Obama Says He’ll Bankrupt Coal Plants, Wipe Out Half Our Electricity

I hope they find out about this in the following states before they make the biggest mistake of their lives: Montana, Illinois, Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, Texas, Indiana.  Those are the ten states that collectively produce about 90% of our coal.  They should really know that Obama wants to drive a key national industry into decline and then extinction:

“So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

Here’s the video link and here’s the transcript of the entire remark:

Let me sort of describe my overall policy.

What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there.

I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.

That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.

The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can.

It’s just that it will bankrupt them.

You need to understand something: the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal.  This fossil fuel is an incredibly powerful resource for our energy independence.  Why on earth would we abandon it?

U.S. coal reserves contain 12 times as much energy as all the oil in Saudi Arabia! A brief look at some numbers explains why coal is the country’s most abundant and important energy resource.

According to the United States Geological Survey, we have 1.7 trillion tons of identified coal resources — coal for which geological evidence and engineering studies provide reliable information about location, rank, quality, and quantity. (Geologists recognize that more coal deposits are likely to be discovered in the future, so they estimate total coal resources could amount to 4 trillion tons.)

Ed Morissey has this to say:

Yesterday, we looked at Obama’s notions of government sending “price signals” to change behavior that it finds objectionable, especially on energy.  This is the way Obama intends to do it.  Coal provides 49% of domestic electrical power, and any rise in the cost of producing that energy will raise its cost to consumers and reduce the amount produced.

This comes as no great shock, pun intended.  Obama already called for a 15% reduction in demand for electricity — at the same time he and his allies want transportation to switch from gasoline to electricity.  Obama never explained this particular contradiction.  How does one switch tens of millions of vehicles from gasoline to electricity while not Increasing demand, let alone by cutting it 15%?  And when trying to break free from a recession, the nation will need greater production in energy, not a reduction.

As Wikipedia points out:

Coal fired power plants provide 49% of consumed electricity in the United States.

Obama frankly admitted that electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket under his plan (audio here):

The problem is not technical, uh, and the problem is not mastery of the legislative intricacies of Washington. The problem is, uh, can you get the American people to say, “This is really important,” and force their representatives to do the right thing? That requires mobilizing a citizenry. That requires them understanding what is at stake. Uh, and climate change is a great example.You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.

It is frankly amazing that this is just dribbling out now, when it should have been known for months.  The media has refused to investigate Obama, and there are far too many frightening things we just don’t know even on the eve of the election.  Barack Obama has a dangerous policy that is based far more on naked ideology than on commonsense economics.

Global warming is largely an ideology masquerading as legitimate science.  As though God himself were calling global warming alarmist “idiots,” the first October snowfall since 1922 blanketed London as it hosted a global warming debate.  This kind of massive contradiction goes on all the time, but global warming ideologues ignore the facts and focus only on their theory and the political and economic redistributionism they hope to force upon the world.

The science is actually amazingly clear on global warming; it is primarily a cyclical climatic phenomenon that occurs about every 1,500 years.  But there is a systematic effort on the part of scientists and journalists to stifle the evidence, intimidate those who try to reveal the truth, and, and engage in scientific fraud in order to perpetuate a profoundly flawed theory.

Bankrupting vital job-intensive industries that provide enormous energy resources is hardly a reasonable approach.  Sending electricity rates skyrocketing is hardly a reasonable approach.  But that is what Barack Obama has clearly said he intends to do to groups that WANT those things to happen because they care more about greenhouse gasses than human lives.  Barack Obama delivered this remark to the same sort of San Fransisco elites to whom he delivered his (in)famous line:

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

And the same sort of San Fransisco pseudo-intellectual and ideological elites who nodded over the one discourse nodded over the other.

You can’t trust Barack Obama; he is dangerous.  “Over 70% of CEOs fear an Obama presidency will be a disaster.”  Wall Street is terrified of an Obama presidency.  And you should fear an Obama presidency, too.  You should be terrfied of an Obama presidency, also.

Tags: bankrupt, Barack Obama, CEOs, coal, electricity, global warming, greenhouse, Saudi Arabia of coal, Wall Street