Is the decline of coal a national security problem?

American coal country has seen hard days as utilities abandon coal for cheaper, less carbon-intensive natural gas and renewables. The Trump administration, trying to make good on a campaign promise to rejuvenate the coal industry, is attempting yet again to revive demand for coal by labeling coal-fired power plants as essential to national security.

EPA Carbon Rules, Climate Progress? – headlines

•Here’s Why The Carbon Regulations EPA Will Announce Monday Are So Important •A guide to Obama’s new rules to cut carbon emissions from power plants •EPA unveils far-reaching climate plan targeting power plants •Obama’s New Plan To Fight Climate Change Is A Really Big Deal

Comments on US Energy Secretary Chu’s plans to leave the DOE

The USA’s Secretary of Energy, the Nobel Prizewinner Steven Chu, has decided to leave Washington and return to California. His thoughts about his past four years as Secretary of Energy were given in a letter to the employees of the Department of Energy. Before we look a little more closely at that letter I would like to remind you that there were many of us who had great hopes when he was first appointed – at last a person with a scientific background would control the USA’s Department of Energy. Today there are many who are disappointed. There are those who think that the transition to renewable energy was a flop. They think that the money invested in that did not give the expected return, but there are certainly more who think that the investment was much too small. But in a political situation where a Democrat President has the will but the Republicans have the keys to the treasure chest maybe it could not be otherwise.