I was just reading that there are only 70,000 people employed in the coal industry while renewable energy is responsible for nearly 10 times as many jobs (650,000 for the math challenged).
So by promoting the use of coal is Trump helping or hurting the economy? It is hard for anyone to say he is boosting jobs for sure!
That depends on whether you prefer productivity or jobs.
What's the net to/from the treasury?
Damn! You mean there are 650,000 involved in the renewable energy con job?
...Jim Thompson
Coal is used to generate electricity, so more people are employed in the power plants and such. Ethanol, wood chips, and solar are subsidized and generally counter-productive.
In the USA at least, coal for electricity generation is being killed off by natural gas, which is overall a good thing.
Q: What did Australians use for light before candles?
A: Electricity.
It turns out that what really turned out the light in South Australia wasn' t the heavy dependence on renewable energy, but a somewhat poorly designed whole-sale electricity market. I went to a lecture by the guy who designed the market, and he was particularly acid about the political choices that lead to power being sold in half-hour chunks. He'd wanted five-minute chunk s when he set up the system, and the gas-fired generator in South Australia that wasn't turned on when the lights went out (when a bunch of pylons got blown over - which can't be blamed on renewable energy) would have been tu rned on if they could have charged the earth for the few five-minute segmen ts that would have kept the grid running.
John Larkin gets his information on climate change and renewable energy fro m the denialist websites that the Murdoch media serves up to him.
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