The History of Environmentalism: The War on Coal, Part I

This is the latest contribution from Mr. William Kay.  His essay is long, well documented, a bit complicated and covers more tie-in subjects than you normally see, so I asked him if I could post the entire essay in installments.  He has agreed.  I wish to post his essay in this way because I believe it will give everyone more time to dwell on the subject.  The story of coal is deep….and not because it is under the ground.  You will find this more than interesting, but remember…..”There is no such thing as a conspiracy!”  Rich Kozlovich

The War on Coal

Propaganda does not drive policy-making; it accompanies it. The Climate Change campaign is not driving energy policy-making; quite the contrary.

This posting comes on the heels of the September 21, 2012 passage, by the US House of Representatives, of a Bill entitled: Stop the War on Coal Act. While unlikely to soon become law, this Bill signals an overdue awakening to the threat presented by the War on Coal and hopefully heralds a robust counter-offensive.

This posting juxtaposes the recent histories of coal-fired power in Germany and the USA.

Highlights:

One irreconcilable irony of our age is that Germany, a country possessing relatively modest coal resources and being the redoubt of climate alarmism, is embarking on a coal-fired power plant building spree while the USA, “the Saudi Arabia of coal” and the stronghold of climate skepticism, is demolishing its coal infrastructure.

The world’s largest environmental movement organization, Germany’s state-owned Reconstruction Credit Institute, invests over $30 billion into “climate and environmental protection” projects every year. About 75% of Germany’s 23,000 wind turbines were financed by this Institute.

In the USA, between 2000 and 2012, enviro-activists inside and outside of government forced the early retirement of 140 coal-fired power plants and thwarted the construction of 170 proposed coal-fired power plants. Regulations passed by Obama’s EPA will shut down over 200 coal plants, and terminate new coal plant construction, over the next five years.

Natural gas’s surpassing coal as America’s main electricity-generating fuel did not result from shale gas undercutting coal in a market contest. The “dash for gas” was over before the shale gas revolution took hold. The shale gas revolution would not have been possible if gas-fired power plants had not been waiting to receive the shale gas. The “market triumph of gas” narrative ignores the fact that the critical years of gas’s ascendancy also mark the triumphal climax of the War on Coal.

The $45 billion takeover and hobbling of TXU Corp. in 2007 was not a rational business deal; it was political activism aimed at removing a potent and intransigent pro-coal player from the US electrical industry. It was done with “other people’s money” and “other people” lost money.

Germany’s rural landowners are the vanguard of the “Energy Revolution.”  Most renewable energy assets in Germany are owned by rural landowners.