Coal Won't Be Coming Back

I had to laugh at the site of Gianforte and Daines on horseback touring a coal mine near Colstrip. It is laughable because the Montana way of life, the outdoors or agriculture, and coal are not the best of bedfellows. The other issue with Greg Gianforte, Steve Daines, Ryan Zinke and Donald Trump supporting the coal industry at all cost is that it isn’t their call to make. Utility companies are the main consumers of coal, and we are the main consumers of energy. Coal has grown in price and as a result has become nonviable as a competitor to natural gas, solar and wind generated energy. The free market economy has chosen coal as a loser.

Why did coal lose? It is just plain dirty. Soot and toxins were being spewed into the air for decades, and as people became sick, regulations became necessary. As coal sought to clean up its act, it had to install expensive regulating and filtering devices. These costs it laid off on energy companies. At the same time coal was becoming more expensive natural gas, such as propane and methane, became easier to mine and therefore cheaper. Energy companies and ultimately consumers took note, and an exodus ensued.

Because coal fire power was so expensive plants across the nation began to shut down. Being the politically savvy administration they were, the Obama administration capitalized on an already existing trend to push a global leader agenda that would ultimately lead China and India to shut down plans for more coal-fire plants. Reducing emissions, pollutants and health hazards the world over. That is the true irony in Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord. Realistically he can’t bring coal back, because he would have to bail it out of bankruptcy, something that wouldn’t float well with his base constituents. The free market destroyed coal. Some of it was public relations, but most of it was insolvency and a poor product. Natural gas will reign for a time until renewable energy becomes the product of the future, and nothing will stop the market from its decisions, but I digress.

Why is that good for agriculture? Because ag and fossil fuels don’t mix. As the climate changes it becomes more erratic, think wet year last year and dry year this year. The trends that have maintained balance in the world’s ecology change with each tenth of a degree, and that ultimately destroys agriculture. Weeds are more abundant, yields are extremely high leading to lower prices than extremely low leading to collapses. Fields dry out requiring hay and reducing returns, and so on. One bad year is a coincidence, but two or three is devastating all because of fossil fuels. The science is an agricultural truth. Carbon increases temperatures just ask anyone who grows in a green house.

Producing carbon will not maintain our way of life, and the market is getting rid of coal anyway. The solution would be to move with it, and invest in the future of clean energy. It is certainly not to spout irrational rhetoric about wars on industries that were failing years ago. I wonder what the world would be like if typewriter unions and manufacturers had banded together to destroy the computer or touch screen devices, and some irrational political ideal had worked to stifle progress in that industry? Markets decide what will happen naturally the best thing to do is lean into it and invest in the future.