King Coal or Humpty Dumpty

At the end of the month of March President Donald Trump made a dramatic display of executive power at the Environmental Protection Agency by signing an executive order to turn-back EPA regulations enacted under President Obama.

“My administration is putting an end to the war on coal,” Trump exclaimed.

This unique focus on coal is both curious and intriguing.  It's not like coal mining is a particularly appealing or desirable job.   The role of coal in producing electricity is shrinking and continues to shrink.   Coal produces maybe 30% of our power - down from 55% in its glory days - and by 2020, it will be exceedingly lucky to maintain a grip on a fourth of the energy generation market.  The relentless march of natural gas and renewable sources of energy are unforgiving.   Horizontal drilling and fracking technologies are safer, gas is more abundant, renewables are growing less expensive and apparently are not going away.  In summation they are cleaner, growing cheaper and they are here to stay.   

Instead of investing money to train coal miners for other jobs and develop new industries for coal country we spend over a billion dollars on black-lung healthcare for the miners.  Admittedly, this blogger would tell you that statement is a cheap shot at miners.  Nevertheless, in less than ten years an additional 13,000 coal mining jobs have been lost.  All the while other industries - newspapers among them - have lost more jobs.  Coal mining and coal burning is dangerous and dirty work, it's destructive to the environment, it's expensive relative to other energy sources and it should be a relic of the 19th and 20th centuries.  It is a dying industry on life support.  

What's so special about coal and coal miners?  

To be certain I can be sympathetic to the miners, their families, communities and employers that are impacted by the decline of coal - but nothing lasts forever.   I have blogged about this painful creative destruction or creative disruption before as products, services and labor continue to be priced according to market-forces of supply-and-demand.  The developments of cutting edge technologies, inexpensive, abundant and clean natural-gas are rendering coal obsolete.   I dunno, perhaps the future technological breakthrough will make coal viable again.  

I would like to ask if the coal miner is now the modern day working class hero.  Or are they the current detritus cast-off as a consequence innovation and technology.  Or are they convenient props for opportunistic politicians?  

Last year a candidate promised job retraining but the miners would tell you there isn't a demand for retraining.  If I had to hazard a guess it is easier to blame immigrants, liberals and others for your problems than it is to adapt and adjust.   

Last year a different candidate promised hope to people whose family livelihood has been coal for multiple generations.   Was this a calculated and cynical move?  

Plenty of communities have transformed themselves into innovative cities.  No surprise if you embrace the challenge.  People there created opportunity, or moved to join it.  West Virginians and Kentuckians could have done the same thing, but they didn't (or haven’t yet). 

It is going to be interesting to watch from the sidelines how this all plays-out…