty coal workers whose profession has spanned generations of their family. For most of us, our professions help define us.
But...in a modern society like ours, things generally move in directions of better, cheaper, cleaner and more efficient. They have to or we wither and die.
We're not crying to bring back the Model-T now that we have Priuses and Teslas. We're not whining to bring back dirigibles, stage coaches and bi-planes now that we have modern jet airliners. We're not trying to bring back the jobs of telephone operators now that we have the Internet and cell phones. Things just move forward. It's almost inevitable.
Well, now it's coal's turn to sit back and let other forms of energy take over. Energy that is cleaner, cheaper and - most importantly - derived from renewable resources. As msanthrope said above, coal jobs aren't coming back. Oh, Trump may bring back a few by brute force. But those will be token coal jobs that'll disappear when Trump leaves office and the pressure is off.
It's been 4 paragraphs and I haven't said it yet: Fuck Donald Trump
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)its in its dying quivers.......
yellowcanine
(35,693 posts)And many of those laid off coal miners are going to lose their health care also. Trump 1, Coal miners 0.
yardwork
(61,538 posts)riversedge
(70,077 posts)HAB911
(8,867 posts)yellowcanine
(35,693 posts)Natural gas is the way electricity is going to be produced in those areas. The bulk of any remaining demand for coal is going to come from much more efficient open pit mines in the West. To top off the situation, many laid off coal miners are going to lose their health care. This is the great Trump swindle.
Coventina
(27,057 posts)Then! HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!!!!
COAL IS BACK, BABY!!!!!
erpowers
(9,350 posts)So, I thought once Donald Trump had gotten rid of all those horrible regulations the coal industry would make a come back. Do we have to wait until the cuts to the EPA and other environmental programs have gone through? What more does this country have to do before coal jobs come roaring back?