Innovation in use of coal follows Trump energy policies

Salena Zito:

 In his first visit to a coal mine since becoming the 15th secretary of energy, Dan Brouillette said the innovations he witnessed at the Consol Energy Pennsylvania mining complex along the Washington County and Greene County lines were some of the most impressive technologies he’s seen in his career in the fossil fuel industry.

“If they can develop that technology and scale it up, it represents a unique marketing opportunity,” he said of experiments that were demonstrated to him at the facility that included not burning coal, but turning waste coal into clean fuel.

He also marveled at the company’s use of technology and science to develop coal into products such as residential decking and home construction products. “I was a bit surprised to see those types of technologies being developed right there,” he said. “That's a bright future for coal in the building materials space.”

The former energy regulator said coal is like oil in terms of negative public perceptions of how clean (or not clean) they burn. Oil, he added, especially in the days of gas-guzzling vehicles, was seen as the bad guy. “Why?" he said. "Because cars weren't efficient as they are today. They weren't as technologically advanced as they were today. So, we thought negatively about the fossil fuel that fueled it.”

He said that happens today in the coal industry. “We think about electricity generation, and we think about what's clean and what's not clean and what's efficient and what's not efficient, and coal doesn't stack up well next to some other generation technologies, for instance, like nuclear, which is carbon-free. Zero emissions.”

The result, he said, is that folks want to move away from it. “Previous administrations wanted to move it out of the stack for electricity generation. That may still happen. It may be that the economics drive coal off to the side, but that doesn't mean coal dies. It doesn't mean that coal goes away. And that's what we see here in this facility.”

Brouillette spent hours at the Pennsylvania Mining Complex, the largest underground coal mine complex in North America, one day after visiting the Lordstown Motor Company to witness the unveiling of the Endurance, an electric pickup truck that will be produced at the former GM plant just across the state border in Ohio.

“Everything about that facility, about that particular place, is Americana,” he said of the Mahoning Valley 6.2 million-square-foot plant. “Their work ethic, their faith, their commitment to quality. Everything. If you want to see America, in my mind, that's where you go."

“The battery technologies; the fact that it has four motors, one on each wheel; the fact that it produces 600 horsepower equivalent," he said. "Think about that. That's stunning, right? That's what America is all about. Big horsepower, man. Let's go. Let's go fast. Let's get out there. Let's be free. He's got all of that. Steve Burns has all of that in this one product, so to see that come to Lordstown was just great."
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There is much more.

I doubt that these innovations in the use of coal would have happened under Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.  They are just too hostile to any fossil fuels even if they make products other than fuel.  It also raises the question of why anyone in Pennsylvania or other coal-producing states would ever vote for Biden or other Democrats.  It would be against their own interests and the interests of the country.