Free Republic

Bitcoin miners had a rough 2022, showing “how to not build a mining business,” However, industry experts don’t see 2023 as any better, unless markets improve significantly. high energy prices, increasing competition for Bitcoin blocks and a bear market hit miners, knocking out those with high leverage. The sector was shaken by bankruptcies and loan defaults, and next year will likely bring even more pain. lots of money was spent over the last year to boost hashrate ... but those investments didn’t pay off, as companies loaded up on debt to finance the growth only to see the economics of...

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), which represents West Virginia coal miners as well, said that the bill contained important measures that would benefit coal miners — like an extension of funding to aid victims of black lung disease, tax incentives to urge manufacturers to build new factories and employ ex-miners and protect union workers. Cecil Roberts, the union’s president said in a statement: “We are disappointed that the bill will not pass. We urge Senator Manchin to revisit his opposition to this legislation and work with his colleagues to pass something that will help keep coal miners working,...

U.S. coal miners, who have already benefited from rising demand from utilities this year, are in for at least another year of strong sales and cash flows.. Much higher natural gas prices are making more power generators switch to coal.. Annual U.S. coal-fired electricity generation is set to rise this year for the first time since 2014.. ... coal is making a comeback this year as high natural gas prices incentivize more coal use in electricity generation. .. U.S. coal miners, who have already benefited from rising demand from utilities ... Annual U.S. coal-fired electricity generation is set to rise...

Guarded by Chinese police and sealed off from the outside world, this former copper mine in Mojiang some 1118 miles away from Wuhan could be a smoking gun on the origin of the pandemic. The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) - a high security bio lab specalising in coronaviruses - is in the eye of the storm as questions rage whether Covid could have originally emerged from escaped from its campus. China and the lab furiously deny any allegations, but a new study has suggested the virus appears to have been manipulated and US President Joe Biden has ordered his...

The damage that President Joe Biden’s disastrous policies would deal to U.S. miners appeared to even be too much for the left-wing outlet Reuters. Reuters published a new story completely tearing into the Biden administration for slighting American workers: “Biden looks abroad for electric vehicle metals, in blow to U.S. miners.” Specifically, Reuters noted that Biden “will rely on ally countries to supply the bulk of the metals needed to build electric vehicles and focus on processing them domestically into battery parts.” Biden’s plans would reportedly be a “blow to U.S. miners who had hoped Biden would rely primarily on...

WASHINGTON — The nation’s largest coal miners’ union said Monday it would accept President Joe Biden’s plan to move away from coal and other fossil fuels in exchange for a “true energy transition” that includes thousands of jobs in renewable energy and spending on technology to make coal cleaner. Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, said ensuring jobs for displaced miners — including 7,000 coal workers who lost their jobs last year — is crucial to any infrastructure bill taken up by Congress.

Joe Biden signed executive orders on climate change and the environment on Wednesday. He spoke about the coal industry, saying he wants to reclaim mines that have been closed and bring new jobs to the industry that built this country. Biden stressed that the government will begin to regulate the leasing opportunities for the oil and gas industry.National reserves and communities will be protected by the government when it comes to these agreements in the future. West Virginia Governor Jim Justice discussed the future of coal jobs in the state during his press conference on Wednesday. Governor Justice said he’s...

A dozen Chinese gold miners trapped thousands of feet underground for over a week have sent up an urgent note saying that four are injured and that the others were in dire shape, according to reports. “We are in urgent need of medicine, painkillers, medical tape, external anti-inflammatory drugs, and three people have high blood pressure,” the note reads, Agence France-Presse reported. It was unknown if 10 other miners were still alive, according to the Xinhua Nerws Agency. Twenty-two workers were trapped about 2,000 feet below the surface after a blast eight days ago near the city of Qixia in...

The coronavirus may not have originated at a Wuhan wet market last year but 1,000 miles away in 2012 — deep in a Chinese mineshaft where workers came down with a mysterious, pneumonia-like illness after being exposed to bats. Virologist Jonathan Latham and molecular biologist Allison Wilson, both of the non-profit Bioscience Resource Project in Ithaca, arrived at their finding after translating a 66-page master’s thesis from the Chinese medical doctor who treated the miners and sent their tissue samples to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for testing. “The evidence it contains has led us to reconsider everything we thought...

The massacre happened in Uruapan, in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, on Monday, according to the state’s attorney general’s office. Four people walked into the amusement arcade, asked questions of some patrons and began firing with military-grade weapons, the attorney general’s office said in a statement. The attackers were apparently searching for specific targets, but then opened fire indiscriminately on customers, the Associated Press reported.

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...

Child miners aged four living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car: Awful human cost in squalid Congo cobalt mine that Michael Gove didn’t consider in his ‘clean’ energy crusade Sky News investigated the Katanga mines and found Dorsen, 8, and Monica, 4The pair were working in the vast mines of the Democratic Republic of CongoThey are two of the 40,000 children working daily in the mines, checking rocks for cobalt Picking through a mountain of huge rocks with his tiny bare hands, the exhausted little boy makes a pitiful sight.His name is Dorsen and...

RUSH: Those of you driving a Prius, those of you who have ordered a Tesla, those of you who think that you are saving the planet before it climate change or other horrible acts of nature because you are purchasing an electric car, which means that you are engaging in sustainable, renewable energy, this story is for you. ItÂ’s from the U.K. Daily Mail. Now, weÂ’re gonna link to this story at RushLimbaugh.com, and I want those of you out there to pass this story on to everybody you know that drives an electric car or a hybrid. I donÂ’t...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he wants a long-term fix for miners’ healthcare benefits in the next government funding bill, moving Congress closer to a deal on the issue. “I’m in favor of a permanent fix on miners’ healthcare. It’s my hope that that will be included in the final package,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday after meeting with the GOP caucus. The question of what to do about the government-backed healthcare benefits for coal miners has complicated congressional spending debates in the past.

Nearly six months after massive wildfires close to Canada’s oil sands forced one of the largest evacuations in the country’s history, affecting production, Leonardo DiCaprio’s new climate-change documentary threatens to bring unwanted, negative attention to the industry. Critics are already referring to the scenes shown in the film, particularly an aerial of the oil sands, as “terrifying”. Fisher Stevens, director of Before The Flood, which has been in the works since 2014, recently told Canadian Press he was "really horrified" by how the landscape looked in north-eastern Alberta.

Thousands of unionized mine workers and supporters rallied at the Capitol Thursday to push for a bill that would protect health-care and pension benefits for about 120,000 former coal miners and their families. "We're here today to demand that the right thing be done!" thundered Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, which organized the rally. "Keep the promise and pass the bill." ...Separately, Democrat Hillary Clinton announced her support for the measure, which would affect retired miners and their families in all 50 states, especially West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia and Alabama. ......

Bowie Resources Partners’ purchase of Peabody Energy Corp.‘s Twentymile Mine in Routt County has fallen through, and Peabody has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Peabody, the world’s largest privately owned producer of coal, joins other major coal companies including Arch Coal, owner of the West Elk Mine in the North Fork Valley, in going bankrupt. Arch Coal also is in Chapter 11 reorganization. Bowie, owner of the Bowie No. 2 Mine near Paonia, had agreed to buy Twentymile and two mine properties in New Mexico for $358 million. But Peabody previously had said Bowie was still trying to find...

...But trust her! Normally, if Hillary says she “won’t forget you,” you start looking for a way into some kind of witness protection program. It’s sort of like when a character in a mob movie promises to “take care of you.” The endgame is implied. ...And so it is with America’s coal industry and the people it employees. Except, in the case of fossil fuels, Hillary isn’t even going the double-entendre route. She’s being explicit in her promise to destroy coal companies, and eliminate the jobs they provide. As Hillary says:

The coal mining industry is in trouble and the Supreme Court holds the industries fate in its hands. Coal has been suffering for years under the dual attack of environmentalists and low natural gas prices. Environmentalists have been pushing utility companies to stop using coal, while low natural gas prices have led many utilities to switch to that cleaner burning and now cheaper fuel as a power source. In an effort to please environmentalist supporters after his election to a second term, the Obama Administration put in place what might be a death sentence for coal mining east of the...

Environmental organizations that offered more than 150,000 comments calling on the U.S. Forest Service to reject an agreement to allow additional mining in the North Fork area said the response demonstrated strong public opposition. More like "stuffing the ballot box," said an industry spokesman who noted that the environmental opposition would undermine a bargain fashioned over five years of talks. The Forest Service proposes reinstating the North Fork coal-mining exception to the Colorado Roadless Rule. The exception would allow Arch Coal to extend the West Elk Mine near Somerset below the roadless area. The roadless exemption would allow construction of...