Zombie Industries
When I was a kid, one of my teacher’s husband owned a small toy store. Even back then it was unique because he also repaired our toys. Fast-forward forty years and that store is no longer there. In fact, Toys Are Us has closed their doors and no one repairs toys anymore. No one delivers ice or milk door to door. Sears is virtually dead and Montgomery Ward is dead too. Blockbuster Video came and went along with the other mom and pop video stores.
Change is a part of history. Usually it is for the better, but I suppose that’s debatable. We can make our own ice now. We can drive the few minutes to the grocery store to get our milk. We can stream just about any movie we want any time we want. However, every once in awhile we miss that personal touch that those people brought to us.
That’s likely the psychology at play when conservatives fight tooth and nail to keep coal and gas alive. Trains are probably the only major thing that uses coal. Even many of them don’t do that anymore. Homes certainly don’t use coal anymore and there are fewer coal miners in the United States than people working at JC Penny. Anyone that’s been in a JC Penny lately knows how patently absurd that is..
So, coal is literally dead industry walking. People usually call those zombies. I don’t want to underscore the fear and anxiety that is caused by being a part of a dying industry. What do I do now? What else am I trained for? How do I feed my family? These are questions that have historically had answers, but those answers didn’t come overnight. Politicians could help in that regard, but they are too busy feeding that anxiety.
That brings us to oil and gas. A high school classmate of mine published a picture of the gas prices where he lives. They were over nine dollars a gallon. We can calmly explain rudimentary concepts of supply and demand. We can calmly explain that we knew this would happen. They taught us this in social studies classes. Fossil fuels are a finite resource. One day they will be gone. I don’t know exactly when that day will be, but I know we’ve been discussing it for at least forty years.
Another of his friends chose to lambast the Green New Deal. It has become the bogeyman for those resistant to change. He said there was no way that our infrastructure could handle a nation full of electric cars. So, somehow the left is responsible for the market collapsing before our very eyes. Then, we get the not so subtle misunderstanding of what the Green New Deal was all about. We also get to the not so gentle misunderstanding of why that infrastructure is not currently in place.
The Green New Deal is not even a single piece of legislation really. The whole idea is that we know coal and gas will go away and needs to go away. We know the environment can’t withstand unlimited amounts of emissions. We know that renewable energy is ultimately safer, cheaper, and better for the environment. We know that it would lead to energy independence. We know if we start making the transition now then those working in those industries can make smoother transitions to something else.
When you say “Trains are probably the only major thing that uses coal” you’re forgetting about coal-fueled power plants. In the U.S. in 2021, 21.8% of power plants ran on coal. Unfortunately, that’s a LOT of a filthy, toxic, destructive carbon source.
1Also, natural gas fuels 38.3% of U.S. power plants, and of course both coal and natural gas are huge contributors to the climate emergency. Renewables fuel only 20.1% of our power plants, as of 2021.
2Tic, tic, tic coal and gasoline industries. In the mean time, predictably, the petroleum producers and retailers (especially the big oil companies that refine, retail (and some also drill) are making record profits. Can’t blame the dems for that.
3Nick writes: “Trains are probably the only major thing that uses coal. Even many of them don’t do that anymore.”.
Yeesh, Nick, “major”?
Coal fueled railroad steam engines were largely gone in the 1940s, the only ones left have been museum pieces for more than a half century [maybe you live near one of those museums and see them?].
A few were briefly running as oil-fueled steam into the early 1950s.
Diesel railroad engines began taking over in the 1930s, and by the early 1950s powered 99.5% of all US trains.
[I was lucky to see, rarely, a few still working steam locomotives as a child in the early ’50s; and that was a treat. Also used to sit on my grandmother’s porch and watch the iceman deliver ice blocks from his –horse-drawn– wagon too, to her old icebox [she also had one of those old refrigs too; so ‘ancient history’ ain’t so ancient to some of us…]]
Commercial electric power generation is today the primary user of coal, 20-25%, as Texas Expat in CA points out above.
Coal still electrifies much of Texas, but is steadily being replaced:
https://www.cpsenergy.com/en/about-us/environment/flexpath.html?linkvar=sidenavigation
Much of that coal is carried in huge lakes freighters like the 1013′ long Paul R. Tregurtha, in the Midwest; or on trains elsewhere :
“American Century’s arrival in Duluth at 06:02. The [thousand]footer made her way over to the Superior Midwest Energy Terminal,
where Paul R. Tregurtha was topping off with low-sulfur western coal. The Queen of the Lakes would soon depart Duluth for power plants in St. Clair and Essexville at 07:57.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Paul_R._Tregurtha
4“Capacity
Iron ore: 68,000 long tons (69,000 t)
Coal: 63,616 long tons (64,637 t)”
You have to wonder at people who back a plan that in effect says, let’s keep drilling oil and digging coal as fast as we can until it’s all gone. Without replacing it as an energy source with something else.
5Sandridge @4: back in the 70s there was a steam engine that chugged between Rusk and Palestine, Texas. But it was a museum piece even then, and was used as a prop by movies even back then. Other than that, the only coal powered train I’ve been on since then was the Bangalore Mail, between Chennai (Madras) and Bangalore.
I once had the opportunity to argue with a West Virginia representative about coal. His claim was that it was an integral part of their culture and heritage. My question was, so that’s all your children and grandchildren should be allowed to do? They are not even allowed the chance to go to college, become software engineers, bankers, and engineers? His answer was “yup”. His hands were soft and clean, without a trace of coal dust, and it was clear that the closest he ever came to a coal mine was being driven past one in an air-conditioned limo.
Hard to remember now, how hard the coal miners fought to get unions in, and what they brought to both the mines and the country as a whole.
6The Surly Professor @6,
A number of Texas railroad engines, rolling stock, and locales have appeared in much media.
There are still a number of working steam locomotives in service in TX and of course elsewhere.
IFAIK, few are coal-fired, most all coalers were scrapped or converted to oil-fired long ago; except in coal country.
As a kid I was a railroad fan/nut, spent much time around them [lived near yards], taking pictures [developed myself in dad’s darkroom], riding [even in engines].
IMO, F WV idiots [a very high % of it’s pop].
I learned a bit about the miners, there’s a documentary running on PBS about the UMWA union efforts/wars.
I actually belonged to the UMWA once, but not in a mining industry; it was a factory that I worked in while going to school. Have belonged to the UAW, UMWA, CWA, and one that I forget.
.
https://texasstaterailroad.net/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Preserved_steam_locomotives_of_Texas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremont_and_Gulf_30
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieselisation#North_America
7