/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>58387956
I just lost respect for people who believe in renewable energy sources over hydrocarbon/fossil fuel energy sources. Even a good friend is pushed down a few ranks, in my book, for holding such opinions. I can't help thinking this way, because I think such people are just ideologically brainwashed.

Many people don't know this, but nuclear power is slowly being phased out in the USA too in favor of renewables, which currently supply about 10% of electricity. Nuclear and coal plants are being shut down and natural gas plants are under siege by the green activists. They want 100% wind and solar power. If I recall correctly, Europe has been shutting down nuclear power stations for some years now.

>the planned retirement of 83 GW of fossil and nuclear generation over the next decade creates blackout risks for much of the country. The grid monitor also noted that another 30 GW of capacity is expected to close but the plans aren’t yet final.

https://www.countoncoal.org/2024/04/new-paper-epas-grid-crisis-collides-with-surging-power-demand/

>>58306998
Okay, I'd prefer that topic too.
Black lung disease was somewhat rare among coal miners until continuous mining came along and kicked up so much dust in areas where miners were. In the old method of conventional mining, where you drill and shoot the face with explosives, miners were typically away from the area until most of the dust settled.
So it was in the 1950s, or mid 20th century generally, with the continuous mining revolution that coal miners began to contract black lung disease in large numbers.

>>58283340
*About that continuous miner operator that I found for Peabody

>>58176526
>Exploration Season Edition
So many mineral deposits remain underground that we don't even know it.
It's best not to think of "underground" as just one thing. Rather, there are many, many levels of "underground." Some mines are over two miles deep in South Africa, and if needed, we could dig even deeper.
Then there's also the shallow waters near the shores of large landmasses, and these coastal areas likely contain many as yet unknown mineral deposits.

This insanity has to stop
>Now, researchers are promoting a new legal theory that says fossil fuel companies – which, data show, are the leading contributors to planet-heating pollution – could be tried for homicide for climate-related deaths.

https://dailystormer.in/fossil-fuel-companies-could-be-tried-for-homicide-over-climate-related-deaths/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/21/fossil-fuel-companies-homicide-climate-deaths-lawsuit

How about all the lives fossil fuels enabled, saved, and improved? That vastly outweighs any harm that hydrocarbons have done.

This is a Joy Global, now Komatsu Mining, continuous miner machine. On my crew heading out to Colorado, I have a guy who broke the record by mining over 500 feet in an eight hour shift at the mine where he used to work, which had uneven surface in spots (continuous miner distance per shift records vary by mine geology and shift length). He should be able to help out this mine a lot. We're also going to be doing a huge belt project and some maintenance on their longwall.
Komatsu kept the iconic dark orange color of Joy Global equipment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG7H05u5GQc&ab_channel=Kikki%27sWorkshopYouTubeOfficialChannel

>>57931991
>Historian Carroll Quigley expanded upon Toynbee's notion of civilizational collapse in The Evolution of Civilizations (1961, 1979).[7] He argued that societal disintegration involves the metamorphosis of social instruments, set up to meet actual needs, into institutions, which serve their own interest at the expense of social needs.
The transformation of social instruments into self-serving social institutions is very difficult to reverse. Look, for example, at the environmental lobby and various "non-profit" organizations. They develop hierarchies where excellent pay and benefits accrue at the top and even when the problem for which they were founded is solved, new problems must be found to justify the structure's continued existence and therefore the continued benefit of those working within the structure.
Eisenhower's famous "Military-Industrial Complex" speech identifies an example of a major social instrument becoming a social institution, in this case, the broad military-industrial infrastructure developed to pursue the Second World War.
Stiff institutions and bureaucratic bloat, as well as an all-powerful state (the Universal State in Toynbee's parlance), are among the great challenges the West faces today.

Just to continue the point about how great metallurgical coal is, I actually like thermal coal even better, because it's energy, and energy is the fundamental resource, needed just to use any other resource. Energy is literally the foundation of the world.
Coal is the most affordable, easiest to transport, easiest to store, and easiest to use form of energy on the market, hence it's popularity worldwide in rapidly developing countries. And it's not just a stepping stone toward more advanced fuels for developing countries; it's a great fuel for developed economies too precisely due to those characteristics mentioned above, which make it cheaper and easier all around.
Everyone should be using large amounts of coal for basic energy needs, mainly electricity, which is versatile and powers most things that liquid fuels aren't needed for.

In short, thermal, steam coal is my favorite coal. It's unpopular, sort of, at the moment, but only in the benighted West. And due to its virtues, the West, I believe, will have to come to its senses again and begin using it again in great quantities. CO2, after all, greens the earth. It causes rapid forest growth, therefore rapid animal repopulation and diversification, speeding up evolution itself due to growth in biodiversity that inevitably follows growth in total biomass. Ecological niches proliferate when there is more living mass in the area, and this principle holds true on the global scale.
So lets roll that coal out of the mines and burn it, for so many good reasons from humanistic development to environmental regeneration.

>>57517453
And you as well, I have a lot of respect for you too, in all your efforts to learn about these heavy industries and their trade relations.

Coal bump

Big beautiful coal bump!