John Oliver, Bob Murray, and Coal

First of all, I'm surprised that Last Week Tonight has not made its way into the forum that often.

Now, John Oliver is not exactly one of my favorites as far as his political leaning, but his jokes are funny.

Anyways, this segment was about coal mining and Trump's revitalization of the coal industry. One thing Oliver hit upon was the method Trump is using to "revitalize" the coal industry.

I'm surprised he didn't pick up on this, but here's my take. Trump has been lifting restrictions on the coal industry and empowering CEOs. The reason the jobs are going away is due mainly to automation and increased efficiency. While this may cause a short term spike in the number of people employed, within about 5 years, maybe even less, the jobs will start disappearing even faster. Because the companies now have more money; they can start automating even more. Trump caused a rise in about 13,000 coal mining jobs, which, to give credit where credit is due, good job. But this could spell disaster for the future.

Now for the comedy. I'm interested to hear your opinions on the defamation allegations against John Oliver for commenting on Bob Murray's company. Personally, I find this absolutely hilarious. But it is actually a serious claim. However, given the legal precedent of a "cease and desist" letter and the definitions of libel and defamation, John Oliver has not violated any law.

Thoughts?

 

I doubt it.

THE FUTURE OF ENERGY: LOOKS LIKE IT’S STILL COAL
One of the refrains of anguish following Trump’s sagacious decision to ditch the Kellogg-Briand Pact Paris Climate Accord was that the United States would be “ceding world leadership” in promoting “clean energy,” along with some fancy-sounding statistics about how renewable energy is soaring in China. Well, about that:

As Beijing Joins Climate Fight, Chinese Companies Build Coal Plants

When China halted plans for more than 100 new coal-fired power plants this year, even as President Trump vowed to “bring back coal” in America, the contrast seemed to confirm Beijing’s new role as a leader in the fight against climate change.

But new data on the world’s biggest developers of coal-fired power plants paints a very different picture: China’s energy companies will make up nearly half of the new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade.

These Chinese corporations are building or planning to build more than 700 new coal plants at home and around the world, some in countries that today burn little or no coal, according to tallies compiled by Urgewald, an environmental group based in Berlin. Many of the plants are in China, but by capacity, roughly a fifth of these new coal power stations are in other countries.

Over all, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries, according to Urgewald’s tally, which uses data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker portal. The new plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 percent.

The climatistas like to say that anyone who dissents from the narrow orthodoxy of Al Gore is a “denier,” yet amidst the Paris Climate Accord’s provision that every nation will soon submit its plan for how to essentially de-carbonize their entire energy infrastructure by the year 2050, I notice that all of the long-range forecasts of our Energy Information Administration, the International Energy Agency in Paris, and just about every private sector forecasting firm, expect that in 2050 three-quarters of the world’s energy will still be provided by traditional hydrocarbons. Just who are the deniers now?

I think we should start calling the climatistas “reality deniers.” Especially when you see stories like these about how the “unstoppable” renewable energy revolution looks to be stopping in lots of places:

New proposals would kill solar and wind in the European Union

In mid-May, European grid regulators spoke out against priority dispatch for renewables. If the proposals are adopted, it will be hard to add more wind or solar capacity.

Have I mentioned lately that Germany’s CO2 emissions are going back up, because they are burning more coal to replace the nuclear power they are shutting down? I guess wind and solar just don’t cut it, despite over $100 billion in subsidies over the last 15 years.

And this:

North Carolina Legislators Pass Two-Year Ban on Wind Turbines

North Carolina state lawmakers passed a two-year-long moratorium on the construction of new wind turbines early Friday morning.

If enacted, the measure will be the longest statewide halt on wind energy development ever passed in any state. Tennessee passed a year-long moratorium on new wind turbines in May.

At least as far as energy goes, the answer, my friend, is not blowing in the wind.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/07/the-future-of-energy-looks-like-its-still-coal.php

 

Oh you misunderstand. Coal is the past, present, and future as far as energy goes. However, it's not like making it easier for CEO's is going to give people more jobs. If anything, its going to decrease jobs in the long run as a result of automation.

 

No I don't.

Yes, it is.

I could give less of a damn how easy or how hard it is for CEO's, CEO's don't live rent free in my head. It is the basic human right of all of use to:
1) Exchange our labor for hire, or refrain from doing so. Getting everyone out of that decision that does not need to be involved, is all that is needed for folks to make their own free choices.

So? That is the same argument the wagon makers made when the automobile was introduced.

If the Central Planners of a hundred years ago, tried to centrally plan for today's US, the first thing they would be struggling to figure out is how to set aside enough crop land and agricultural workers for all the hay, for all the horses that a nation of our size would require.

The central planners don't know ****. They can't run their own lives, so they try to run ours. They can't do a damn thing, they can't make a damn thing, they have no idea how to provide for or protect themselves, so they work on schemes to ensure that those of us who do know how to feed house and protect ourselves, feed, house and protect them. You seem too smart to fall for such an obvious scam.

Free People making Free Choices. That is always our goal and the furthest realization of that, the task ever before us.

 

If memory serves me correctly, I believe John Oliver rebutted that 13,000 coal mining jobs claim.

 

Since John Oliver is a comedian, let's discuss him and not Trump.

OK, fair enough. The man is not an American. So he comes with British baggage.

He is mocking Trump for wanting coal workers to get back to work.

Fine, that is his English political view.

But what about the miners family? Don't they count? Does their house payment need to be made? Maybe they own the house but what about kids college fund? Oliver thinks by attacking Trump he solves the coal problem.

But the man is a comedian.

 

You should watch the video because it addresses all of your points.

 

Professor Muller hits the nail on the head in this book. I picked it up recently and still am reading it.



Alarmists love to assert Muller changed his mind over climate. But the man studied climate and by golly who does he blame? If you said China and India, give yourself another drink. Tip it to him.

 

I couldn't blow that up large enough to read it.

 

Let's ask other comedians too.

What is Bill Cosby's take on the subject?

 

Coal is limited in its use, due to its inherent impurity. Coal based furnances required a far greater amount of maintenance, due to the impurities suspended in the fuel, which requires a higher temperature to separate and the residue needs to be filtered and of course that requires maintenance. Mining has become more efficient, but the conversion to energy requires the maintenance, otherwise the pollutants become an issue, and that is where coal does not hold up to natural gas.

 

We are blessed to have so much natural gas.

With the exception of hydroelectric, all of America’s electricity generation will need to be replaced by mid-century, most of it within the next 25 years. We all have our favorite mix of energy sources, but we really need to know how much each energy source will cost before we can plan on what this replacement energy mix should be for the country.

The Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) is a way to combine all the construction, fuel and operational costs into a form that can be compared among all energy sources. The LCOE also has assumptions about financing periods, taxation, depreciation and owner costs that are hard to compare between short-lived systems like wind and long-lived systems like large hydro and nuclear.

Legislators and other decision-makers use the LCOE as the primary means to compare power plant costs for electricity generation when planning for the future.



You can't beat natural gas, but outside of nuclear, coal is the next cheapest. And the problem with nuclear is the incredible risk and Japan continues to demonstrate.

The above is for NEW plants. For existing:

Source LCOE-existing (¢/kWh) LCOE-new (¢/kWh)

Coal 3.8¢ 9.8¢

Natural Gas 4.9¢ 7.3¢

Nuclear 3.0¢ 9.3¢

Hydro 3.4¢ 11.7¢

Coal beats NG, but Hydro and nuclear beat coal.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesc...cheapest-energy-mix-for-america/#216b9c584aab

 

I did watch him. I enjoyed the squirrel. He needs to stick to comedy and hone his skills.

 

For nuclear we need to work on fusion reactors!!!

The advantage with renewables is just that, the energy is there for the taking, the issue is the conversion.

 

I am no coal expert but know a lot about other fuels. Coal is extremely abundant. And it works very well. Natural gas is far cleaner.

Let's study Americans today.

Coal: 18 pounds per day per person
Oil: 16 pounds per day per person
Natural Gas: 10 pounds per day per person

Will Earth stop awarding us with these energy sources?

Easy to know. Yes it will.

But today we must face up to what is real.

The USA uses up about 1 cubic mile of fossil fuels per year. Any other source has to match that., (1 mile up and deep and sideways) picture a large box.

We need energy density in short. Wind provides little energy density. Solar less.

 

Yes. We need nuclear reactors that do not generate dangerous waste and that can't turn into nuclear bombs.

The first experiments with molten-salt reactors were carried out at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee, under its director Alvin Weinberg in the late 1950s.

That pricing though, is for our current reactors that generate dangerous waste and can turn into nuclear bombs.

Renewables are great too, especially hydro-electric, but certainly wind and solar need to be part of the mix, though solar

solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of electricity generated than nuclear power plants:

Solar panels use heavy metals, including lead, chromium and cadmium, which can harm the environment, very little has been done to mitigate solar waste issues.

“There are two types of waste from solar. Waste from the manufacturing scene and waste from the solar panel after it has gone through its useful life. There are materials in those that if they leached out, it wouldn’t be good.”

Furthermore, the solar panels themselves present a unique set of environmental health and safety hazard. For example, in London, solar panels caught fire at a newly constructed, trendy, water-side complex.

A large blaze broke at a brand new block of flats in East London this afternoon with witnesses claiming the building’s solar panels appeared to have caught fire.

The roof of Bow Wharf was engulfed by flames leaving it partially collapsed at the scene which was between Bethnal Green and Mile End. Other floors were also damaged.

Shocked crowds gathered to watch as 80 firefighters battled the inferno in the five-floor building with huge plumes of smoke seen billowing into the air.

Additionally, the weight of solar panels can make roofs more susceptible to collapse during a fire and their presence creates other, potential hazards to consider during firefighting.

According to [Lt. Paul McAllister of the West Warwick Fire Department], the added weight from solar panels could force firefighters to go on the defense, rather than attack a fire from the inside.

“Normally, under ten minutes of heavy fire conditions, a roof structure usually collapses,” said McAllister. “This is probably going to be a little bit sooner now if we have solar panels on the roof.”

Firefighters say solar panels limit access to vertical ventilation, which could impact the time it would take to put out a fire. “When we do vertical ventilation, it’s to reduce the fire and smoke spread throughout the building or structure,” explained McAllister.

“If we were to throw a ladder to the roof and the ladder would puncture the solar panels,” said McAllister, “that could cause an electrocution to the members who were putting the ladders on the roof.”

Finally, massive solar plants take a toll on wildlife. For example, the Mojave Desert solar power plant zaps 6,000 birds annually.

So, between the life safety issues, waste generation, and hazards to wildlife, about the only thing truly green about solar energy may be the money being made by those pushing the renewable energy agenda.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/07/just-how-green-are-your-solar-panels/

Natural Gas is probably the best of all worlds.

 

bs about your fear of solar

 

wind and solar is far more abundant than coal

 

Fear has nothing to do with it. There are real pollution concerns with both the mfg and disposal of solar, and covering your roof with solar, makes it much more difficult for fire fighters to defend the structures.

Those are the facts, Jack!

 

oh yeah, thats the deal breaker

 

I simply see it as a challenge yet to be resolved.

 

I honestly don't see how we're arguing. You're agreeing with me. My point was that literally nothing about the original post had anything to do with alternative energy.

 

I love when people read a couple sentences and words and start getting defensive and seek to justify themselves even though their points of view weren't even being attacked.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^OMG

 

This is my observation.

Oliver, just like Bill Maher, Samantha Bee, and Steven Colbert are indeed comedians. They have staffs of writers, and depending on the show, half write the comedy, the other does the research. I'm always amazed at how meticulous their research is, Oliver's team in particular, and how they sift through the BS to get at the heart of the topic. And the thing I really like is that you yourself, if you're inclined to, can actually verify what he says. They don't hide their sources.

Now contrast these guys with Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, or Rush Limbaugh....none of these guys are funny. They aren't as open with their sources, and they have absolutely no qualms whatsoever of defaming the people they talk about, because they always choose soft targets, i.e. politicians, celebrities, or everyday people who do not have the resources to hire lawyers to send cease and desist letters.

That contrast says a lot....and it's NOT funny.