Busy with other projects this week, I've scarcely had time to glance at a newspaper or even online reports. The news is really the fodder (and come to think of it the mudder too) for most blogs, so I haven't written much.
Still, I usually catch at least a few minutes of television news with my morning coffee, so I found out that the Coalition for Clean Coal is the latest economic sector to spin off a new business endeavor, that of opposing those nasty ol' "job-killing" regulations. This time, Old King Coal is telling you in no uncertain terms that you should make your voice heard with the EPA, which is rushing (Coal's term, not mine) costly regulations that are intended to reduce noxious emissions but that will (you guessed it) cost jobs!
Actually I doubt that some of these regulations can possibly be rushed too much. Climate change is a fact; so is the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; likewise ozone emissions... the list goes on. And all of these are matters that have the potential to seriously vitiate modern civilization as we know it, or even to make life on this planet unsustainable. Undue haste to set limits? I think not.
Even if time were not of the essence, however, I'm struck by this prime example of an industry unable to see its future clearly. The U.S. automobile industry was in this mode and it could be argued that, absent government intervention, they still would be, with the buggies they make on the verge of following buggy-whips down the road to industrial oblivion. Now, American carmakers seem to have found new purpose and energy, though they're not out of the woods yet.
The coal mining sector is a similar such case: Rooted in past perceptions, failing to adapt, unwilling to change, certain they know what's "good for the USA," ignoring basic issues of worker safety, unable to think of doing business any other way than just the way they've been doing it for 100 years. Or so it seems. Possibilities exist for positive change, and other basic energy/utilities have begun to adopt them in varying degrees, but coal so far doesn't seem open to adaptation.
The trouble (for the coal companies) is that an industry that can't see profound exogenous changes looming ahead, and devise a strategy to deal with them, is likely to be a dying industry. Failure to adapt is a form of corporate suicide. Coal is not yet completely unthinkable as a fuel; it remains plentiful and relatively cheap in the U.S.; but if the industry continues to drag its feet, coal could indeed fall so far behind other energy sources that it just wouldn't catch up. In what insane world does an outfit calling itself the "American Coalition for Clean Coal" seek to delay the adoption of clean coal technology?