TRUMPS coal award and side effects

@whowasthatmaskedman I appreciate it will be hard where mining is about the only work available but at least more automation means fewer men are having to risk accidents and disease down there. Are there though, enough even wanting such work? Would they choose it if there are cleaner, healthier alternatives?

A coal-fired power-station should not emit soot. If it does, shown by undue smoke from incomplete conbustion, I would wonder if it is badly maintained - but you seem to hint at that. The exhaust is mainly carbon-dioxide but can also contain sulphur-dioxide from impurities naturally in the coal, and which can and should be removed before it enters the chimney.

@ArishMell i live in a little town in kansas.. and its farm work here. still the kids move away for the better jobs in the city.. i dont blame them.. i would think its the same there.. want a wife ya gotta move where there are people. have a 5 grade education work in the mines.. just my thought

@ArishMell I meant my points as observations, rather that plus or minus points. There will be less miners, thats a fact. But the times, they are a changing. "Back in the day" mining was a generational job, with sons following fathers. The world is very different now, whether is is "Zoolander" or "Brassed Off" As for the idea of "Clean coal" Its a myth. And the more processing you put into the coal to burn off the sulphur and get complete combustion, the less profit there is. Many countries are covered in old Gold and Silver mining towns that are now ghost towns. Many coal mining towns will follow them in time..😷

@markinkansas Oh yes, in fact I think it is the same in many countries.

Although we live in a moderately-sized town, not the countryside, many of my former school-mates left the area for study and work reasons. Some went abroad. A couple of my nephews and neices have similarly moved away.

And obtaining a Degree doesn't always guarantee a career in your favourite subject.

@whowasthatmaskedman . Similar observations apply here in parts of the UK too.

For example.......

.Although not obviously so, one of the most deprived areas of England is Cornwall, in the far South-West, because it had relied for so long on copper and tin mining, and on fishing. The mining and its supporting trades including an Ingersoll-Rand machinery factory and Camborne School of Mines, has practically gone; the fishing considerably diminished. Lithium mining proposals now in consideration would use a very different approach: extracting the dissolved ore from the water now filling the abandoned tin mines; so needing very few staff.

The city of Plymouth, just over the border with Devon, is fairly industrial, hosting a Royal Navy base and a university.

There is farming, though Cornwall's granite moors can really only support sheep. Otherwise there is little other work outside of tourism (minimum-wages, long and unsociable hours, highly seasonal); and house prices in the region are artificially inflated by the holiday-cottage trade and by second-home owners.

The region - the peninsular that is England's SW "toe" dipping into the Atlantic Ocean - is also a long way from London and the rest of the country, so despite quite good road and rail links, that tends to deter investors.

Yet many see only the tourist publicity and think it must be such a lovely place to live....

......

The sulphur is not removed from the coal but from the exhaust, by passing the gases through wet limestone. The water and SO2 form sulphurous acid, which reacts with the limestone to turn that to harmless calcium sulphate (which occurs naturally as gypsum). I think the by-product is hydrogen. Yes, it adds to the cost, so likely has to be enforced by law rather than appealing to shareholders' good nature. I don't know if the gypsum itself is suitable for sale: it is the raw material for plaster, after all.

Oh, yes, the coal mines will inevitably disapper. Either we will stop using coal - and petroleum - by choice, or we will use it all up anyway. Then what will we do? I have not seen very much discussion on that.

@ArishMell Those last , other uses than fuel for coal and petroleum are the future. Those things are too valuable to burn. But long term planning is not the Wests "thing" right now..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman I don't think long-term planning ever has been the "thing".

I see it as a hangover from a hundred years ago and more, when people talked about "taming Nature", with ever more building, and with science and engineering solving everything.

Warnings were raised about climate-change, when coal was still pretty much the universal fuel and provider of valuable raw chemicals, but because that was based on contemporary figures the danger points were forecast far into this Century - so easily ignored. That misunderstanding remained until really quite recently.

So now it's panic stations as we realise we cannot tame Nature, but can bite it, and it will bite back, hard.

It is horribly clear that almost all of the debates around "energy" focus only on electricity - forgetting that electricity does not make stuff, only makes things happen. So the other uses of coal and oil are largely ignored.


That weakness is highlighted by contrasting "the West" with China. I think the major reason China is now the world's second-largest economy, and set to be the largest, is its totalitarian, one-party political system is designed for continuity, allowing planning for years, even decades ahead. It does not have to worry about elections creating governments of different parties with different ideologies. Its government is a tyranny though, and I for one would certainly not wish it on anyone.

@ArishMell Broadly speaking you are correct. I might clarify that the Chinese economy (unlike the government) is a mixed business, with Capitalist run businesses out there competing and making profits in the marketplace, And government run and funded enterprises providing items to create efficiency where an immediate profit is not yet possible. The Chinese high speed rail network being a prime example. It saves time and money for so many business, through fast easy transit for thousands of workers , getting them places way beyond normal commute range.😷

@ArishMell medical checkups are seven dollars and that includes new script. Twenty minutes whole process. Yes theres much surveillence and they are not kind to stray dogs. And since I could never learn the language I wont become Chinese and Im poor so wont visit there. Point is if they end up owing us here in murikkka its our own damm fault so we cant think we can have it both ways. But will prolly keep trying...

@Ohplease47 Oh, I'll never visit China either - I could not afford that for a start - but I don't think either of us will end up owned by it!

(I do have some friends who visited China, and thoroughly enjoyed it!)

@ArishMell so did my parents🥹