The EU is Banning Almost All Coal Mining on Jan 1 (futurism.com) 351
Every unprofitable coal mine in the European Union must cease production by the first day of 2019, the date on which all public funds for the mines will come to an end. From a report: In Spain, that means that 26 coal mines are about to close up shop, according to Reuters. This move away from coal is a refreshing bit of bluntness -- letting the failed remnants of a fossil fuel industry fade away -- compared to how the federal government in the U.S. is grasping at anything to keep coal alive. But it remains to be seen how much of an impact the coal closures will have in the ongoing effort to curb climate change. The deadline was set back in 2010 as the EU sought to move away from fossil fuel dependence, according to Telesur. The EU wanted to end public aid to coal mines sooner, but groups from Germany -- which shuttered its last coal mine earlier this month -- and Spain are responsible for extending the deadline all the way to the end of 2018.
Real question is what effect it will have (Score:5, Interesting)
Subsidies in general I'm against...
However the real question is - will this have any impact or energy prices or availability in the EU, or in Spain?
If not, great. But if it does cause prices to rise, or it means electricity becomes more reliably... well then perhaps there was more to the subsidy than just supporting coal.
Ending the use of coal is a noble goal, if for no other reason than the reduction of real pollution. But we also have to be careful not to leave too many people out in the cold, to have alternatives.
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Subsidies in general I'm against...
However the real question is - will this have any impact or energy prices or availability in the EU, or in Spain?
If not, great. But if it does cause prices to rise, or it means electricity becomes more reliably... well then perhaps there was more to the subsidy than just supporting coal.
Ending the use of coal is a noble goal, if for no other reason than the reduction of real pollution. But we also have to be careful not to leave too many people out in the cold, to have alternatives.
So basically, you are against subsidies except if they result in price increases for you? You can't have your cake and eat it...
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So basically, you are against subsidies except if they result in price increases for you?
I don't live in the EU.
I am for getting rid of subsides ASAP. I don't care if that affects me, I care if removing them hurts people who have little to no means to care for themselves....
Shouldn't you be? I mean, what do you have against the poor anyway Scrooge?
Freischutz
OHHHH German. I get it.
P.S. am half German myself.
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They/we just closed the domestic mines. ... another 15 - 30 years to go.
Now we import coal till the power plants are shut down
They'll just buy more from overseas (Score:2)
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If only some local energy supply could be extracted from underground using a nations own currency.
Work for local people. Wages and decades of production. None of the politics and import costs.
Energy security and not having to import from difficult nations.
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We don't import much energy from difficult nations such as the USA ...
Then again, the most important energy we import is: oil.
No idea why people like you nitpick about a little bit of coal, where ever it comes from, and a little bit of gas, where ever it comes from. In the big picture it is completely irrelevant. And: Germany has its coal exhausted. We have more or less the gas exhausted, the oil is gone long ago. Except for wind and solar: we import all energy, and will do so for ever!
Equalising effect on the cost of coal, good for re (Score:3, Insightful)
The ending of government subsidies to coal mines will have an equalising effect on the cost of coal (up to the new cost of production) making it easier for renewables to compete on an even playing field.
They aren't banning coal mining (Score:5, Interesting)
All that is being banned is government support of coal mines. If a billionaire wanted to run a money losing coal mine they are more than welcome to. They just won't get any help from the government to keep it open like they would have up to today (2018/12/31).
Closing mines doesn't mean anything, except for impacting the people working there and in the town nearby. The power plants will just get the coal from the mines that are profitable. When the EU is closing the coal fired power plants and replacing them with something that generates fewer emissions then they'll see the reductions that they are seeking.
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Closing mines doesn't mean anything
Indeed, but remember they aren't "closing mines". What they are doing is refusing to inject subsidies into the industry. The net effect will have to come from somewhere, typically that will be in the form of higher prices making coal power less attractive and viable.
The immediate impact is zero to the environment (aside from the local town being able to breath clean air). But in the long run this does have an effect which is incremental on all the other pressures being faced.
Re:They aren't banning coal mining (Score:5, Insightful)
Closing the mines is a big step forward. Firstly it sent a very clear signal to everyone that coal is going away, and as such industries that rely on it have been switching to alternatives. They delay to 2019 was to allow that it happen.
Even the remaining coal fired power plants are changing. Many are relatively new, replacing older more polluting ones with designs that allow them to better integrate into a grid high a high level of renewable energy. There are far fewer of them too. For example Spain is back to 1980s level of coal powered electricity generation and headed down.
Flawed aspirational goals (Score:2)
"EU must not burn the world's forests for 'renewable' energy" [theguardian.com]
See also: Unintended consequences [yale.edu]
Once they close (Score:2)
The others become MORE profitable.
I see a market (Score:2)
The usual non-sense (Score:2)
Liberal arts major's idiocy. (Score:3, Insightful)
article is bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
The article is bullshit, or in todays terms, fake news.
The opposite is true, at least for Germany. We are keeping our old coal power stations running while shutting down nuclear power. There has been a conflict this autumn over the expansion of one of several surface mining sites. This is surface mining [artwiese.ch] - the tiny trails in the foreground are from giant trucks.
Coal is the only energy source that Germany has on its own soil. The amount of oil and gas we have is a rounding error, and there are no uranium mines. That is why all through the Cold War, coal has been kept running with subsidies, for military strategic purposes (energy independence in case of war). Because of that, no transition was even started until fairly recently, and jobs and industries are tied to it that can't be quickly moved elsewhere.
And the government that is using every PR opportunity to point out how conscious of the environment they are is actually doing the exact opposite and has been doing that for years. Brown coal (lignite), the one that you get by surface mining, which has much lower energy density than black (bituminous) coal that you get from mines, is the primary coal used in Germany. Its share of the energy mix has been almost constant for the past 30 years [wikipedia.org], falling from about 38% to about 29% in that time, or 0.3% per year on average. At that speed, it will be another century until we stop using it.
Re:article is bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
But "bullshit" could be attributed to some of your statements, namely: "Coal is the only energy source that Germany has on its own soil." - No, Germany has so much (non-fossil) energy sources available that it has been a net exporter of (electric) energy consistently for the last years. And the statement "there are no uranium mines" is true only if you add "active", as there is plenty of Uranium still available from the mines in the Erzgebirge, those mines are just not active because they would be unprofitable to run at this point.
Re:Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, those instances of the human race that do not prioritize species survival, will not survive. But apparently that is too hard to grasp because it is quite a while in the future. Bust thanks for illustrating the fundamental nearsightedness of most people. Also, Science is not Religion. One is for people with working minds, the other is for the rest.
Re:Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Insightful)
I totally agree that thousands and thousands of scientists across many disciplines,, most who have never talked, seen, or even heard of each other, have somehow conspired to take as much money as possible by lying to the public. It's amazing how they do it!
I mean I even heard someone say the temperature has increased by 1C over the last hundred years. We've only had satellites since 1979.
Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band formed in Leyton, East London, in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Can you spell non-sequitur?
Re: Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with climate change is some people like to believe it isn't true, because it means they are in some way special and "in the know".
But they are idiots. The science is a provable done deal at this point. Twenty years ago, having some skepticism was sensible (and it always makes sense to be skeptical of motivations -- Al Gore, I'm looking at you), but man-made climate change is just impossible to refute without resorting to a conspiracy that includes basically every climate scientist and body in the world working in coordination, including fake temperature measurements from a huge array of sources. It just isn't plausible. Plus, we are experiencing the exact instability that the models predict, so we would need to be faking pretty much all the global news on storms, etc.
But you know what, even if there was doubt (there isn't), would it not be a good idea to err on the side of caution and not pump huge amounts of shit into the atmosphere?
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We know climates change. The effects are less well known however. We know a little bit from geology but even there the results of mass extinctions were at least partially if not wholly caused by the event itself and not directly a result of the climate on its own.
The other problem we don't know is the economics. How will it affect progress? How will you pay for the solution? Where do we spend the energy to sustain the energy? Nuclear and beyond (fusion) seems to be the most promising but there is lots of mi
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Speaking of misinformation, are you really trotting out the old "send us back to the stone age" bullshit?
When adults talk about this they recognize that no-one wants that, they just have different proposals for how to make life better. They also understand that the effects are fairly well understood at this point, as are the solutions and more important the politics of the solutions.
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"Speaking of misinformation, are you really trotting out the old "send us back to the stone age" bullshit?"
Of course he is. You don't get to be surprised that someone who vomits up garbage about chopping up eagles is full of shit.
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Cats killing birds at a rate 10,000 times higher than wind and solar power combined [usatoday.com].
Re: Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Insightful)
The effects are less well known however.
And I call strawman right there.
We know that life as we know it depends on a very narrow margin of conditions. Miniscule changes can have dramatic impact. The eco-system is a chaotic system, speaking strictly mathematically. It is stable within small margins, and can easily go into various runaway positive feedback loops. We have already seen in multiple cases how the introduction of one foreign species can impact a local ecology.
We do not need to know the exact effects to understand that there is a considerable risk involved that has a very real probability of causing damage in amounts that we haven't yet heard about in connection with currency values. Trillions will be the pocket change when we're talking about large parts of coastlines affected.
The other problem we don't know is the economics. How will it affect progress? How will you pay for the solution?
Unlike climate, economics is not a natural system, but an artifical one. Despite all the bullshit rhetorics that makes it seem like economics is some kind of higher power, we humans decide how it works and where it goes. Anyone who tells you the opposite stands to profit from that falsehood.
If you have one system that is based on the laws of physics, and one system that is entirely man-made, it should be clear to anyone with three working brain-cells which system needs to adapt, because there is only one that can be adapted.
Re: Press F to pay respects (Score:4, Insightful)
It was no more reasonable for the average person to be skeptical twenty years ago, not even slightly. There was consensus along climate scientists then, and people aren't generally any better educated on science now than they were then. Most of them knew jack then, and they still know jack now. Either way the reasonable thing is to trust the people who know more than you do. For the plumber to expect to be trusted in matters of shit and then refuse to trust scientists in matters of science is a truly pathetic disconnect.
Re: Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of them aren't idiots: they're old people. It's a perfectly rational decision for them to pretend climate change doesn't exist, because fixing it will cost them money while bringing them none of the benefits. Who cares if it bankrupts their children or grandchildren? It's the same approach they've taken to national budgeting: cut taxes today, let the next generation pay for the debt after we're dead.
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Most of them aren't idiots: they're old people.
There's plenty of overlap in that particular diagram.
It's a perfectly rational decision for them to pretend climate change doesn't exist, because fixing it will cost them money while bringing them none of the benefits.
It isn't, either. Not fixing it will cost them money, too. It's already costing money, it's not like that's something for the far-off future.
Re:Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Insightful)
You are fatally wrong. I do know how scientific funding works. Strongly advising hard real-world changes is one of the ways to not get funding for your research. Why do you think climate scientists have been so tame when the models did reliably predict the catastrophe to come about 30 years ago? Simple: They did not want their funding to dry up and did hope the human race would realize how bad things are without them pushing. They have now realized that the human race is far too stupid for that and have started pushing _despite_ the negative effects on their funding, because of pure desperation.
As to the past measurements, why on earth do you think measuring temperatures requires satellites of all things? What these older records use is thermometers and records on paper. What then needs to be adjusted (and the adjustments are entirely legitimate) is the extrapolations of the localized measurements.
How anybody at this time can still think this whole thing is not real and not very dire is beyond me. People like you will probably deny there is a problem while in the process of dying from its effects.
Re:Press F to pay respects (Score:4, Funny)
I'm somewhat immune
Please don't breed.
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Good god. How can you write that with a straight face?
Simple: I actually know how the process works, from both sides. If you propose to "rock the boat", you probably will have to fund things yourself. Research funding is typically only granted for incremental things that assure results.
But I will stop answering you now. Your perception of your own level of insight and your actual level of insight is grossly out of alignment, making you immune to facts. Here is the research result that explains this (although you probably do not have what it takes to understand
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I am talking about climate research. Climate researchers are not bankers.
Re:Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing that climate deniers on Slashdot should understand more than most is that climate scientists are scientists and love technology and gadgets and shit. If there was any way to believe that we could just keep.going with coal power, scientists would be pushing it harder than anyone.
(And indeed some do, with carbon capture and other assorted "cleaner coal" technology. Full disclaimer: I used to do numeric models for carbon sequestration. I still think it will work as a transition technology.)
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So you think what will get human civilization ended is the inability of most people to distinguish Science from Religion? Would not surprise me in the least.
Re:Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Insightful)
Most things are taken on faith. Never been to Australia, yet I have faith it exists based on what evidence I have. Never been to the Moon but I have faith that it is mostly as described rather then a balloon launched by the evil Liberals to spy on god fearing Americans. Never seen an atom or even an atom bomb, but have faith they exist based on various things that collaborate there existence. I even have faith that things fall towards the center of the Earth in Australia even though it's below me.
This is life, we have to have faith as we can't check everything out, whether it is geography or science. When there is consensus that Australia exists or the Sun burns by nuclear reactions or electricity works by electrons or that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing and CO2 is a greenhouse gas, most everyone has to take things on faith.
Both geography and science generally get more accurate with time and it would be stupid to deny everything we can't personally check out. Shit, even flying to Australia wouldn't prove it exists as perhaps the plane made a subtle turn and landed somewhere else where everyone pretends it is Australia.
Re:Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Funny)
Mate, I have trouble believing Australia exists some of the time, and I live there.
it is a misuse of the word faith (Score:2)
* At school you were taught basic stuff trivial you could check for yourself and later on built upon it with stuff you could check on y
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So in all actuality, it's just a matter of faith that the people who say the math is right are in fact right.
They're having faith in a system. The system takes in people, turns them into scientists and engineers, etc. The end product is technology that would amaze people of previous generations whether they understood the science or not. This would be analogous to witnessing miracles. As a result they trust this system and since the scientists are part of a system that works, they have faith in the scientists. For example, people like their sat-navs and can see that they work. They don't usually know Einste
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You are incapable of distinguishing Science from non-science. Explains a lot.
Re:Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither. Scenario 3 is a whole bunch of people (overwhelmingly most of those who have studied the phenomenon) predict that extreme events will permanently increase in rate over time, including high powered storms, and this agrees strongly with observations. They predict a sustained global average temperature rise (note: local average temperature decreases are *not* contraindications), which has been observed although to be fair, this needs a long measurement time (we're looking at permanent >2 degree Celsius change from man-made contributions over 100 years). They also predict eventual sea level rising substantially once a certain threshold is reached, which has not yet been reached. Frost-free season lengthening -- that's held for almost 40 years now. Droughts and heat waves have increased in frequency 10-fold. Arctic is projected to get ice-free summers in about 30-40 years.
Most predictions have come to pass, and a distressingly large number of them are passing in the "worst-case-scenario" version. Not literally every one that has ever been made.
Note, no religion ever snagged 97% of people who looked into it to be followers.
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An interesting bit research into extreme events is looking at relative vs expected rates of record setting events. There's a lot of research into this, and there are statistical hallmarks of stable systems that we see breaking down in weather records currently.
As an example, lets say we start taking temperature measurements today. Tomorrow is going to be either a record high or a record low, or the same temperature as today. The day after now has something like a one-in-three chance of being a record. As ti
Re:Press F to pay respects (Score:4, Informative)
Sc 1.: That is a political statement, not a scientific one. A scientific statement cannot make absolute predictions. And there will be a basis of facts and a chain of reasoning. And before that statement is uses as a well-established base of further study or to recommend actions, it will need and get independent verification. If it is an extraordinary claim, it will need extraordinary verification. (Climate Science has that by now and had it for a while.) After all that, it becomes sound Science and something smart people will depend on.
The problem here is that neither your Sc. 1 or your Sc 2. is Science. The root-cause is likely that you do not understand how the scientific process actually works.
Re: Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Insightful)
I see the problem.
You're arguing as if they were skeptics and therefore open to new evidence, whereas you are in fact arguing with cynics who don't give a damn about the evidence.
What's more, you're arguing with puritanical cynics, who in the words of a Victorian author, are insensibly drawn to choosing the facts to fit their theories.
There's no point. In terms of effort, it would be easier to find ways to build a functioning Biosphere II on Mars and move there.
Actual climate skeptics, they're worth talking to, because a skeptic is convinced by data and reason. A cynic isn't and never will be. There aren't many skeptics, they looked at the data and were convinced.
And, yes, some were paid a great deal by rich cynics to find faults. What they found was that there was no fault. The science was sound. The cynics these days try to pretend that never happened. Ruins the narrative.
You can't pretend people are paid to get a given result when you pay them to get the opposite and they still get the same result.
Mind you, I doubt that anyone was paying the scientists back in 1896 to talk about AGW.
But, then, thus is about facts and the cynics don't want those.
I'm not sure what they do want, as they mostly oppose their supposed beliefs of Libertarianism in their opposition to AGW. So I reject utterly the thesis that this is for such political beliefs or, indeed, for anything. It is purely cynical reactionary conduct.
Re: Press F to pay respects (Score:5, Interesting)
You hit the nail on the head. Here's what being a climate skeptic looks like: The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic [nytimes.com].
Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct.
Richard Muller is the poster child for what a real skeptic looks like and how they behave. He saw what he thought were serious errors in measuring climate change, and decided to do it right. What he found was that he just didn't really understand the field, and he didn't understand why things were being done the way they were. He was excessively and very inefficiently thorough, but doing it his own way he got the same answer, because he was rigorously applying proper scientific and statistical techniques. When you do that, reality doesn't change.
What he didn't do was to prosecute climate change in the media, where reality can take a back seat to flash and entertainment. What he didn't do was make some blogs up and cherry pick evidence to feed to an audience who doesn't want to believe. What he didn't do was go into the comment section of articles on climate change and flatly deny everything we know to be true about climate change. None of that is skepticism. It's trolling at the best, or a bizarrely dogmatic decision to be wrong at the worst.
I think his most powerful point, and one that deniers really need to address, is this:
The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does.
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Indeed. When first made, the climate change claims were extraordinary claims and hence needed extraordinary proof. That proof has been supplied 2...3 decades ago and by now the claim that climate change is not real or nor man-made is the extraordinary claim. Hence the claim that it is not real needs extraordinary proof today. What the deniers have is "I don't believe it".
If this was something not very relevant, I would call the behavior of the deniers instructive and a good example of how not to do it. Unfo
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There's plenty of experiments. Science works by building models and testing models.
Science discovers how gravity works from doing experiments and generalizations. I do not have to do an experiment to tell you how long it would take for an elephant, dropped from 1km in the sky above *Mercury*, to reach the ground. I can predict it, and that prediction is science. It's a conclusion based on a model we generated that has substantial agreement with evidence that is not elephants and is not above Mercury. But th
Re: Press F to pay respects (Score:3)
Thete is no literal proof in science. You're looking for theology.
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Well, it has gotten rather complex in most areas. But scientists can still judge general merit of well-established facts on other fields with reasonable accuracy. So unless most scientists get indoctrinated in some consistent way (if so, they missed me and some friends of mine), you can check what scientists with no bone in a specific field say about its results.
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It sucks that nobody in power can think of anything productive to do with single-industry towns when the industry becomes obsolete or unsustainable. Surely the modern economy has some meaningful jobs available?
Re:Economic pressures (Score:4, Interesting)
This will hopefully drive the cost of business for US coal miners way up
Not many mines will close. The EU gets about 21% of their electricity from coal, and that isn't going to change.
Only the mines receiving taxpayer subsidies will close. Most likely the production will shift to the profitable mines, making them even more profitable.
Importing from America doesn't make much sense because of transport costs, but there are some imports.
The real question is why are we providing welfare for the mediocre?
When you combine socialism with democracy, there is pressure from the electorate to preserve jobs in declining industries. This leads to Lemon Socialism [wikipedia.org], where public funds are used to prop up losers rather than backing winners.
It is good to see the EU finally pulling the plug on subsidized coal mines, but they need to go much further.
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The EU gets about 21% of their electricity from coal, and that isn't going to change.
Yeah actually it is. Here in the UK all coal powered generation is set to cease in 2025 and it has gone from providing 45% of all power in 2012 to now just around 3%. Drax in the UK which was Europe's largest coal powered power station is now almost all biomass and gas. The rest of the EU is following a similar path.
Re:Economic pressures (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't that what trump is doing with coal?
No. It is what he promised to do, but did not follow through.
American coal mines are continuing to close, as they should. Production is increasingly concentrated in a few big mines in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, which produces more coal than the next four states combined.
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It's also interesting to see why so many on the left are suddenly against these supposed lefty policies, including pulling out of the middle east.
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Trumps economics are pretty far left. Protectionism, propping up failing industries, making promises to support labour are all left policies.
Except for probably the biggest economic choice of the left which is a social safety net of some sort. Hopefully he'll grab hold of that too, with the effects you describe.
Re: Economic pressures (Score:3)
Interesting theory and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. It should keep the furnace going nicely, all that hot air.
None of those are leftist policies. Do you know what a leftist is? No, neither does anyone else. It's one of those fictional terms invented to deride something you don't understand well enough to describe.
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Im in no way 100% anti-coal. I am sure, eventually, we might find some unique use for it. But if its not turning a profit then I see no reason to subsidize it. Eventually something will happen economically where it makes economic sense to use it. If not, natural selection had the final say. Any tampering to accellerste this will eventually have a market correction and it will return practically on steroids. Just let natural selection run its course. If other sources fit the economic model better, then so b
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If we keep burning fossil fuels we're going to select against our species by rendering the biosphere incapable of supporting it. Natural or unnatural, fitness has to include not fouling the nest. We claim Dominion over the entire planet, but we don't even clean up after ourselves. We're no better than rats.
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Huh? Pared-back nothing is cheaper than coal.
If by "pared back" you mean that a massive freebie of externalised costs is given to coal.
If coal is more expensive than renewables in the EU its purely because of taxes placed on coal and subsidies granted to renewables. But on a level playing field coal is way cheaper.
No, forcing coal to pay for costs that they cause other third parties to incur is levelling the playing field.
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In europe is probably no single hard coal mine that is not subsidized.
So, about what are you talking? Importing coal from China is cheeper than wind power? Well, it is wrong, but a nice hypothesis. Digging your own coal is cheaper? Obviously not, as it is 10 times as expensive than importing it from China ... or USA ... or Chile ... or Australia.
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This will hopefully drive the cost of business for US coal miners way up, since there is now a smaller market of buyers. The real question is why are we providing welfare for the mediocre?
Um, what? The EU closing a bunch of mines will not make the market smaller, it will make it larger. The coal fired power plants in the EU will still need coal, and if they're not getting it locally they will have to import it from somewhere which will drive the price up. That's a good thing for the coal miners, but not for the environment, as it will mean more strip mining in the U.S.
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With all the wind power investments which have been made in Europe the amount of power required to run on baseload keeps decreasing. While the rest needs to be covered with a reliable quick-cycling power source which nearly inevitably tends to be natural gas.
At the same time the natural gas reserves in Europe, like in the Netherlands, and the North Sea, keep shrinking. So expect a lot of Russian gas imports in the future for Europe.
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Your train of thought halts a few stations too early.
Driving coal prices up will make coal electricity too expensive which will lead to further closing of coal power plants.
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The market for coal in the US is dropping no matter what the orange turd in the white house claims. The electric generating plants that burn it are closing or converting to natural gas and almost all the planned coal burning plants have been shelved or just completely dropped due to costs revolving around scrubbing all the pollution out of the exhaust from the plants.
Natural gas is cheaper to extract and transport. Natural gas electric plants are much less expensive to build than coal burning plants. The US
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Unfortunately, there are a lot of time lags in the system, and we have probably already made changes that will result in 2 degrees Centigrade warming...or more. The oceans have been warming and so has the permafrost. (Most of the current rise in sea levels is due to the warming of the oceans, as warmer water takes up more space than colder water down to around 4 degrees Centigrade.)
So while reducing the impact of current actions is extremely highly desirable, it's probably not going to stave off unpredict
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A minor nit - only fresh water is densest at 4 deg. Salt water expands from its freezing point upwards.
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They cannot get "profitable" - they are producing heavily subsidized coal for the local electricity and pollution generation. To become "profitable" the local electricity prices or the costs will have to go up sharply, and that's not happening. The first because electricity prices are "stabilized", and the second because there is no money to fund plant upgrades.
The optimistic, bullshit tone of the quoted web site and the summary are hardly warranted.
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What fails to get consumed in the EU is now free for export deals.
No work and they cant even keep their exports going.
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Coal gets incredibly expensive the longer the shipping route is because it has so little energy density. Plus most of the high quality coal in Europe has already been mined. It has been mined ever since the Industrial Revolution. China has plenty of crap quality coal to burn right there on their turf. Plus they can import the high quality coal cheaper from places like Australia.
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You're telling me mining in EU countries like Poland or Bulgaria will stop?
I think the only thing anyone will be telling you is that you don't know how to read.
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LOL, the butthurt illiterate distributor of fake news from a few days ago :)
Re:No, they are not (Score:5, Informative)
You're telling me mining in EU countries like Poland or Bulgaria will stop? LOL. That will put a major proletariat force out in the street, a force that the yellow jackets will look feeble next to.
No it won't. There is no "mining proletariat" left. Mining is done with machines, and two or three people supervising the machines. The time that mines (and smelters and forges) employed a lot of people was 30, 40, 50 years ago.
I mean, it was the Polish miners who brought about the collapse of Communism, remember?
No it was not. It was a trade union, the trade union of the shipyards.
No, most of coal mining will remain operational in the EU
The article is about closing mines that are subsidized. In Germany that is _every_ mine. The hammer from the EU is only coming because the german governments never dared to completely drop all subsidizing. Hint: if every coal worker would be set free and continued to be payed by the government, the state would pay less than he does at the moment in subsidizes.
Perhaps you should grow up and learn to read some newspapers ... you are out of the loop since 50 years.
Re:No, they are not (Score:4, Insightful)
Which part of ""mining proletariat" left" don't you get?
There is not even an automotive proletariat anymore. All industries are done by machines.
"You'll be surprised how backwards and sad it is compared to your sofa and your computer games." :D I mostly live in Europe, idiot. There is nothing backward here. The other part of the year Iive in Asia, mostly Thailand, there is absolutely nothing backward here either. No idea in what shit hole you live, though.
Haha
Hint: the mining and steel industry used to have _millions_ yes, in a country of 60 million people at that time (80million now), we had _millions_ of workers in coal mines and the steel industry. Now, 2019, it is perhaps not even 10,000. If you want to call that a 'proletariat', up to you. There are probably more software engineers working at Thyssen-Krupp-Stahl than engineers/workers in actual smelters or other steel manufacturing facilities.
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You've obviously never been to Eastern Europe and have no idea what it is like.
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Every unprofitable coal mine in the European Union must cease production
Yes, because in capitalism, unprofitable coal mines would be kept afloat instead. :-p
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Renewables will have a more difficult time becoming ubiquitous, while fighting against the entrenched interests. Also - jerbs!
I think the massive increase in electricity prices they bring due to insufficient battery technology has more to do with it. Renewables are about as big a part of the energy mix as they can practically be right now, without some breakthrough in battery tech. Past some point, more renewables means more natural gas with means more CO2. We are probably already past that point now.
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40 percent of the world's electricity comes from coal. King Coal is not going away any time soon.
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Nah it was dumb not to do it. Instead you guys ship the crude oil by train to the USA and it is refined there. The refineries earn all the money while the Canadian extracts earn less and less. Ever heard of this guy called Rockefeller and Standard Oil?
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Re:U Fucking Albertan... (Score:2)
Re:Sorry (Score:2)
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Yeah the fact that they did not fund that pipeline or refineries back when oil was at $150 USD and they could have easily raised the money was dumb as fuck.
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All I ever hear of is the EU banning one thing or another.
That's because you live in what is commonly known as an "echo chamber". This is sad really since in the days of Google the only people who spend their time in ignorance do so willfully.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
And here one more news article: https://www.eubusiness.com/new... [eubusiness.com]