As oil and gas exports surge, West Texas becomes the world’s “extraction colony”

Re:As oil and gas exports surge, West Texas becomes the worl... by freehunter on Sunday December 30, 2018 @10:45PM (#18792875)

I agree, mining is necessary. But it's a necessary evil. And like with all necessary evils, it'd be pretty nice if we could do our best to make sure we can stop committing the evil once it stops being necessary. It's hard to argue that coal mining is still necessary rather than merely convenient.

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Re:As oil and gas exports surge, West Texas becomes the worl... by hackerman12345 on Sunday December 30, 2018 @11:29PM (#18793016)

It is perhaps necessary as Germany now has to import coal.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-30/germany-c...

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Re:As oil and gas exports surge, West Texas becomes the worl... by freehunter on Sunday December 30, 2018 @11:46PM (#18793066)

I guess I should amend my statement: is coal use still necessary, or merely convenient? If we're using coal, it's necessary to mine it. The upstream question is, is it still necessary to use coal beyond the very boring argument of "it would cost money to replace coal"?

I'm not looking for an answer to this question, as I don't own any coal mines or coal power plants. Just expressing general dissatisfaction with humanity's destructive-but-convenient habits.

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Re:As oil and gas exports surge, West Texas becomes the worl... by crumpets on Monday December 31, 2018 @04:25AM (#18793788)

>is it still necessary to use coal beyond the very boring argument of "it would cost money to replace coal"?

Yes, but not for electricity. There isn't a way to make steel at any scale without using coking coal in the furnaces.

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Re:As oil and gas exports surge, West Texas becomes the worl... by greglindahl on Monday December 31, 2018 @12:47PM (#18795776)

I googled around a bit and it appears that "There isn't a way to make steel at any scale without using coking coal in the furnaces." is a coal industry talking point.

Here's a 2013 article about making steel without coal: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cleaner-cheaper-w...

And something from 2018: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611961/this-mit-spinout-c...

Not proven at scale yet, but it appears to be more promising than many other unsolved climate problems.

Also, natural gas is already being used at scale to make steel, not a complete replacement of coal, but a big reduction.

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Re:As oil and gas exports surge, West Texas becomes the worl... by mschuster91 on Monday December 31, 2018 @06:23AM (#18794078)

> There isn't a way to make steel at any scale without using coking coal in the furnaces.

At least for Germany (as mentioned by GP), that business will not be around for much longer. Steel from China and India simply is too cheap compared with domestic production. Probably once these two countries get too expensive production will shift over to Africa...

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Re:As oil and gas exports surge, West Texas becomes the worl... by SamReidHughes on Monday December 31, 2018 @01:22AM (#18793361)

Evil? It seems really good based on how you described it. Useless rocks get transformed into infrastructure.

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