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Norfolk Southern lays off 200 in West Virginia
The major of Bluefield, Marcus Wilkes, told the newspaper he’s
the major said it???
This really had nothing to do with Obama. Deregulation of the drilling industry was started under the Bush era. It relieved the drilling companies of their environmental clean up and other responsibilities. Which meant lots of fracking took place for gas and oil. Unfortunately coal production has suffered as a result. This is unlikely to chance if Romney becomes the President. After all he’s a businessman and the l
This really had nothing to do with Obama. Deregulation of the drilling industry was started under the Bush era. It relieved the drilling companies of their environmental clean up and other responsibilities. Which meant lots of fracking took place for gas and oil. Unfortunately coal production has suffered as a result. This is unlikely to change if Romney becomes the President. After all he’s a businessman and the lower gas prices are helping industry. Just like when low sulfur Powder River Basin coal undercut the eastern producers.
I know it is popular among certain circles to blame the president for everything that is wrong with America but the fact of the matter is that Natural Gas is coal’s biggest enemy right now.
Amazing isn’t it? Energy prices are high yet the current administration’s energy policy is shutting down our energy providers.
Note to miners and railroaders: Vote for the conservative candidate this go around.
Never heard of Marcus Wilkes. The Mayor of Bluefield, WV is a lady named Linda Wayland. All the Furloughs were not on the Pocahontas Division in Bluefield. Some were on the Virginia Division in Roanoke. Both divisions are major transporters of coal on NS.
It is about cheap natural gas in which every other utility in Southeast is converting to - becuase it is cheaper, cleaner, doesn’t leave utilites with heavy metal laced ash and a modern gas turbine can literally be turned on and shut down in minutes. Not to mention that they require less man power to operate because the fuel source comes via a pipeline with a fraction of the infrastructure and foot print to handle.
The simple fact is a lot, lot of people in Pennsy and Ohio are coming out ahead of the shale play and the losers are coal miners. Just as Railroads are losing out coal traffic they have been picking up fracking sand and oil plays in ND and Texas. It is called capitalism and free markets.
First it was the miners at Alpha, now the railroaders in Bluefield. Obama’s war on coal is really starting to take its toll. If he is re-elected there may not be a coal industry in four more years.
If His Oneness gets to impose four more years of Alinsky economics, might as well shut down anything to do with coal, oil, and natural gas. Unless the railroads get a backbone and tell big government where to go. If all the railroads shut down, there would be nothing the Idiot In Chief could do about it. His Oneness has no clue about running anything and government workers would run it like Amtrak, which means trucking companies would run roughshod over the government run freight railroad, taking away all the freight, just like in the other socialist countries.
If I recall correctly, quite a bit of this coal is destined for trans-shipment overseas, correct? If that’s the case, then why blame the “current resident?” The lowered demand for soft coal because of the continuing recession in Europe and other places might be a better explanation for the slow coal market, wouldn’t you agree?
Coal is losing to cheap Natural Gas. Why is Obama to blame for that.
And then you have Romney, who wants to get rid of Amtrak. It looks like the rail industry is going to shrink either way.
I find the knee-jerk reactions of people who have little or no understanding of energy policy to be tiresome. If you can’t already tell, I’m speaking about the misguided posters (one in particular who bleats at every opportunity) who attempt to blame absolutely everything on the current President.
The truth of the matter is that the boom in gas production has caused natural gas prices to fall through the floor, and any power company that is able to do so is switching to gas for purely economic reasons. Yes, EPA regulations are also a factor, but any thinking person understands that pollution is a world-wide problem.
If the coal industry wants to survive, it better get serious about coming up with an economically viable method for coal gasification. Otherwise it will enjoy the same fate that steam locomotive manufacturers suffered when diesels took over. Or, if you want a more contemporary example, look what happened to Kodak when technology passed it by!
As others have said, the weakened demand is do to cheap natural gas and soft overseas markets. In other words, the free market is affecting the price, not government policies. This is called capitalism.
Obama hates the coal and carbon fuels supplies. He has had his people, those he appointed, compose such restrictive clean air requirements that the only way electric utilities can comply in the short time frame to comply is to close most of their plants. They have to build new plants that don’t use coal to produce electric. This alone will probably lead to shortages oof electric
Up on our hill, we encounter lots of fine hard flint rocks, and yet, there’s never been a flint-knapper show up with an interest in them.
You see, the Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stone.
- get it?
I guess the Goverment also plans to shut down coal plants too. What are we suppose to do for power? Know body seems to care that our country is in a sad state right now.
Cheap natural gas?! We used to have that in Colo. 3 increases in the past 4 years and exporting what we have to rest of the union is making for expensive natural gas, think I’ll just burn wood thank you.
When I was a wee lad in 54 , my dad was a coal yard owner. He closed in 1955, becaues of NG and Oil forn heat and steam.No regs back then, just cost. 3.00 dollers a ton for coal. .03 cents per gallon for fuel oil. He made it thourgh the depresion but not through cheap NG or Oil.