President Trump Signs H.J. Res. 38

MAJ Bryan Zeski You used a real estate blog (that I have personally written for) and an article written by an artist as your example. Not exactly compelling. The article was shoddy at best, and written in conjunction with a 2nd article comparing coal to nuclear, all pointing towards a conclusion the solar is the way to go, with a link to buy Solar through an affiliate link ( a link where the author makes money for pushing a product) this is an advertisement disguised as content, welcome to the world of SEO marketing.
Now back to coal. Convert every car in the world to electric and it wouldn't kill coal for two reasons. First that the enviro impact of electric cars is a lot worse than burning coal because the mercury content in the batter packs is literally a poison for ground water. Secondly because the electricity has to be generated by something, and coal is the cheapest way to generate electricity. Also, if we banned coal use in America completely, it would still be bought to power foreign power plants. The blog writer in your ad, never even contemplated the enviro controls on modern coal fired plants, the air scrubbers on the stacks remove all but the pollution of a cigarette, thus the statement that driving your car causes more pollution than generating energy via coal.

Cpl Joshua Caldwell - If you have sources for your statements, I'd be more than happy to look at them.

@maj bryan zeski quickly before I start my day, here are a couple of decent one - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/why-charging-an-electric-car-at-night-is-worse-for-the-environment/

and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/electric-vehicles-pollution_n_7708406.html I chose my sources from left leaning sources, I can paint a much worse picture for you.

Cpl Joshua Caldwell - I think we are mostly in agreement here. Even from the article you linked, the problem is coal-fired power plants - not electric cars. Both articles make it clear that is the power-plant that has increased emissions from higher electricity generation than the vehicles. Fewer coal power plants will absolutely equal far less toxins that are released into the air and into the waters.

And again, I'm not saying that we can flip the switch and be coal-free today or tomorrow - but mining and burning MORE coal is the wrong answer. I fully support nuclear and natural gas options to provide power until renewable energies are more viable. I think coal is a crutch that hurts us in the long run.

I haven't seen any information here that demonstrates how increased coal use does anything except keep people employed for the sake of keeping people employed at the cost of increased environmental damage in both the short term and long term. Help me out, what am I missing? How does increased coal usage do anything useful for the nation, or world, as a whole?

And bad for the rest of the world.