Third-Largest US Coal Company Files For Bankruptcy

[Soph0571]

Wyoming Public Radio reports:

One of the largest domestic coal companies has voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Cloud Peak Energy warned of its financial problems in November of last year. By 2018, Cloud Peak had nearly no cash, were hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, and sold less coal than it had in years.

The company points to weak coal markets, while analysts add heavy investment into exports caused its problems too. Clark Williams-Derry, director of energy finance at Sightline Institute, an environmentally-focused think-tank, said the company’s big bets into Asian exports didn’t work out.

[link:https://www.joemygod.com/2019/05/third-largest-us-coal-company-files-for-bankruptcy/|

Soooooooooo much winning!

[Freethinker65]

1. Thoughts and prayers

[mr_lebowski]

2. This is the kind of Winning that this particular Progressive can get behind!

Heckofa Job, Trumpie!!!

[Nuggets]

3. Many of these coal miners want

free stuff from the government.
While they tell struggling “Libruls”, who could really use help and are working sometimes 3 jobs just to keep a roof over their heads to “pull yourselves up by your bootstraps” they were getting government checks due to chronic unemployment and disability benefits. Plus ...

As part of the 2016 budget, the Obama White House created something called the POWER Plus plan specifically to help Appalachian communities that were getting left behind because of the rapidly changing energy market.

The acronym stands for Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization, and it proposed a suite of projects including to convert $1 billion from the Abandoned Mine Lands reserve—a pot of money that had been growing since the Carter administration—funding for projects to clean up abandoned mine lands, mostly underground, that are linked to local economic development strategies. For Kentucky alone, that would mean $20 million a year for five years. The money would likely have gone to promote other businesses sectors like manufacturing and tourism and to retrain miners for new jobs like writing computer code.

https://thinkprogress.org/obamas-budget-provides-millions-for-out-of-work-coal-miners-106711d3a9a8/




Did they train for better jobs snd a changing environment? No
They took the money and wasted it and are now whining about coal jobs.

[Wellstone ruled]

6. Thanks for the post.

Been following that fact that the money went into State Coffers instead of Education or Training in Green Jobs.

Well,it did help their State Budgets Balance and spending on Coal PR.

There are two more Coal outfits in Wyoming that appear to be headed in the same direction. Canada just informed them that they are about to face Air quality issues with their load out ports in BC.

[Nuggets]

14. You're welcome.

It just burns my booty hearing them complain about Liberals wanting freebies or handouts.

[Wellstone ruled]

15. Yupper,got''s to blame us flaming

libul's for all the problems . Bottom line is,we Libtard's have saved a ton of sinking Asses from themselves.
,
Montana sunk their own friggin Ship back in the early ninetee's when they sold off the Electrical Power Grid as well as their Power Generators in order to give the Coal Operators a Tax Break as well as the Ranchers.

[lunasun]

7. +1

[njhoneybadger]

4. Ain't that a shame

[muntrv]

5. Tots and Pears.

[Blue_true]

8. They are selling buggies and buggiewhips in a world

that has pretty much converted to driving Model T's. The only place for coal is in metals smelting, if natural gas and hightech ceramics haven't already taken most of that market.

Coal country is some of the most naturally beautiful land in the country, with unique plants that grow poorly elsewhere. Different economies can be developed in that region.

[ProudLib72]

10. Well, sort of buggy whips

27.4% of all electricity produced in the U.S. comes from burning coal. 63.5% of all electricity produced in the U.S. comes from burning fossil fuels in general.

In comparison, only 19.3% comes from nuclear. 17.1% comes from renewables.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

[LanternWaste]

16. One needs to look at the trends as a whole rather than the spot markets.

For example, the share of energy from renewable sources in gross final consumption of energy continued rising to reach 17% in the European Union in 2016, a doubling of the share attained in 2004 at just 8.5%. A faster trend increase than the advent of either automobiles or airplanes.

Buggy whips were available at auto markets well into the the 1930's, but the consumer had decided to relegate them to museums and by that point.

So yeah... buggy whips.

[Blue_true]

17. There are pretty much no coal fired power plants on the drawing board or

planned or in construction in the USA. You may find that I am wrong, maybe there are one or two in the pipeline, but the trend line is a steep drop for coal produced electricity, coal plants are being shuttered at end of life or are being converted to natural gas. Some states are moving to a mix of natural gas and cleaner energy (nothing is ever 100% clean), wind, solar, hydro.

So buggy whips is a apt analogy. As soon as it is convenient to get rid of coal fired plants, utilities are. The TVA announced recently that it will shutdown ALL it's coal fired plants - that pseudo agency has a history of being coal loving.

When I was a boy there was an old man who went everywhere on a mule driven wagon, everywhere. Him and his wife in the seat of that old wagon as modern cars passed them by. That image is apt for coal fired plants versus alternatives.

Instead of having people in coal country hang on to a life raft that is slowly losing air, politicians need to work on planting the seeds of the post coal economy for those places. We can't be talking out both sides of our mouths, talking "clean coal" when there can't possibly be such a thing. Coal people need to be told that their product is the dirtiest fossil fuel before and after it is burned and that power companies are switching to cleaner alternatives as fast as they can. And politicians need to use technology to help bring high paying jobs to that region. There is no reason why a properly trained person can become a designer, software code writer, traveling trchnical troubleshooter, ect, jobs that pay well. I met a young guy last year who travelled the country fixing RF transmission towers. From talking to the guy, it was clear that he had highly advanced skills that allowed him to live anywhere that had an airport reasonably near, a man or woman with the skills that person has could easily live in coal country and fix problems in Los Angeles.

[ProudLib72]

18. The government did go into the coal mining communities to set up retraining

But then the orange shitstain came along, promised them a bright future full of coal, and they bought it. I remember listening to a segment about it on NPR. The woman in charge of one of the retraining programs said that they had very few people signing up after the Rump bragged about bringing back coal.

[Norbert]

9. B-B-But I thought he was bringing coal back

He wouldn't be fibbing now. Would he?

[Flaleftist]

11. Sad

[KentuckyWoman]

12. mining companies can eat it for all I care - the miners have my whole heart

miners get crapped on in area with few other prospects. In days past they were willing to die in the quest for improving working conditions for themselves and Americans generally.

please can we differentiate between the investors that feed off the work of the miners and the workers themselves?

This isn't to the OP but just to DU in general.

[crazytown]

13. The UMW - United Mine Workers has a long proud history

having fought the fiercest battles for workers rights and health against owners who cared more about bits of coat, than human beings. Thanks to the union, hundreds of thousands of children grew up without seeing their fathers die slowly from black lung. The UNW was always at the front lines for universal health care.