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Thursday, December 06, 2018

Britain discovers coal

Coal is old plants and trees that over time became peat, then lignite, then coal. Scientists say the process takes millions of years. But it is natural. About 1,000 years ago, the Chinese began burning it to smelt copper. Marco Polo carried the idea to the West. Instead of burning wood, people burned coal and forests grew. The Dark Ages ended.

But governments know best. On March 14, 2016, Britain shut down its last coal mine. Canada shut down its last coal mine on November 22, 2001, six months before most workers qualified for a pension.

Learn computer coding, right?

Coal got the last laugh.

The Telegraph reported, "Britain's oldest coal-fired power plants prepared to fire up their hoppers for a price of almost £1,000 per megawatt-hour on Tuesday to avert a power shortfall as temperatures across the country plunge and wind power wanes.

"The cold snap ignited the winter’s first warning that Britain would run out of electricity unless idling coal plants ramp up to help meet demand for power.

"National Grid said on Monday evening that there was a 100pc probability that the lights would go out within 24 hours unless an extra 2GW of power capacity agreed to help meet demand."

I thought global warming took care of this.

The Independent assured readers in 2000, "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past."

(Actually, predictions that snowfalls are a thing of the past are a thing of the past.)

But this was all predictable to everyone but the government, which believes it is Camelot.
It's true, it's true, the crown has made it clear
The climate must be perfect all the year
A law was made a distant moon ago here
July and August cannot be too hot
And there's a legal limit to the snow here in Camelot
The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot
By order, summer lingers through September in Camelot
The United States had a moonbeam president for eight years.

We elected a businessman president and he's clearing the government of its global warming clutter.

Reuters reported, "The Trump administration is expected on Thursday to roll back an Obama-era rule that requires new coal plants to capture their carbon emissions, a move that could crack open the door in coming years for new plants fired by the fossil fuel.

"The Environmental Protection Agency will make an “energy policy announcement” at 1:30 p.m. EST on Thursday. Andrew Wheeler, EPA’s acting administrator, will speak alongside Harry Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, a long-time opponent of former President Barack Obama’s limits on carbon emissions."

Obama's henchmen will try to tie it up in court. He appointed plenty of fools as judges for this very purpose.

But as I look out the back window at the cooling towers of the John Amos plant across the river, I realize this is a battle worth fighting.

Myron Ebell, who led Trump’s EPA transition team last year, told Reuters, "I’m not giving up on building a new generation of coal-fired power plants in this country."

Someday John Amos may run on natural gas. I don't care. Just keep my electricity cheap.

But I will be darned if I will support putting windmills on our ridges just so the snoots in Washington can have AC in the summer and heat in the winter.

As striking coal miners used to say, let them freeze in the dark.

Without any coal mines, Britain must import. Let me assure the British that West Virginia is happy to send coal to Newcastle.

For a price.


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  1. Coals to Newcastle, indeed! The British have gone completely bonkers, as have most of the nations of Europe. Electricity is something that must be available on demand. Subsidizing solar panels and windmills is an expensive boondoggle and we should not give them another cent.

    That being said, I see John Amos is only using two of their units today. We have additional capacity standing by for when it's needed. - Elric

    1. Merkel, the worst German Chancellor since Hitler, shut down German nukes because Japan had a tsunami. Is there even a German word for tsunami?

    2. Best internet riposte of the day. - Elric

  2. I love the smell of schaudenfreude in the coal smoke.

  3. I agree about the value of coal and how the environmentalist have created a false image about it. Sadly, although PDJT is coals strongest and maybe its only advocate, the two states with mist or gain or lose with coal production: Montana and West Virginia stabbed him in the back November 6th.

    1. Obama did his best to shut down our coal industry even though coal jobs are some of the best blue-collar jobs in Montana. I was in the Steelworkers Union at the time with a mining company (hard rock, not coal). Of course the Steelworkers were all in for old Dingle Barry. They even jacked up our dues before his re-election campaign. I asked our union president about our local supporting a President who was wiping out union jobs. Scott replied that the coal jobs threatened were under a different union than ours (!). The exchange just confirmed what I already knew. Most unions care only about Democrat politics and nothing about the dues-paying members.

    2. That’s f—-ed up, brother. Big time.

  4. Once bit twice shy...

    Twice stabbed in the back, third time's a charm?

  5. Another fact about Britain. They re-equipped one of their largest coal fired plants to burn wood pellets. They then discovered that there was not enough available timber in Europe to service the plant. Solution, import wood pellets by ship from US and Canada...Great minds...

    1. Our local country store sells wood pellets for $219 a ton. Seems like a good deal...

  6. If you ever get a chance while in England go visit the Mining Museum, take the underground tour. Fascinating stuff and history. National Coal Mining Museum for England
    Caphouse Colliery
    New Road
    WF4 4RH

  7. Replies
    1. The environmentalists ruin everything. You are right. They destroy progress.

    2. Once we learn how to control fusion, we'll have it made. Put our research funding there instead of solar and wind. - Elric

  8. So-called renewable energy programs soon produce unintended consequences. In this case, polluting diesel "farms" were built to cover the inevitable shortfall from wind and solar.

    --Diesel farms
    There's been a surge in the growth of diesel generation in recent years.

    The sites are made up of blocks of diesel generators which can respond quickly to provide power when demand on the grid increases.

    Despite environmental concerns, investors find the technology attractive as sites can access several types of payments in the energy market while being exempt from a number of charges paid by larger power plants.
    "The UK needs some new gas power stations to be built quickly, to replace closing coal power stations", he says.

    "However, we are concerned that new gas power stations will be crowded out of the capacity mechanism by small diesel and gas generators. Although these smaller generators are cheap to build, they are neither cheap nor clean when they are required to run."--

  9. Comedy gold, Don! :)
    And "grand master" level taunting. Coals to Newcastle indeed.

    1. Agreed, Jim. This one goes in the Best Of file.

  10. Computer coding been veddy good to me. But I'm grateful there are men out there willing to dig coal out of the ground.

  11. Coal is solar energy captured by primeval forests of the Carboniferous Period.

    When the burning coal sparks and flares for a moment, that's a summer's day from long ago coming out in a rush.

  12. "Learn computer coding, right?"

    I don't know why you continue to ridicule unemployed coal miners who have found good jobs doing computer coding, in West Virginia no less. And in Kentucky.

    Would love to see you make fun of this to their faces Donnie.

    1. If they are unemployed miners, that means they don't have work. It is also unlikely that many of those formerly employed at coal mining are "coding."

    2. Lighten up, Francis.

    3. "Unlikely" is the word.

      Pity, though. The computer programs encoding the banks' usurious interest rates and foreclosure algorithms could use a "Prepare To Meet God" sign in their comment blocks.

  13. Ironically a few years ago the Poms discovered up to 23 trillion tonnes of coal under the North Sea.

    That would be enough to power the whole world for almost 3,000 years at the current rate of use.

    Truly they are the man dying of hunger in the middle of a cornucopia.

  14. In the 28 years working in the energy field I worked on construction and testing of many coal fired plants. The particulate capture was excellent, but the capture of CO2 ws a bridge too far. With NG so cheap due to fracking and horizontal drilling and the Obama regulations, shutting down coal plants and replacing with NG fired plants was attractive.