Priorities! Trump announces $600 million in new coal subsidies on the eve of the government shutdown.

Photo above - America's largest surviving coal fired power plant, near Macon Georgia. See the intense orange flames, proving those are NOT nuclear cooling towers? The plant uses 11 million tons of coal annually, all brought by train from Wyoming. That's 1 million railroad cars, if you're keeping count . . .

I haven’t seen a coal fired electric plant in years. The closest one to me is about an hour south, near Gibsonville Florida, off route 41. Never been there. America has been phasing coal plants out. President Trump wants to change all that. $600 million in taxpayer money will be used to reopen closed coal fired electric plants (see link below).

If I can oppose government handouts for windmills - and billion dollar fusion reactors which don’t actually generate power – I can rant against handouts for coal strip mines and power plants too. More coal is the answer to a question nobody ever asked, except possibly miners in West Virginia and Wyoming.

I’m all for more electricity. During a watch party for the Buccaneers game Sunday we were bombarded with several “AWS” ads – Amazon Web Services. Between AWS and Amazon’s half dozen AI projects there is a LOT of electrical consumption. Jeff Bezos refuses to disclose how much electricity his empire uses, but I’m going to guess it’s considerably more than what could be generated by $600 million worth of remodeled coal plants.

The problem isn’t coal. Or AI, or server farms in general. Or nuclear power plants nearing the end of their useful lives. Or windmills which need to be torn down and thrown into the sea to become artificial reefs after their 25 year life expectancy is reached. Or dams which block rivers and prevent fish from spawning. The problem is that we – as consumers – always insist on more and more electrically powered conveniences, and the cheapest possible KwH cost to run these things.

Remember when we were brainwashed that LED lights were so efficient that they were going to save us from needing new power plants? Government mandates forbade the construction of new homes with incandescent bulbs, and soon they were no longer even for sale at Home Depot. A single 60 watt (equivalent) LED replacement cost $9.99 back then. Hooray, we will earn back the purchase cost over 25 years if we use that bulb 2 hours a day.

Today those same bulbs are available (from Amazon) for 90 cents each. Down from $9.99 each during the heady government mandate+stop climate change era. I possibly still have some of those $9.99 legacy LED bulbs in some of my lamps. And CFC twist bulbs, too.

Government mandates and giveaways distort markets. Just like the cost of LED bulbs first went over the moon, then eventually came back to earth. Now those refurbished coal plants are going to make someone rich. Our government is picking winners and losers. Someone with a stake in coal has just become a winner, and someone with a stake in wind turbines was a loser earlier this year.



I’m just sayin’ . . .



Trump administration opens more land for coal mining, offers $625M to boost coal-fired power plants