We Republicans can't criticize the dumping of public money into inefficient green-energy sources and yet support something like this. We need to eliminate government imposed barriers to energy production, not have government propping up industries that can't survive on their own. We shouldn't have a government that is pro-coal or anti-coal but instead a government that supports open and free competition within the energy sector. Hope this plan fails.
This is what we get with a demagogue as leader: someone who scraps economic rationality and efficiency for patronage. Coal mining has been a dying business for decades in the Appalachians (where the 'classical' coal miners are), and President Trump can prop it up only by demanding that we Americans burn more coal. That means pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and thus accelerating AGW.
Will the 'classical' coal miners go to the west to mine the coal? Probably not, as the mining techniques are different. The 'classical' coal miners will get nothing out of it, but the coal barons will profiteer richly.
To be sure, there are other uses of coal than burning it for energy. But I don't see us making much more iron and steel per capita. Petroleum coke, which comes from oil and natural gas, is far more suitable as the carbon to be used in iron and steel production, as it is closer to being carbon than coal often containing sulfur unwelcome in iron and steel. (The
RMS Titanic sank faster than anyone could have expected because its steel had excessive sulfur that makes steel more brittle).
With his rejection of the free market for purposes other than equity (such as alleviation of poverty) or national security, President Trump shows that he is not a conservative.
