21Feb

The Iliad – A CPP Parable for Our Time

EPA has scheduled listening sessions on the Clean Power Plan (CPP) for today (Kansas City), next week (San Francisco, Calif.) and next month (Gillette, Wyo.), dragging the controversial carbon control machinery back in discussion. Stayed by the Supreme Court, the CPP’s fate now resides with EPA under new management. Although a decision to repeal and […]
20Feb

Reliable Energy Production is Too Important to Risk

Via The Kansas City Star: What to do about the Clean Power Plan, or CPP, which has been hanging around in bureaucratic limbo since the closing days of President Barack Obama’s administration? Obama considered it the centerpiece of his climate agenda. But the Supreme Court issued a stay against its massive costs in 2016, and then President Donald […]
14Feb

NMA Supports Tax Credit to Safeguard Reliable Coal Based Power Generation

National Mining Association (NMA) President and CEO Hal Quinn today issued the following statement in support of “The Electricity Reliability and Fuel Security Act,” sponsored by Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.). The bill, a response to threats to the resiliency of the nation’s power grid due to the loss of almost 600 coal plants nationwide since […]
14Feb

The New Luddites

If any further evidence is needed to substantiate widespread voter frustration with Washington gridlock, consider the current reaction to the administration’s infrastructure initiative.  “Infrastructure” improvement is as close as we’ll get to a bipartisan call to action. So what’s to complain about — except who will pay and how much? Now we know. Almost immediately […]
12Feb

Power Plan’s Defeat Brought Real Change

Via Huntington News: Two years ago, the outlook for West Virginia’s energy sector seemed grim. We feared for the future of families whose living depends upon coal mining. We were concerned about our state’s economy and energy production. We faced the possibility of another anti-coal president, this one with an environmental agenda even more radical than […]
08Feb

Infrastructure – The Missing Link

Washington is now setting its fleeting sights on rebuilding infrastructure.On Monday the White House will unveil infrastructure “principles” that hopefully will add meat to the bones of the president’s initiative highlighted in his State of the Union address. This week both Senate and House committees examined aspects of energy and infrastructure. To “contextualize” this, the […]
07Feb

Trump Repealed 1 Obama-Era EPA Regulation and Saved Countless Jobs

Via The Western Journal: The Trump administration’s decision to rescind global warming regulations on power plants likely prevented more coal plants and mines from shutting down, according to government data. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest energy outlook projects coal-fired power capacity to continue to decline through 2050, but fewer coal plants will retire than if the Clean […]
06Feb

Chinese Steelmaking Sparks Mini-revival for Ailing Coal Industry

Via The Washington Examiner: Consol Energy saw a record year at its coal export terminal in Baltimore in 2017, serving ships bound for Asia and Europe. The company mined some of the coal itself from its three sites in southwestern Pennsylvania, mostly in the form of traditional thermal — or steam — coal, used for electricity […]
31Jan

Trump Celebrates End of Wars on ‘American Energy’ and ‘Clean Coal’

Via The Washington Examiner: President Trump on Tuesday night celebrated his administration’s success in implementing its “energy dominance” agenda. “We have ended the war on American energy, and we have ended the war on beautiful clean coal,” Trump declared during his first State of the Union address. “We are now proudly an exporter of energy to […]
31Jan

The Builder from Queens

President Trump, a builder from Queens, N.Y., announced his ambition to rebuild the country. “America is a nation of builders,” he reminded Congress last night, a fact largely forgotten among pundits who write and think but seldom build anything. Coal mining is all about building. The three great industrial revolutions – first England’s, then America’s […]