"King Coal"

                                                         

Over the weekend I was watching a video of a coal miner testifying at an EPA hearing attendant to the fella's coal mine being shut down.  The EPA holds those hearings...not because they want to, but because they have to.

The miner's testimony lasted 2 minutes and 32 seconds.  He only spoke for a minute or so because he was so choked up that he could barely speak.  He spoke about his family, his family's long history in coal mining and his lifelong dedication to delivering a source of affordable power for his neighbors.  The fella then asked the EPA panel if they could be satisfied with the government paying out, first unemployment, then welfare checks and food stamps to the thousands of miners losing their jobs....the EPA folks offered no response.

There was great tragedy here.  Yes, certainly the tragedy of a 50 year old man having to go out and find a job at a time when his age is nearly prohibitive for successfully doing so.  However, the large tragedy, and the one that will affect all of us, is that this fellow is working at a "clean coal technology mine where 90% of all pollutants are removed from the atmosphere and present a tiny, tiny impact on air pollution or global warming.  Even the by-products of producing clean coal are being recycled.  Some geological engineer found a way to send the byproducts two miles underground, returning them to the deep coal beds already existing.

I guess I have to first ask the EPA, and Obama and his greenie minions what they plan to use to replace even the clean coal now being produced.  As the chart above shows, coal provides 50% of our  current energy needs, with natural gas and nuclear providing 20% each.  Our friend Jerry, up in Oregon, enjoys a small part of the 7% of the hydroelectric contribution.  Petroleum provides one percent...and then you have that little tiny slice classified as "other".  For your edification that conglomerated 2% is wind power and solar..with solar providing a tiny .043 percent of our total electric needs.

So, not having a dog in the hunt, not having any friends or relatives directly impacted by Obama's war on coal, I guess I'd ask the following questions:

1) What will we replace that 50% of coal based energy source with?

2)  At what cost to the American consumer of electric power to warm and cool our homes?

3)  What will be the impact on our economy when American business is forced to pay triple what  other countries are paying to power their factories?

4) How will punishing the American consumer and destroying American competitiveness in the global market place improve our nation?  

5) Will China feel sorry for us and stop using coal?  Will they clear up their own massive contribution to pollution and global warming?

6) Must we kill King Coal in one fell swoop before we've developed cheap and efficient alternative energy sources?

7) Why are you and the EPA so pig-headed that you are closing the two largest clean coal sites in the world?

That coal miner working to produce the cleanest coal in the world wasn't as articulate and smooth talking as Obama.  He wasn't smart enough to ask all the hoity-toity questions in the language only the elites understand....he only knows he's a third generation coal miner whose life work is now over.

And if the irony could not be any greater, if hypocrisy and idiocy could not get any worse, Sunday's business section of USA today reports that we are now importing over ten million tons of coal from Honduras because Obama and the EPA has shut down, or economically crippled our own coal mines....can anyone explain to me how Honduras, a few hundred miles to our south, emitting 100% of toxins into the air is better than a clean coal plant that now emits less than ten percent?  Folks, this is madness.

Note:  I said Honduras, then mentioned Columbia (mistake, it was Honduras..now corrected.)