
Friendly policies keep US oil and coal afloat far more than we thought (2017) - aaronbrethorst
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/6/16428458/us-energy-coal-oil-subsidies
======
Robotbeat
There are a bunch of strange state-level credits, too. Coal mining credits are
regularly reinstated here in Virginia, for instance, and there are also huge
subsidies for infrastructure like ports and railroads primarily used for
transporting coal.

Also, there are indirect subsidies like depressed property values around coal-
oriented rail lines, dust blowing from open rail cars and coal piles into the
lungs of nearby residents causing increased asthma rates:
[https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/10/this-huge-
ra...](https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/10/this-huge-rail-company-
is-spewing-coal-dust-all-over-a-low-income-community/)

Very few people actually work in these highly-mechanized and automated
facilities. Eliminating coal terminals in city limits would easily pay for
itself in increased tax revenue from businesses and housing in currently
uninhabitable areas surrounding these dusty coal terminals.

EDIT: based on the fact that asthma rates are about double in the areas
surrounding the terminal and that (based on state-level statistics) there are
about 10,000 asthmatics in Newport News with about a tenth of the population
of the city living near the coal terminals, that means there are probably on
the order of 500 more asthmatics in the area than there would be without the
coal terminals. From what I can tell, there are fewer than 500 people actually
employed in the two Newport News coal terminals, so we're talking at least one
additional case of asthma for every job in the coal terminals.

EDIT AGAIN: Ex-Im loan guarantees also go to coal export facilities:
[https://chesapeakeclimate.org/blog/lawsuit-seeks-to-stop-
fed...](https://chesapeakeclimate.org/blog/lawsuit-seeks-to-stop-federal-loan-
guarantee-for-coal-planned-for-export-from-hampton-roads/)

~~~
bamboozled
Sometimes I wonder if the attachment to certain industries and jobs is hidden
in the psychology of men who were once boys.

You were talking about "rails lines". I remember living in a coal town like
you're describing and it was fascinating how much the coal terminal seemed
like a massive Tonka Truck set. Big trains, cars and ships coming in out and
constantly and the men who were fascinated by all of it. Those who owned and
operated it, like a huge toy train set. I mean it was interesting.

Most people who worked there just loved the coal industry and what it was
about, comradery, big shiny trucks etc.

I'd actually love to know if anyone has actually found any research on the
euphoria and attachment people have to fossil fuel industries and if that has
anything to do with part of their ongoing popularity and support for mining
jobs (obviously asside from just the money part).

It honestly seems like some people would feel like a part of them were dead if
it's all shut down. I did once see a documentary on post coal mining
depression in some places in the UK and it's real.

Renewable energy doesn't really have the same kind of boyish appeal I guess.

~~~
Miner49er
That might be a factor, but I doubt it really matters much. I think the real
reason there is so much attachment is that change is hard, and ending coal
means that coal miners (and lots if other people working in related
industries) will have to basically restart their entire life. They'll also
lose a lot of their wealth.

Coal mining towns would become ghost towns, coal miners homes will lose most
value (who wants to live in a ghost town), they'll have to move for new work,
losing their friends and community in the process.

A lot of coal miners and oil workers (probably most) only have a high school
diploma. You get rid of coal and oil you get rid of some of the last well
paying jobs that don't require college.

Finally, this doesn't just effect the coal miners. This effects railword
workers, suppliers, the people working at the gas station where miners buy
their coffee, who'll soon be out if a job when the gas station closes, etc.
Literally the entire town, except those who are retired or close to, will be
forced to move and will lose a lot of their wealth in the process, lose
friends, etc.

In Wyoming for example, this will also impact other parts of the state. When
coal was doing poorly a few years ago, the loss in state budget caused layoffs
at the University of Wyoming, for example. The impact will be far reaching. It
makes sense that politicians that work to avoid that are popular in these
areas.

~~~
bsanr2
While we should definitely be helping these communities to transition as
smoothly as possible, this concern strikes me as somewhat hypocritical in the
country built on Manifest Destiny and sacking/building highways through non-
white neighborhoods. I think, in the back of their minds, people realize this;
they're fighting so hard because they know that they're on the side that
generally gets steamrolled over.

~~~
nerdponx
That's exactly right, but just because we treated these people like dirt in
the past doesn't mean we should continue to do so in the future.

------
perfunctory
> indirect subsidies — things like the money the US military spends to protect
> oil shipping routes

Nice one. Never thought about this.

~~~
docdeek
The same protection exists for major shipping routes the world over, not only
oil. I'm not sure it is useful to include this in calculations of the
subsidies to the fossil fuel sector any more than we would include it in
calculating subsidies for tech firms building products in China and shipping
them around the world.

~~~
Robotbeat
Considering just how much US military presence is in the Middle East primarily
for protecting energy assets, I think it is useful. It's disproportionate to
the actual value produced compared to other shipping protection deployments.

~~~
ailideex
How much of the oil used in US comes from middle east?

~~~
Robotbeat
That's the crazy thing. Nowadays, it's not even very much (on the order of $30
billion in oil per year, much of which is refined and re-exported as gasoline,
etc), but we have massive military investments in military bases in Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Djibouti, etc. There's no way this
passes the cost vs benefit sniff test.

Unlike the mid-aughts, the US is very nearly a net exporter of oil and oil
products:
[https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=m...](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mttntus2&f=m)

~~~
FrojoS
What matters is mostly the global price.

------
TomMckenny
Surely no one believed that criticism of clean fuel subsidies was anymore
intellectually honest than calls for a balanced budget.

------
nmeofthestate
If you look at the graph of subsidies, and adjust to percentage of generation,
then you can see that renewables receive a higher level of subsidy.

A big chunk of the "subsidy to non-renewables" is support for heating for the
poor. This allocation is by virtue of most generation being non-renewable.
When we move to more-expensive renewables, this support will be bigger and
will have moved to the renewable column. So, it's not really a subsidy to non-
renewables.

This is just a couple of things I noticed - you need to be alert to creative
accounting when it comes to renewables, because many people tend to be
motivated by ideology rather than numbers.

~~~
thinkcontext
> A big chunk of the "subsidy to non-renewables" is support for heating for
> the poor.

They address this directly, guess you missed it.

"OCI is only counting direct production subsidies. As they acknowledge, that
leaves out a great deal.

For one thing, it leaves out the annual $14.5 billion in consumption subsidies
— things like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which
helps lower-income residents pay their (fuel oil) heating bills."

~~~
nmeofthestate
That's what I'm referring to.

------
ptah
has anyone done similar analysis for UK/EU?

~~~
tialaramex
In the UK, when I was a kid some (for the time) hard economic right
politicians had power and the coal mines were Union bastions since almost the
beginning of unions, so the politicians destroyed the coal industry.

Some people are understandably still very angry about this today - after all
it destroyed their communities. But an unintended consequence is that it was
far easier to disentangle the country from coal power. If you're importing it
anyway having closed your own mines, there are fewer angry hard working people
to protest when you stop.

So the UK now often (as in most of the day, and sometimes for days at a time)
has no coal electricity generation.

The other thing they did was take a very big coal power plant and convert it
to burn trees. Notionally it burns "waste" wood but in practice the volumes
involved mean people are growing trees to sell as "waste" for that plant. This
is not great for the environment, but hey at least it isn't coal.

~~~
hef19898
Depending on how the trees are grown it might even be okish fir the
environment. At least the fuel itself is CO2 neutral. Loosing the land on the
other hand is a different story.

~~~
pjc50
It's mostly imported. Last time I ran the numbers I calculated that Drax would
burn every tree in the UK within a year if limited to local wood. Supposedly
it's sawmill waste:
[https://www.drax.com/sustainability/environment/#sourcing-
su...](https://www.drax.com/sustainability/environment/#sourcing-sustainable-
biomass) that would otherwise be burned as waste:
[https://www.drax.com/sustainability/one-company-helped-
trans...](https://www.drax.com/sustainability/one-company-helped-transform-
biomass-business/)

Not everyone agrees: [https://www.redpepper.org.uk/activists-are-taking-on-
the-uks...](https://www.redpepper.org.uk/activists-are-taking-on-the-uks-
largest-carbon-culprit/)

------
backtobecks
stable genius

------
sbhn
Friendly policies arent good for defence stocks. Since trump, the price growth
has been so volitile, actially everything is worth less since obama, who
oversaw year on year profit in the defense industry. Things are turning now,
its now time to reinvest in defense stocks.

