Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The West’s coal giant is going down...

Given the current state of politically correct fervor, I could see the Navajo site become a racial issue as the local tribe(s) suffer great economic loss. Who knows if it is too ate to stop this closure but recall that Trump authored a bill repealing all of the last minute Obama/EPA statutes that specifically put more pressure on the coal industry. The EPA rules were designed to make coal mining all but impossible to occur.
Here is one link to what happened.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/t...as-last-minute-coal-rule/article/2615022

Not sure I've much to add to this other than opinion, but a lot of the coal versus whatever debate is left field stuff to my eye, and I really don't care squat about local job losses and so forth. Economic enterprise is and always has been an evolutionary process.

Early part of my life we had our ways and means for getting things done, Roy Rogers was king of the west etc....times change, economies change, and uh, we've got a few more people on the block today than back then. Supply/demand meet Necessity, the child of Adversity.

If coal can't keep up, well, bye. If one is disposed to rattle on about economics, make sure you're well informed on the topic first, then with diligence include ALL of the direct and indirect impacts before forming an opinion. Ron Regan put the label on trickle down economics, but there's a ripple effect that is not always positive in the evaluation of business or economic models. Coal has some nasty aspects which carry great costs for mitigation, such as scrubber stacks. They cost a chitt load of money. Lacking same, local residents are beneficiaries of fallout from an emission stream which makes the bold blanch from the implied long term medical expenses which may result. Go ahead and lambast EPA if you wish, but a fundamental tenet of government is the health, safety and welfare. Sometimes they actually pay attention to those affairs.

So bark at me if you wish, or bark at EPA, none of it matters a lot. Follow the dollars, ALL of the dollars, and you will understand why things change as they do. You will understand why we are drifting away from 20th Century methodologies in an effort to power a population that is growing exponentially.

Nukes can work, though past design philosophy could stand improvement. Solar can work, but maybe not the way most envision it. My opinion only, but fossil fuels are too valuable to burn if one takes the long view. Your grandkids will likely see a day when a large segment of their transportation is powered by hydrogen and wonder what we were thinking when we put gas in our cars.

Carry on....

RickyD,

lots of high tech work to be done, lots of overtime required, and very good benefit packages.

structural welders and dragline operators are probably at the top of the scales.

I guess the laborers make $20/hour. most people there have a lot more skills than just a hardworking laborer.

plus, no illegals to drive wages down!

Sycamore

Three letters, LNG...

Typical coal fired power plant wages.
I work in the industry and the only reason cheap gas is competitive is the due to all the crazy environmental regs piled on coal and the difficulty in permiting new super critical boilers.

You figure 7 to 8 percent for SS and Medicare. $8k plus a year, at least, for insurance. Double it for a family. L&I, 401k, and any other program or payroll tax.....$141k out of the company pocket ain't gonna look like $141k on a pay stub the end of two weeks.

+1

Supposedly my health insurance alone is $21k, of that I pay $3k, so that looks like $18k per year or $9/hr. It's not on my paycheck.

It's on your W-2 form. You'll soon be taxed on it.

Guess they should have fought harder...

Cute, but beneath you.

Sycamore