Sometimes the emotional, the uneducated, and the unsophisticated cling to irrationality in the face of facts and logic. Normally, this only impacts themselves (religion, for example). But when it impacts all of us collectively, effort must be expended to drive towards the optimal outcome (net zero electrical generation, in this case).
Only one coal plant in the US is cheaper to operate than replacement with batteries and renewables (Dry Fork Wyoming) [1]. Funds are being provided for a just transition [2], not throwing coal folks into the streets. Utilities and generators will retrain or offer other jobs to people not taking retirement buyouts. If they still want to keep coal because of their belief systems around identity, work, etc, well, too bad. The climate doesn’t care about your belief system.
It is not productive to declare that the people who don't agree with your policy goals are emotional, uneducated, and unsophisticated, clinging to "irrationality."
People have different values. They may not be able to articulate those values as well as you or I; they may not want to articulate them, because they don't think they'd be received well. But this is the root of the problem: people with different value systems see the same facts and come to different conclusions.
It's entirely possible even for an unemotional, educated, and sophisticated person to see "all the facts and logic" and disagree that your desired outcome is the "optimal" one. This tone just alienates.
Not all values or value systems are equal. If after all attempts at discussion and persuasion fails, based on sound facts and data, what else would you expect to be done? It’s also unproductive to have to fight against failed value systems. You’ll always alienate people who are having their value systems challenged, as you’re challenging a core component of their identity. It’s a mental immune response. That does not make their values valid.
Values are axiomatic. How do you propose people compare them? Simply declaring their values Bad and our values Good isn’t helpful. Nobody thinks their own values are bad, and you can’t reason yourself or others into having different values.
What you can do is work towards rapprochement and working to find areas of common ground (even if your reasons are different), or at least being careful about tactics so you don’t generate counterreaction.
> It is not productive to declare that the people who don't agree with your policy goals are emotional, uneducated, and unsophisticated, clinging to "irrationality."
I mean, the logical conclusion of what you are posting is to cut off criticizing someone's argument as irrational or emotional as a line of debate, which doesn't really seem that reasonable.
But like anyways though, I would argue that, in this case, that's neither here nor there; isn't it the case that, most of the time, the debate surrounding coal boils down to "coal is bad for the environment and killing the planet" versus "yeah but that's mostly all we have for jobs in these rural communities"?
Insofar as that's mostly what this is about, I don't think the GP is correct in labeling those arguments irrational. The pro-coal position is very rational for those people in the short-term. Unfortunately for them, their self-interest conflicts with the interests of broader society, and we will have to steamroll them.
By and large, they aren't very sympathetic at the end of the day. When I was a litigator, one of the practice groups I worked with was an admin law group at my firm that did nothing but Black Lung claims (i.e. big coal companies hired us to litigate against claimant miners). These people got paid a fair wage by their employers for decades (they made rather good money, esp given that a lot of them were high school dropouts), had extensive smoking histories, and then, when they felt the negative health effects of their work + life styles, they wanted to turn around sue their former employers.
Of course, whenever people on the left side of the political spectrum tried to raise the negative effects of coal mines, they dismissively called them "tree huggers", and whenever people like AOC raise the idea of proper healthcare in the country, they deride that as socialism (as if that's a bad thing)--yet they still hypocritically would turn around and try to sue their employers for health care money (which, btw, comes out of a government trust fund under certain circumstances).
>Only one coal plant in the US is cheaper to operate than replacing with batteries and renewables
If it's cheaper to slap up some renewables and back them up with batteries then to continue to operate the plants, shouldn't power suppliers be making plans to shut the existing plants down right now? If they are, they why does Michael Bloomberg need to spend half a billion dollars to shut these plants down?
Utilities commissions and state regulators are enabling these plants to continue to run, even when they’re uneconomical. Consumers pay more than they otherwise would for local electricity due to ideology. That is what this earmark is to fight.
I just want to point out this is only aimed at coal power plants. This has nothing to do with other uses of coal which is used for steel making. According to the EIA, a little over 90% of coal is used for power[1]. But there is close to 10% of that used for Steel.
Lots of the southeast and probably elsewhere. In Kentucky and west Virginia, it's common to see black license plates on cars with a "coal keeps the lights on" slogan. People pay extra for them.
People here seem to be fundamentally incapable of considering the future in any capacity. Climate issues aside, we're simply going to run out of coal at some point. I'd wonder what those people think will happen then, but I know they just don't even consider it a possibility. Or at most it's a problem for a future generation that clearly doesn't concern them.
There’s no real replacement plan for the coal mining jobs in the rust belt, so some people are somewhat justifiably against it there. Obviously we should move away from coal, but if that’s not addressed, a poor area is just going to get poorer. There should really be a plan to build alternative energy factories and train people in those areas
In the end, it's mostly about dollars and dense. Most coal plants are operated by large companies including Georgia Power, Duke Energy, AEP, etc. who have large coffers to fund lobbying effort to influence the public and regulators. They are mostly located in middle America and provide well paying jobs for the locals.
Even though no new coal plants are going up, they've made large capital investment building these plants in 70s and 80s, and they want to maximize the returns as long as possible, right up until the lifespan which is around 50 years.
So they're doing the minimum necessary to appease and avoid raising the ire of regulatory bodies and general public.
Yeah, the idea is rather than pay China for solar and battery REM, burn coal and jump to nuclear. The coal’s going to be burned in Africa anyway, so why enrich our rival (who is also burning coal).
People are pro-benefits that coal brings... which includes jobs, (hopefully) lower electricity rates, energy self-sufficiency. The price of coal isn't going to change much when there is conflict in the Middle East, for instance...
There is also an identity component to the energy religions. There are not many coal related jobs in the US, but there are millions of people who have tied their identity to it.
Similarly with renewables, although I admit my bias: renewables are more reasonable to support because they are clean, we won’t run out, and nowadays less expensive.
One can reason themselves into being a green energy fan, I’m not sure there is a reasonable way to decide to support coal.
