I'm an optimist. And here's another reason why. No matter what you might hear from Washington, D.C., people are moving away from dirty energy every day. The story above appeared in the Boston Sunday Globe a few weeks ago. You can read the full text on their web site here.
Here's how it works: People pressure big companies to 'go green.' Companies such as Apple, Microsoft, GE, etc. realize that they can attract more customers if they respond. Well, one thing those companies do is buy electricity and they want to buy it from renewable sources because it's good business for them. Electricity suppliers, as a result, are competing for their business, because these are big accounts and there's significant money to be made. So they're retiring coal plants and bringing wind and solar and hydro online as fast as they can.
The federal government is not going to stop this and return us to coal as our primary energy source, no matter what they say.
If anything, the plight of the coal miners and processors has to be solved some other way, not by mining more coal. It's up to us to find new ways to employ, retrain, and otherwise support the people who have been part of the coal industry all along. That's the other half of the equation. So let's not forget the folks who have worked hard in the coal industry and need us now that coal is not the industry that it once was.
Here's how it works: People pressure big companies to 'go green.' Companies such as Apple, Microsoft, GE, etc. realize that they can attract more customers if they respond. Well, one thing those companies do is buy electricity and they want to buy it from renewable sources because it's good business for them. Electricity suppliers, as a result, are competing for their business, because these are big accounts and there's significant money to be made. So they're retiring coal plants and bringing wind and solar and hydro online as fast as they can.
The federal government is not going to stop this and return us to coal as our primary energy source, no matter what they say.
If anything, the plight of the coal miners and processors has to be solved some other way, not by mining more coal. It's up to us to find new ways to employ, retrain, and otherwise support the people who have been part of the coal industry all along. That's the other half of the equation. So let's not forget the folks who have worked hard in the coal industry and need us now that coal is not the industry that it once was.
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