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Western World's Largest Coal Company Goes Bankrupt

There will have to be some major strides in energy efficiency and circuitry as well as the energy producing resources. Id love to see it happen...but its not likely.

Theres always H3.
It looks like the current efficiencies put the breakeven point at about $90 a barrel.
Around that level, it will be cheaper for a refinery to buy wholesale electricity and make their own feedstock
from atmospheric CO2 and water.
Oil is low because of the current oversupply caused from fracking, but fracking wells
gets more oil quicker, not longer. In a few years the supply will reduce and the price will increase.
 
It looks like the current efficiencies put the breakeven point at about $90 a barrel.
Around that level, it will be cheaper for a refinery to buy wholesale electricity and make their own feedstock
from atmospheric CO2 and water.
Oil is low because of the current oversupply caused from fracking, but fracking wells
gets more oil quicker, not longer. In a few years the supply will reduce and the price will increase.
We could extend a lot of our resources if we just toughened up and if we used readily available natural resources. Skylights during the day, utilize single family wind turbines, better monitoring of heating and AC (especially while people are out of the homes), no AC unless inside air temps are 80 degrees or higher, maybe even factory regulated heating and AC that keeps temps between 74-78 year round. But when it comes to fuel sources and feeding the energy beast...you need a proper and viable energy source. Fossil fuels are still where its at.
 
We could extend a lot of our resources if we just toughened up and if we used readily available natural resources. Skylights during the day, utilize single family wind turbines, better monitoring of heating and AC (especially while people are out of the homes), no AC unless inside air temps are 80 degrees or higher, maybe even factory regulated heating and AC that keeps temps between 74-78 year round. But when it comes to fuel sources and feeding the energy beast...you need a proper and viable energy source. Fossil fuels are still where its at.
I think we have plenty of energy, The sun and the wind have the energy, it is just low density and unreliable.
Using man made hydrocarbon fuels as a storage and accumulation medium, we solve many of the
problems with the alternative energy sources.
An example could be that most homes up north do not need much summer AC, yet have long days.
Storing the summer electric surplus as natural gas, for winter heating.
In the south we do not heat or cool much in the spring and fall, but use a lot of AC in the warmer months.
Perhaps the spring and fall surplus could offset the summer energy use.
The technology is there, it will just take time for the prices to be competitive.
We do need some overall regulation related to home solar power, that is good for both the home owner
and the utility.
 
Obama called it. When he was coronated, he promised to "bring the coal industry to its knees."

The irony here is that all those stupid union coal workers will continue to vote 'democrat.'

Because they love their job no doubt. Ending the use of coal could be the most humanitarian act ever committed and not only to save the planet.
 
Seriously? Where have you been for the last 8 years?

No one's answered the question yet. I guess we're supposed to take in on faith cause Rush and Levin tell us this?
 
Coal rail shipments are running 30% down from year before rates, and the supply sitting at US power plants is around 60 days of consumption, much higher than usual (tends to run around 40 days). Thing is this economy is not doing well, rail is busy laying people off because manufacturing in back into the crapper (except for automaking), so electric needs are less than expected. Also new natural gas generation is coming online (as gas is cheap), so coal generation is being cut.

Natural gas overtook coal as the top fuel for U.S. power generators for the first time over the 12 months ended in January, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a report on Monday.

EIA said gas produced a record high 1.343 billion megawatt hours during the 12 months through January versus 1.337 billion MWh for coal. One megawatt is enough to power about 1,000 U.S. homes.

Despite gas topping coal over the 12-month period, EIA said coal topped gas during the month of January, with 114 million MWh for coal versus 110 million MWh for gas.

Gas produced more electricity than coal in seven of the 12 months in 2015, including every month between July and December. Coal, however, remained the primary fuel for power in calendar 2015 due to its high usage during the 'polar vortex' winter characterized by a period of ultra-frigid weather.

Many of the coal units that operated during the winter of 2015 however, have since retired
Natural gas overtakes coal as top U.S. power source over 12 months | Business | stltoday.com
 
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Nope, but I see you failed to read what I quoted... so I'll do it again:

In general ►705.01

Environmental Protection Agency acted arbitrarily and capriciously in interpreting Clean Air Act to require regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in motor vehicles under act to trigger requirement for stationary sources to obtain prevention of significant deterioration permits or operating permits if their emissions of greenhouse gases exceed threshold pollutant amounts, because: (1) even though greenhouse gases constitute pollutants under act's general definition of air pollutants, context of permit provisions does not require EPA to interpret greenhouse gases as pollutants under those provisions that trigger obligations to obtain permits, and (2) EPA's interpretation would unreasonably place excessive demands on limited governmental resources and bring about enormous and transformative expansion of regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization.

Again that does not mean that process used by the EPA was unconstitutional and quoted the part of the decision that states emphatically. No matter how bold or red you make your quotes it still does not mean that what was done was unconstitutional it was just done outside the intent and letter of the law as indicated.

I see you still have not showed me which executive order you are talking about that ordered this.
 
Again that does not mean that process used by the EPA was unconstitutional and quoted the part of the decision that states emphatically. No matter how bold or red you make your quotes it still does not mean that what was done was unconstitutional it was just done outside the intent and letter of the law as indicated.

I see you still have not showed me which executive order you are talking about that ordered this.

Quit sticking your head in the sand. You know he had new regulation set to limit carbon emissions. In today's regulatory environment he doesn't have to have an executive order, he can make a regulatory framework and say it is pursuant to the Clean Air Act. He did so but he went after something not covered by the Clean Air Act.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pres...-announce-historic-carbon-pollution-standards
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pres...andum-power-sector-carbon-pollution-standards

That is what the Supreme Court struck down, new regulations not promulgated from Legislation. The proof he didn't have the mandate to do so is the failure of cap and trade legislation and new air pollutant legislation proposed by Democrats very similar to the one he tried to roll out via executive order and a new regulatory environment. Now we have people on this board denying he even did it. If you are going to be part of the President's propaganda arm, don't you think you should at least get paid?

Edit: in before liberal talking points shift to being its a good thing to shut down the coal industry.
 
Quit sticking your head in the sand. You know he had new regulation set to limit carbon emissions. In today's regulatory environment he doesn't have to have an executive order, he can make a regulatory framework and say it is pursuant to the Clean Air Act. He did so but he went after something not covered by the Clean Air Act.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pres...-announce-historic-carbon-pollution-standards
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pres...andum-power-sector-carbon-pollution-standards

That is what the Supreme Court struck down, new regulations not promulgated from Legislation. The proof he didn't have the mandate to do so is the failure of cap and trade legislation and new air pollutant legislation proposed by Democrats very similar to the one he tried to roll out via executive order and a new regulatory environment. Now we have people on this board denying he even did it. If you are going to be part of the President's propaganda arm, don't you think you should at least get paid?

Edit: in before liberal talking points shift to being its a good thing to shut down the coal industry.

Again I have no problem if you say the President told the Director of the EPA to implement such and such. That was not the argument posited. The argument that was posited was that somehow the President, by executive order, set up new regulations lower greenhouse emissions. That is 100% false. What the President was follow proscribed administrative law procedures to have the EPA publish new regulations. The SCOTUS found that it fell outside the scope of the legislation not that the process was flawed or otherwise unconstitutional. That was the argument posited and that was the argument proven to be a false narrative.

No executive order.
No finding of unconstitutional behavior.

Also the whole argument is moot anyway because it wasn't the increased regulations that caused Peabody Energy to go TU. It was the fact they bet heavily on Chinese coal consumption and lost.
 
No, coal wasn't dead. In fact, China rocketed to the top of the GDP charts almost entirely on cheap coal power.
Coal is dying, cleaner forms of energy now exist, go to China and look what the cheap coal power has done, there is no such thing cheap coal power, coal is the most expensive form of energy, you mean that you just don't pay the expense on your utility bill.
 
Again I have no problem if you say the President told the Director of the EPA to implement such and such. That was not the argument posited. The argument that was posited was that somehow the President, by executive order, set up new regulations lower greenhouse emissions. That is 100% false. What the President was follow proscribed administrative law procedures to have the EPA publish new regulations. The SCOTUS found that it fell outside the scope of the legislation not that the process was flawed or otherwise unconstitutional. That was the argument posited and that was the argument proven to be a false narrative.

No executive order.
No finding of unconstitutional behavior.

Also the whole argument is moot anyway because it wasn't the increased regulations that caused Peabody Energy to go TU. It was the fact they bet heavily on Chinese coal consumption and lost.

SMB, if it were constitutional behavior, he would still be doing it. There were absolutely no regulations regarding CO2 emissions in the Clean Air Act of 1990. Obama attempted to have them drafted as a regulatory expansion of that act. He had no authority to regulate something which there was no legislation for.

You are attempting to split hairs but it doesn't work as well here where things can be examined as it would with reporters that are all too anxious to help an environmental regulation.
 
SMB, if it were constitutional behavior, he would still be doing it. There were absolutely no regulations regarding CO2 emissions in the Clean Air Act of 1990. Obama attempted to have them drafted as a regulatory expansion of that act. He had no authority to regulate something which there was no legislation for.

You are attempting to split hairs but it doesn't work as well here where things can be examined as it would with reporters that are all too anxious to help an environmental regulation.

Not splitting hairs there is a big difference between saying a law or regulation violates the Constitution and saying it outside the scope of the legislation. HUGE difference.

Also the President is still doing "this type of behavior." That is telling a director of agency they want regulations put in place based on certain legislation. The agency goes through the administrative law process to promulgate the new regulation. They do this by first posting the proposed regulation in Federal Register. They then open the proposed regulation up to public comments. Depending on the scope and number of public comments received they set up a series of public hearings. Through the hearings process amendments are proposed and sent back to the agency. The agency then determines whether or not they want to amend the regulation. If they amend it the whole process starts over again. If they do not amend they set an effective for between 60 and 120 days for it to become effective and publish the final regulation in the Federal Register. This is well known process and is Constitutional is being carried out right now in various forms.

Once again we are told that whole process including the press coverage is some sort of liberal conspiracy...what a crock. The fact is that it was a regulation that appears to be valid that was struck down by the conservative court mainly because they didn't like it. How is that? The CAA allows the list of pollutants to be modified by administrative action.

(2) Revision of the list
The Administrator shall periodically review the list established by this subsection and publish the results thereof and, where appropriate, revise such list by rule, adding pollutants which present, or may present, through inhalation or other routes of exposure, a threat of adverse human health effects (including, but not limited to, substances which are known to be, or may reasonably be anticipated to be, carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, neurotoxic, which cause reproductive dysfunction, or which are acutely or chronically toxic) or adverse environmental effects whether through ambient concentrations, bioaccumulation, deposition, or otherwise, but not including releases subject to regulation under subsection (r) of this section as a result of emissions to the air. No air pollutant which is listed under section 7408(a) of this title may be added to the list under this section, except that the prohibition of this sentence shall not apply to any pollutant which independently meets the listing criteria of this paragraph and is a precursor to a pollutant which is listed under section 7408(a) of this title or to any pollutant which is in a class of pollutants listed under such section. No substance, practice, process or activity regulated under subchapter VI of this chapter shall be subject to regulation under this section solely due to its adverse effects on the environment.


In 2009 the EPA declared CO2 and five other greenhouse gasses a pollutant and included it on the list of pollutants in the CAA.

EPA Declares Greenhouse Gases Hazardous to People's Health and Environment - ABC News

Now I am willing to accept this ruling however dubious it is but it IS NOT a ruling on the Constitutionality of the administrative law process.
 
Not splitting hairs there is a big difference between saying a law or regulation violates the Constitution and saying it outside the scope of the legislation. HUGE difference.

They do this by first posting the proposed regulation in Federal Register. They then open the proposed regulation up to public comments. Depending on the scope and number of public comments received they set up a series of public hearings. Through the hearings process amendments are proposed and sent back to the agency. The agency then determines whether or not they want to amend the regulation. If they amend it the whole process starts over again. If they do not amend they set an effective for between 60 and 120 days for it to become effective and publish the final regulation in the Federal Register. This is well known process and is Constitutional is being carried out right now in various forms.

Once again we are told that whole process including the press coverage is some sort of liberal conspiracy...what a crock. The fact is that it was a regulation that appears to be valid that was struck down by the conservative court mainly because they didn't like it. How is that? The CAA allows the list of pollutants to be modified by administrative action.

(2) Revision of the list
The Administrator shall periodically review the list established by this subsection and publish the results thereof and, where appropriate, revise such list by rule, adding pollutants which present, or may present, through inhalation or other routes of exposure, a threat of adverse human health effects (including, but not limited to, substances which are known to be, or may reasonably be anticipated to be, carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, neurotoxic, which cause reproductive dysfunction, or which are acutely or chronically toxic) or adverse environmental effects whether through ambient concentrations, bioaccumulation, deposition, or otherwise, but not including releases subject to regulation under subsection (r) of this section as a result of emissions to the air. No air pollutant which is listed under section 7408(a) of this title may be added to the list under this section, except that the prohibition of this sentence shall not apply to any pollutant which independently meets the listing criteria of this paragraph and is a precursor to a pollutant which is listed under section 7408(a) of this title or to any pollutant which is in a class of pollutants listed under such section. No substance, practice, process or activity regulated under subchapter VI of this chapter shall be subject to regulation under this section solely due to its adverse effects on the environment.

In 2009 the EPA declared CO2 and five other greenhouse gasses a pollutant and included it on the list of pollutants in the CAA.

EPA Declares Greenhouse Gases Hazardous to People's Health and Environment - ABC News

Now I am willing to accept this ruling however dubious it is but it IS NOT a ruling on the Constitutionality of the administrative law process.

So first you need to examine why the EPA tried to regulate CO2 emissions in the first place.
Massachusetts v EPA in which the EPA was told to enforce CO2 emissions on vehicles, not factories.
So we come to the current set of rules in which the EPA is trying to enlarge its mandate to include factories' CO2 emissions when they have no legislation to do so.

Supreme Court limits EPA's authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions | PBS NewsHour
But Scalia, writing for the court’s conservatives in the part of the ruling in which the justices split 5-4, said EPA could not require a permit solely on the basis of greenhouse gas emissions.

I am not saying they don't have the power to regulate what's in legislation, I'm saying they don't have the power to create regulation outside legislative mandate without congressional approval. Attempting to regulate CO2 emissions without a mandate to do so fits that bill. Regulating mercury is something they absolutely should be doing, regulating CO2? No. Especially in light of the failure to pass such legislation, meaning no mandate exists to do so.

Looking deeper, the EPA also has to justify its actions, including considering costs of its regulations. This becomes important when the EPA declares things as pollutants that do not have health impacts, like CO2. They have to show the necessary part of their regulation, IE the health impact versus the costs of new regulation, that is going to be exceedingly hard with gases that do not have a health impact. Again, mercury? Yes. CO2? No.
 
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Take me back to Muhelenberg county....down by the green river where the paradise lay...


Gotta love a Prine reference.

Paradise. Good song.
Always wondered what snakes smell like, though.
 
So first you need to examine why the EPA tried to regulate CO2 emissions in the first place.
Massachusetts v EPA in which the EPA was told to enforce CO2 emissions on vehicles, not factories.
So we come to the current set of rules in which the EPA is trying to enlarge its mandate to include factories' CO2 emissions when they have no legislation to do so.

Supreme Court limits EPA's authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions | PBS NewsHour


I am not saying they don't have the power to regulate what's in legislation, I'm saying they don't have the power to create regulation outside legislative mandate without congressional approval. Attempting to regulate CO2 emissions without a mandate to do so fits that bill. Regulating mercury is something they absolutely should be doing, regulating CO2? No. Especially in light of the failure to pass such legislation, meaning no mandate exists to do so.

Looking deeper, the EPA also has to justify its actions, including considering costs of its regulations. This becomes important when the EPA declares things as pollutants that do not have health impacts, like CO2. They have to show the necessary part of their regulation, IE the health impact versus the costs of new regulation, that is going to be exceedingly hard with gases that do not have a health impact. Again, mercury? Yes. CO2? No.

Yes and all of that is done through the administrative law process. A process which is Constitutional.

Like I said I am willing to abide the court's ruling. That said, the court did not rule the regulation unconstitutional. They ruled that it was outside the scope of the legislation. There is big difference there. Also, although I am willing to live within the confines of the courts ruling I do think is flawed. The CAA clearly gives the responsible adminstrating agency the ability to modify the list of pollutants. Just because they disagree with that modification is not enough to declare it outside the scope of the legislation in my opinion. The EPA modified the list of air pollutants to include CO2. You may disagree with that but the legislation clearly gives them that authority. They then used that modified list of pollutants to come up with revised regulations. There is nothing nefarious here. Disagree with it all you want but it was not and extra legal attempt to grab power.
 
Yes and all of that is done through the administrative law process. A process which is Constitutional.

Like I said I am willing to abide the court's ruling. That said, the court did not rule the regulation unconstitutional. They ruled that it was outside the scope of the legislation. There is big difference there. Also, although I am willing to live within the confines of the courts ruling I do think is flawed. The CAA clearly gives the responsible adminstrating agency the ability to modify the list of pollutants. Just because they disagree with that modification is not enough to declare it outside the scope of the legislation in my opinion. The EPA modified the list of air pollutants to include CO2. You may disagree with that but the legislation clearly gives them that authority. They then used that modified list of pollutants to come up with revised regulations. There is nothing nefarious here. Disagree with it all you want but it was not and extra legal attempt to grab power.

If I open a new plant, does the EPA have the constitutional authority to regulate CO2 gases on my plant?
 
you have to remember that they don't care about the families or workers that depend on mining.
this is all about emotional meme. logic and reason play no part of what they do or why they do it.

those evil coal miners and oil companies must be punished. it doesn't matter that thousands of people
rely on them for their livelihood.

Well the Republicans have done soooo much for them...
 
If I open a new plant, does the EPA have the constitutional authority to regulate CO2 gases on my plant?

If the plant produces enough CO2 to asphyxiate the people in your home then yes they can and should regulate the sale of that plant.
 
If the plant produces enough CO2 to asphyxiate the people in your home then yes they can and should regulate the sale of that plant.

No plant does, and that is the point. There is no mandate to regulate CO2 on a new plant. Which tells me you didn't read the ruling.
 
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