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In western Massachusetts, a group of a dozen or so climate activists tried to stop a trainload of coal heading for a power plant in New Hampshire…by standing on the railroad tracks in front of the train. Evidently they thought the train could, and would, screech to a halt. This short video is dark and doesn’t show much, but it conveys some sense of why this was a poor idea:

Greenpeace congratulated China and the EU by contrasting it with Trump’s refusal to commit the United States to the Paris climate accord: “What gets the pair together isn't just Trump – China and the EU understand the opportunities offered by a clean and climate-safe world.” Oops! Hold your horses! All bets are off! According to a BBC news headline d/d November 20, 2019: “Climate Change: China Coal Surge Threatens Paris Targets.” Astonishingly, over the past 18 months China has added enough new coal-based electricity generation (43GW) to power 31 million homes. King coal has returned. Not only, China is also...

China also has another 121.3 GW of coal-fired power plants under construction, U.S.-based research network Global Energy Monitor said in its report, nearly enough to power the whole of France. The increase followed a 2014-2016 “permitting surge” by local governments aiming to boost growth while formerly suspended projects have also been restarted, Global Energy Monitor said. In the rest of the world, coal-fired power capacity fell 8.1 GW over the same period. To cut pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, China has promised an “energy revolution” aimed at dramatically reducing its reliance on coal. It cut coal’s share of the country’s...

Blankenship, 69, said he will be running as a candidate 'for the Constitution Party', a political party that places itself to the right of the Republican Party.... Blankenship shares many of President Trump’s policy positions,..but said that Trump hasn’t been effective. Blankenship is known for his 2018 Senate bid,.....He lost the Republican primary in the race and then was blocked from running on a third-party ticket in the Senate race.

The Environmental Protection Agency will propose easing rules on disposal of coal ash, the residue from burning coal, to make it less likely the federal government would shutter a coal-fired utility plant, in an announcement set for Monday. The move is part of what has been a larger deregulation push by the Trump administration to roll back strict Obama-era regulations that the industry viewed as the previous administration’s “war on coal” that pushed to shut down many coal-fired power plants. “The EPA is no longer picking winners and losers in electric generation,” Peter Wright, assistant administrator for EPA Office of...

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and his merry band of Green Little Dealers offer a national alarm bell for the national Green New Deal proposal. ... Advocates for free markets, affordable energy for everyday people, and expanding our miraculous energy independence must closely watch what’s happening among the states. Case in point: Colorado’s Green Little Deal ... directly attack key industries such as coal, oil and gas, and automobiles while giving considerable power to government to regulate and transition workers, all disregarding economic realities. ... Polis has established Offices of “Just Transition” and “Future at Work.” ... The big difference between...

LOGAN, W.Va. — Three underground coal mines and two preparation plants in Logan and Mingo counties have been idled by Kentucky based company Blackhawk Mining and its subsidiaries. Blackhawk announced Tuesday afternoon saying the affected operations are the Washington Underground Mine, Muddy Bridge Underground Mine, Buffalo Underground Mine, Fanco Preparation Plant and Loadout in Logan County and Mingo 1 Preparation Plant and Mingo 2 Scaggs Loadout in Mingo County. “It’s sad and it’s disturbing,” Bill Raney, the President of the West Virginia Coal Association told MetroNews of his reaction to the news. “It’s just a matter that the coal market...

A company now has the construction permit to build a "state-of-the-art" coal-to-liquids facility in Mason County, creating more than 250 jobs. According to a news release from Domestic Synthetic Fuels, the company received a permit from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to build the facility near Point Pleasant. DSF officials said it will take thousands of workers to build the facility. After construction, the plant will create 130 jobs on-site and 130 coal- mining jobs to supply the raw materials. "This will have a tremendous economic impact on our county," said John Musgrave, executive director of the Mason...

Michigan’s electric utilities gamble that the reliability of service won’t collapse. Consumers Energy would have to double the number of wind turbines currently operating in this state to replace the electricity produced by just one of the coal- and gas-fired power plants it intends to close as part of its plans to rely more on renewable sources. The problem, however, is that those additional turbines only spin about one-third of the time, leaving a big energy gap for the households and businesses that rely on the company for their electricity. .. regulated utilities and their vendors operate 1,107 industrial wind...

Our grandfathers built a low-cost reliable decentralized electricity supply for all states of Australia based mainly on black and brown coalfields — Blair Athol, Callide, Ipswich, Sydney/Newcastle, Yallourn, Leigh Creek, and Collie. Then our fathers built the mighty Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric scheme, which provided water to irrigate the inland while generating electricity to help pay for it. In the years up to 1980, huge new coal-fired power plants were constructed in each state. We discovered oil and gas in Roma, Bass Strait, Barrow Island, Timor Sea, and in coal and shale in many places. Coal and hydro gave Australia reliable...

Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren offered proposals during Wednesday’s climate change town hall on CNN that mirrored what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described as her biggest mistake during her 2016 campaign. Biden and Warren both attacked coal mining and fossil fuels during the 7-hour long forum, suggesting that eliminating one of the largest sources of energy in the United States would substantially help the environment. “We’ve got to shut down” all coal-fueled power plants, Biden asserted during his portion of the town hall.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) declined to go as far as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in calling for the public ownership of utilities during CNN’s climate change town hall Wednesday evening, but she said she will tell utility companies that use carbon-based fuel that they are “done” by 2035. “Bernie Sanders has endorsed the idea of the public ownership of utilities, arguing that we can’t adequately solve this crisis without removing the profit motive from the distribution of essential needs like energy,” an attendee said. “As president, would you be willing to call out capitalism in this way and advocate for...

If the official definitions of renewable energy were logical, renewable energy would be defined as energy that does not emit CO2 and that is not using a resource in danger of running out anytime soon. But the definitions written into the laws of many states are not logical. Hydroelectric energy is mostly banned because the environmental movement hates dams. Nuclear is banned ... Both nuclear and hydro don't emit CO2. Hydro doesn't need fuel. Nuclear fuel is cheap and plentiful. A large number of prominent global warming activists, such as James Hansen, Michael Shellenberger, and Stewart Brand have declared that...

Been listening to the democrats and the talking heads for the last few days worrying about the China trade negotiations and tariffs hurting the Iowa farm economy, especially soybeans for export to China. Well, with every democrat running--including Biden--promising to eliminate coal, gas & oil if elected, I'm wondering how they expect the farmers to farm or get their products to market without fuel? Without tractors? Without farm equipment? Without trucks? Trains? Ships? Obviously, eliminating coal, gas & oil would devastate the coal, gas & oil producing states, but also the states that depend upon abundant supplies of coal generated...

HARLAN COUNTY, Ky. (WYMT) - More than 20 miners and their families camped out on the train tracks near Cumberland Monday night to make sure none of the coal loaded on the trains coming from the mine in Cloverlick was able to get in or out. Blackjewel miners are confused and frustrated as they try to find out why a train is carrying coal away from a mine in Harlan County. Some chose to take it into their own hands by standing on the tracks to keep the train from leaving. Miners have one clear message: Pay them for what...

Wind power has surpassed coal for the first time in Texas, according to a new report. The numbers cap an enormous rise in wind power in the nation's top energy-producing state over the past decades. Wind has generated 22% of the state's electrical needs this year. It just edged out coal, which provided 21% of the Lone Star State's power, according to the Electrical Reliability Council of Texas, which manages electrical flow on about 90% of the Texan grid. Sixteen years ago, in 2003, wind made up just 0.8% of the state's power, and coal satisfied 40% of electrical needs,...

On 1 July, Missy Cole was notified by her bank that her husband’s most recent paycheck had bounced, leaving their account more than $1,000 in the red. Her husband had worked as a coalminer for nearly three years at one of the eastern Kentucky mines operated by Revelation Energy affiliate Blackjewel mining. But both companies had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, a financial move that has implications far beyond just laying off staff as the ex-workers now wait for bankruptcy proceedings to play out. Critics say the move is a ploy increasingly used in the struggling industry to avoid paying workers what...

Under Steyer’s watch, Farallon Capital invested in coal plants in China, Indonesia, even Australia, where a newly constructed plant in New South Wales is expected to churn out coal for the next 30 years. The mine’s 2014 groundbreaking, which occurred in an Australian state forest, inspired a veteran to stand in front of a bulldozer and a music teacher to chain himself to a piece of excavation equipment. All told, the coal mines increased their production by more than 70 million tons of coal since getting investment from Steyer. As the New York Times noted, that’s more than Britain consumes...

In the 1970s, Americans were told we were in a global cooling crisis and if something wasn’t done, we’d enter a new ice age. When that didn’t happen, a few decades later we were told that entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend was not reversed by the year 2000. Despite the consistent failure of these apocalyptic warnings, that hasn’t stopped climate change alarmism. We’re now being told we only have 12 years to combat climate change, and the solution is to fundamentally dismantle the system of...

President Trump derided rival billionaire Tom Steyer as a "wacky" and "crazed & stumbling lunatic" on Sunday, after Steyer -- who was one of the prominent liberals to receive a threatening suspicious package last week -- said he "absolutely was blaming" Trump for creating an atmosphere in which "anything can bubble up, and anything is bubbling up." Steyer fired back quickly, writing that Trump's comment was "unthinkable ... in the midst of the horrible political violence." The Twitter conflagration erupted after Steyer's wide-ranging interview with CNN's "State of the Union," in which the hedge fund manager called Trump "corrupt," and...