Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch...
by onlyrealcuzzo on Friday January 21, 2022 @03:26PM
(#30029514)
Except there really isn't that much money in Coal - and Ohio doesn't has little of it anyway.
Ohio produces 1/20th the coal of WV - which is a much more economically poor state - and coal isn't even really that important to WV's economy. Ohio's economy is much more similar to PA - and PA produces 10x more coal: https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/weekly/
Coal is all politics.
I mean, it is still used for a lot of energy production - almost everywhere in the US - Ohio definitely: https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=OH.
I'm sure power plants don't want to shut down overnight because someone bans coal completely - and they shouldn't. But it's just not economical in most places - the plants are phasing out naturally almost everywhere.
The less scale there is with coal - the less viable it becomes. It's a vicious cycle.
Power plants naturally phasing out because coal isn't economical will have almost 0 impact on Ohio.
Places like WV - that's a different story. WV sells coal! Ohio doesn't.
Ohio produces 1/20th the coal of WV - which is a much more economically poor state - and coal isn't even really that important to WV's economy. Ohio's economy is much more similar to PA - and PA produces 10x more coal: https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/weekly/
Coal is all politics.
I mean, it is still used for a lot of energy production - almost everywhere in the US - Ohio definitely: https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=OH.
I'm sure power plants don't want to shut down overnight because someone bans coal completely - and they shouldn't. But it's just not economical in most places - the plants are phasing out naturally almost everywhere.
The less scale there is with coal - the less viable it becomes. It's a vicious cycle.
Power plants naturally phasing out because coal isn't economical will have almost 0 impact on Ohio.
Places like WV - that's a different story. WV sells coal! Ohio doesn't.
Coal also doesn't employ people like it used to. It employs 3,000 people in Ohio: https://www.ohiocoal.com/information-library/history-coal-mi.... That's out of a ~5.4M labor force: https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.oh.htm. That's ~0.05% of the workforce... Even WV is only ~0.15%...
It's really only important to a few barons who want coal to stick around long after it's economically viable (the governor of WV).