"What's $50 billion among friends, right? At least Felix Kramer and Gil Friend are thinking big, so there is that. The pair have published an somewhat audacious proposal to spend $50 billion dollars to
buy up and then shut down every single private and public coal company operating in the United States. The scientific benefits: eliminating acid rain, airborne emissions, etc). The shutdown proposal includes the costs of retraining for the approximately 87,000 coal-industry workers who would lose their jobs over the proposed 10-year phaseout of coal. Since Kramer and Friend don't have $50 billion, they suggest the
concept could be funded as a public service and if governments can't do it maybe some rich guys can — and the names Gates, Buffett and Bloomberg come up. Any takers?"
Buying it and ending coal production is the equivalent of an oil embargo on crude oil from all countries in the world. What is everyone going to use to fuel cars, trucks, buses, trains, boats, planes, helicopters, vehicles that use gasoline or diesel as fuel and motor oil as lubricant? SOL.
Aside from getting replacement jobs for all the coal workers, what is going to replace the coal-fired generators? A lot of people don't know how much electricity is still generated using coal. Outside of that, there's hydro-electric and nuclear power plants. We are talking brown outs and black outs of epic proportions across the US. It would create a huge demand for gasoline, diesel, or LP generators. What, that would create more pollution to replace the coal-fired generator pollution. It takes years of planning, development, and actual contruction to have a working nuclear plant or hydroelectric plant. Felix and Gil are dreamers and idiots.
We do need to decrease our reliance on coal though. A better solution in my opinion is to create more hydroelectric power dams and kick the nature lovers to the curb. Forget about the effects it has on relocating the homes of wild animals and birds, it's cheap and clean energy compared to nuclear and coal.
