The first result I came across was not a news item, it was a blog from a energy employment recruiting company by the name of Fircroft. Here is a summary of the information in that blog:
- In December 2016 China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s economic planner, issued a five-year plan with solar power set to receive 1 trillion yen in an attempt to increase capacity by five times. 700 billion yen was earmarked for wind power alongside 500 billion yen for hydro.
- The National Energy Administration of China laid out the plans in a document which suggests the investment will create more than 13 million jobs over a five-year period.
https://www.fircroft.com/blogs/chinese-investment-in-renewable-energy-to-create-13-million-jobs-79551650362
Of course, I wanted to corroborate this information that came from a private company which may have its own agenda with a news source that I believe is reputable and reliable. I found the following in Reuters:
The investment will create over 13 million jobs in the sector, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said in a blueprint document that lays out its plan to develop the nation's energy sector during the five-year 2016 to 2020 period."
Now, what are trump and Rick Perry proposing. trump has signed two bills cutting back regulations for coal mining that include regulations for stream protection and financial disclosure requirements.
Of course there are concerns about cuts in other regulations. After all trump did call for a reduction in regulations by cutting two regulations for each regulation created. trump has proposed a budget that will severely cut funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Does trump really care about the miners? I guess we'll see.
Black lung disease and mine accidents are critical issues around coal mining. Miners need to know that they will always have there respiratory health paid for by the companies they work for and if that fails, then by the federal government. If mine safety regulations fall by the wayside, if OSHA lacks the funding to make sure that whatever regulations that remain intact are enacted and maintained, then mine accidents will increase.
Furthermore, everyone knows that coal is dirty. Even trump knows it! Ask any resident of a community that has or had a coal fired power generation plant. A plant in Alexandria Virginia was closed in 2012. In 2003 two local citizens funded a meteorological study that reported that:
"soot deposition was concentrated in the local neighborhood of Alexandria. Residents complained about coal dust coating cars/window sills, even staining laundry."
The site that I found this information in also noted that:
Black lung disease and mine accidents are critical issues around coal mining. Miners need to know that they will always have there respiratory health paid for by the companies they work for and if that fails, then by the federal government. If mine safety regulations fall by the wayside, if OSHA lacks the funding to make sure that whatever regulations that remain intact are enacted and maintained, then mine accidents will increase.
Furthermore, everyone knows that coal is dirty. Even trump knows it! Ask any resident of a community that has or had a coal fired power generation plant. A plant in Alexandria Virginia was closed in 2012. In 2003 two local citizens funded a meteorological study that reported that:
"soot deposition was concentrated in the local neighborhood of Alexandria. Residents complained about coal dust coating cars/window sills, even staining laundry."
The site that I found this information in also noted that:
"Mercury, a minor component in the coal, is vaporized in the burning process. As hot exhaust cools in the air after leaving the power plant stacks, the plume of gas moved over Alexandria and then to the northeast (typically). Mercury cooling from the exhaust gas and soot particles may be deposited near the plant - with "downwash" creating a "hot spot" of lung damage and potentially-toxic soil in the local area."
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/geology/coalfired.html
Sounds clean to me. It sounds so clean that I'd like to strap trump into a smoke stake of a coal burning plant and measure the amount of time he lives. What do you give him, two hours, three? I have no idea. May be it would be longer, maybe it would less, but the result would be the same. Now let's strap him to the column of a wind turbine, and make sure he has plenty to eat. I'm thinking he doesn't have any difficulties staying alive.
There was a report placed on line by CNN with research showing that the citizens in "coal country" want "jobs for the future". And let's face it, coal jobs do not have a future. Market pressures are moving away from coal as an energy source and the decline is easily seen since the mid 1980s, but has become much sharper over the last ten years.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/10/debate-and-energy-donald-trump-ignores-why-coal-is-on-the-decline.html
So, here's a guy who looks for votes by lying to people in coal mining regions about how he's going to bring back their coal mining jobs. Here are people that want jobs, but will they really get jobs in coal mining? Here's a guy that really doesn't give a hoot about the safety of the miners or their communities. And here's a guy that is holding America back, with his foolish self serving rhetoric, from getting in on the real ground floor of clean energy capital production (capital in the economic sense of machines that then produce something, you know.......like energy).
China, will take the lead in what is obviously one of the most important changes that will occur over the next 100 years. They will take technologies that for the most part originated in the U.S. and ramp up the manufacturing of these technologies, most likely improve them in the process and will provide jobs for millions of there citizens. Millions!!
Xi Jinping ........... visionary.
trump ......... d[umb] j[ackass].
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