/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>58394444
I don't know for sure if Trump is a genuine outsider or a plant, as some say. But I do know Biden is killing this country and opposes hydrocarbons/fossil fuels in favor of the green lobby and movement.

>>58378810
>Well you can't turn iron ore into steel without coking coal.
That's true, but that's not how it's done nowadays because using certain coals is just much more efficient and produces better steel with fewer steps.
In fact, nearly any coal can be used to make steel, but unless the coal has certain characteristics like high energy density and low sulfur and ash, then it's harder to make that steel as high quality as what's in demand nowadays.
The Pittsburgh seam used to produce steelmaking coal, but now its coal is used for electricity while, in that area, the Lower Kittanning seam is preferred for coking coal.
Just some nifty stuff.

>>58350227
The most painful thing about living in America, to me, is seeing the industry I love die. My life is coal and coal mining. It's almost equal to God in my eyes, and yes, I know that is wrong, but I cannot help it. Hell, on a practical level, coal is God's superior in my life -- is the true God -- in terms of how I live my life. I care more about being in a coal mine than about being in church. It breaks my heart to see coal so maligned by the leaders of this nation and those of Western states in general, and it breaks my heart to see ignorant people repeating the climate change bullshit and talking about how coal emissions will kill them and ruin the world.
I want to be somewhere where I don't have to be around these sources of heartbreak for me. Russia is such a place, because no doubt they'll be using relatively large quantities of coal for generations to come, even with their enormous gas supply that dwarfs the gas reserves of any other country. China is also such a place -- they build about two new coal-fired power stations per week.

I think I could be happier in such a country. I'll stick it out in America a while longer, but this country just isn't a good match for me and never has been for various reasons. It has a very sick society, a highly narcissistic population, and it's getting worse seemingly by the month.
I think a sociological collapse will come before any political or economic collapse of the United States because the people here despise each other. The Democrats and Republicans rejoice in each other's misfortunes and suffering -- it's pure hatred at this point. Deep down, there is no one Americans would more like to war with than each other. And the media have been fanning the flames of mutual enmity for decades. This country has an ugly future -- its best days are now decades in the past, and we are well on the path of decline.
So I will care for my parents in the final inning of my life and be ready to leave.

>>58286567
Or, foreign experts could be hired at that time, for a premium, like from Australia (if they're still mining coal), Russia, China, India, Indonesia. They could teach future Americans coal mining skills again, if these skills mostly die out in the United States.
Already the quality of coal miners, from knowledgeable people I've talked with who've seen the industry over the decades, has declined quite a bit due to lack of old fashion mentoring. It used to be that a new miner would be trained in an experienced crew until he gained all the skills he needs for a certain task or variety of tasks. Now, new miners are often just thrown into the mix to sink or swim.

>>58274092
Also, I just hate seeing miners lose their job. It literally pains my heart, since I've survived layoffs (before (I got into mining, like in 2008 when I was a young buck), and because mining is what's dearest to my heart, along with Christ.
May the Canadian miners prosper. All mining around the world is, to me, like a brotherhood. Not a "labor international," but some kind of brotherhood nonetheless.

>>58104196
I wish you all the best in your mining ambitions and hope you get to work in a diamond pit or its underground workings someday.

I just learned that Colorado has a lot of coking coal sitting under the ground unused. 17,000 acres of land, owned by one man who has the mineral rights, has coking coal beneath it, and that's just one claim.
So Colorado might come online as a major met coal producer in the not too distant future.

>>58060962
Thanks, fren
I'm just impressed with how diversified VALE's mines are, from iron to some coal. That, to me, a real mining company there.
I might put a little money on it, but I am mostly into savings at this point.

>>57797255
The giant surface sub-bituminous coal mines of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming can produce, altogether, hundreds of millions of tons per year, with the two biggest -- Peabody's North Antelope Rochelle and Arch's Black Thunder -- each hitting around 100 million tons per year in the past, like in the 2010s, though Powder River Basin coal has been declining along with the general decline in steam coal that's occurred in the United States.
So the biggest mines are surface sub-bituminous operations, and they are the biggest by far. The biggest underground coal mines mainly mine the Pittsburgh seams in southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia.
There are many medium sized coal mines producing maybe 3-4 to 6-7 million tons per year, and the smaller underground coal mines produce mainly metallurgical coal for coking.
There used to be many, many more small thermal coal mines all over the USA, but with the Clean Air Act and the attack on coal in general since the 2010s, in favor of natural gas (which is now in turn being attacked as possibly worse than coal for leaking so much methane), most of those smaller thermal coal mines are gone now. More's the pity.

News about longwall mining in the United States, with a census of longwall systems and faces

https://www.coalage.com/features/longwall-operators-add-capacity-for-2024/