The Violent Remaking of Appalachia | Hacker News Reader

The Violent Remaking of Appalachia

theatlantic.com

60 pointssamclemens11 comments

Per the article, there's 36,000 coal mining jobs in Appalachia and the four largest mining companies have a combined market cap of $150M.

We shouldn't call Appalachia "coal country": these are mediocre economic numbers. The landscape and health of Appalachia is worth more than that, never mind the grotesque global issues burning coal generates. With renewables basically at cost parity (even neglecting massive externalities), there is no economic, environmental or moral reason to oppose just shutting the whole damn industry down.

There's nothing - NOTHING - that would please me more than seeing Appalachia's coal industry go away. My family just buried an uncle with chronic black lung. His dying words to my aunt were "Get the autopsy done. Don't let Massey take away your death benefits."

Thing is, there's nothing in the southern half of the state to replace $70K/year jobs. Nothing. I understand why the few remaining residents are hoping for a miracle.

God damn - there's something in my eye...

There's so much to be gained by just, stopping what's going on. Enough surplus benefit to take care of, if not the communities at least the people. And if we all drop the magical thinking, it's plainly doable.

I'm sorry about your uncle, in so many ways.

That's very much appreciated...

Coal in the USA is nearly a $50 billion industry, the vast majority of which is used for electrical energy generation. It's not something you can just shut down. If and when better economic alternatives are available, it will go away naturally.

Streamlining the nuclear regulatory process would go a long way. Other countries make it work well and at far more competitive upfront costs.

Vice's Toxic: West Virginia provides a great visualization of the effects of mountaintop removal, which, in Appalachia, turns lush mountains into industrial moonscapes.

http://www.vice.com/video/toxic-west-virginia

Hmm. Noscript is flagging that this page's load of youtube is a potential XSS attack.

To get an idea of scale, the mining operations can be seen on the satellite view of West Virginia on Apple Maps… even when the whole state fits in the window.

Terrible stuff, yes.

No mention of terrible problems created by the alternatives: Fukushima, Deepwater Horizon, and Oklahoma's sudden jump in seismic activity.

One could write the same article for any energy source.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1396227/

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