Trump Orders a Lifeline For Struggling Coal and Nuclear Plants (nytimes.com)

According to The New York Times, President Trump has ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to "prepare immediate steps" to stop the closure of unprofitable coal and nuclear plants around the country. From the report: Under one proposal outlined in the memo, which was reported by Bloomberg, the Department of Energy would order grid operators to buy electricity from struggling coal and nuclear plants for two years, using emergency authority that is normally reserved for exceptional crises like natural disasters. That idea triggered immediate blowback from a broad alliance of energy companies, consumer groups and environmentalists. On Friday, oil and gas companies joined with wind and solar organizations in a joint statement condemning the plan, saying that it was "legally indefensible" and would force consumers to pay more for electricity.

The administration has also discussed invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950, which allows the federal government to intervene in private industry in the name of national security. (Harry S. Truman used the law to impose price controls on the steel industry during the Korean War.) If the Trump administration were to invoke these two statutes, the move would almost certainly be challenged in federal court by natural gas and renewable energy companies, which could stand to lose market share. Such an intervention could cost consumers between $311 million to $11.8 billion pear year, according to a preliminary estimate (PDF) by Robbie Orvis, director of energy policy design at Energy Innovation.

Comments

Capitalists no more?

[orev]

Isn't the point of capitalism to allow failing companies to die? At least during the financial crisis there was a national interest reason (collapse of the economy and banks runs are bad), but coal mines?

Re:Capitalists no more?

[Rick Schumann]

Yes, but in spite of all his bluster and repeating himself ad infinitum about any number of things that are complete and utter nonsense, he has to do whatever he has to, regardless of the consequences to the country and everyone in it, to retain the support of his voter base. Without them, he's got nothing. So he'll fuck over the economy, fuck over all citizens, and fuck over the environment, to appease those who voted for him. Little does he know that many of them are capable of looking past the ends of their own noses and will see that things like this that he does will have far-reaching negative effects -- and ironically he'll lose supporters anyway. He's a train wreck, has been all along, and isn't showing any signs of changing.

Re:Capitalists no more?

[ezelkow1]

Huh? The coal companies even said they are being pushed out by a glut of cheaper natural gas and renewable energy. If they can not provide a product at the same level of quality and at a similar price to competitors then why shouldn't they go out of business? People will still get power to their homes, by the providers that are providing the goods at the best cost.

Banks and coal mines are not comparable in any way, especially in the manner in which they are failing. Major banks fail and the economy collapses because no one can borrow money, whole populations do not get paid, and it all goes in to a downard spiral. Coal companies fail and ...................... we get the same product at the same cheaper price we did before

Re:Capitalists no more?

[jader3rd]

Little does he know that many of them are capable of looking past the ends of their own noses and will see that things like this that he does will have far-reaching negative effects

Pretty much the definition of a Trump supporter is that they aren't capable of that.

IMHO, we need nuclear

[Snotnose]

Coal is outdated and needs to be replaced with natural gas.

Nuclear has issues (most of them caused by lawyers paid by the hour, most of the rest caused by executives paid by the quarterly stock price, and a small handful of technical issues) but they're still a good way to get a lot of energy from a small footprint with a minimum of global warming.

Re:IMHO, we need nuclear

[voss]

Nuclear is an option but propping up old nuclear and coal plants is not the answer and does not incentivize new nuclear designs.

52-dimensional chess

[PopeRatzo]

The administration has also discussed invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950, which allows the federal government to intervene in private industry in the name of national security.

Finally we have a president who truly understands the value of "free markets" without government interference.

At least Trump is demonstrating that every one of the most hallowed conservative principles really don't mean a thing to conservatives. They never did. It was always a con job. Trump could perform an abortion with a rusty screwdriver while raising taxes and banning guns on Fifth Avenue and conservatives would still meekly seek his approval and make excuses for him as long as he continues to send up the racist bat-signal.

A reckoning will come.

Re: 52-dimensional chess

[Waffle Iron]

I openly admit that I voted for Trump because I didn't want to see the blatant corruption get into office.

I don't understand what is wrong with you people. This country has usually been run by corrupt politicians for almost 250 years, and things usually worked out.

What we haven't done until now is elect obvious mentally unstable megalomaniac sociopaths (who are also corrupt, BTW); that was left for third world countries to deal with. Why you could even begin to think that this was preferable to run-of-the-mill corruption is beyond me.

The coal industry employs fewer people than Arby&r

[fahrbot-bot]

Just passing along that, The entire coal industry employs fewer people than Arby’s -- and just a bit more that Whole Foods:

The coal industry employed 76,572 people in 2014, the latest year for which data is available. (That number includes not just miners but also office workers, sales staff and all of the other individuals who work at coal-mining companies.)

Although 76,000 might seem like a large number, consider that similar numbers of people are employed by, say, the bowling (69,088) and skiing (75,036) industries. Other dwindling industries, such as travel agencies (99,888 people), employ considerably more. Used-car dealerships provide 138,000 jobs. Theme parks provide nearly 144,000. Carwash employment tops 150,000.

Looking at the level of individual businesses, the coal industry in 2014 (76,572) employed about as many as Whole Foods (72,650), and fewer workers than Arby's (close to 80,000), Dollar General (105,000) or J.C. Penney (114,000). The country's largest private employer, Walmart (2.2 million employees) provides roughly 28 times as many jobs as coal.

Picking winners and losers

[GrimSavant]

This is the nightmare of government interference into markets that conservatives have long used to attack the left for their regulatory and subsidy policies, summed up in the pithy phrase of "picking winners and losers". But this is unvarnished use of political power to the economic benefit of political allies, a crony capitalism that is an even more explicit form of the "swamp" behavior that Trump ran against.

If you think the above rebuke is wrong, please tell me what the genuine public interest is in the underlying rule "to consider guaranteeing financial returns for any power plant that could stockpile 90 days’ worth of fuel on-site". Several forms of power generation don't stockpile fuel (natural gas is typically piped in), or don't use "fuel" at all, such as wind, solar, and hydro. If fuel disruption was the legitimate security concern, then not requiring fuel distribution at all would be the most ideal for that end.

Propping up coal is particularly egregious, since the coal industry has a plethora of negative externalities, which means that if anything coal power has been selling at rates well below it's true overall cost to society. Coal power also is at the top of the list of mortality and impaired health of all forms of power generation, far higher than natural gas generation which has been the main competitor crowding it out on price.

Subsidizing coal power is plainly not in the general public interest, only the narrow interest of those who depend economically on the coal industry.

They never were

[rsilvergun]

these are the same folks who vote for the farm bill and oil subsidies every year. The same folks that made marijuana illegal to prop up private prison industry and cotton. The same folks that ran proxy wars in South America for bloody _fruit_ companies.

No, there's nothing even a little capitalistic about this party. They're just Kleptocrats.