32 Replies to “The Return of Coal”

  1. This was predictable ( well I predicted it when they went off nuclear) and planned. The Germans get to use their cheap coal after all! When it runs low they will return to nuclear. German energy hegemony in Europe.

  2. This is becoming hilarious. I just saw an article from the financial times claiming Russian is holding the EU ransom and that people might die during the winter months. In their Green Crusade, did they not think once that sacrificing their energy independence to appease the environmental extremists would lead to this? Remember Trump warning them that this exact situation was going to happen and these smug bastards laughing? I have zero sympathy for the fools in the West that brought on this situation. The only bright side I see is when it finally comes election time even the mental midgets in Ontario will send the Liberals and NDP packing because of sky rocketing cost of living expenses brought on by their destructive policies.

    https://www.ft.com/content/2da439ba-87d8-4a48-80ca-b6452d48669a

    1. I remember Trumps speech, and those idiots laughing…they should post that on the news there…comes back to bite them in the ars

  3. How quickly my squarehead relatives have forgotten. Fischer–Tropsch process, invented by Germans. You don’t have to burn coal to save Natural gas. I think you can make almost any petroleum product from coal

  4. Not in Canada you say?

    Pity…

    Our politicians only care about other countries doing their own environmental harm and expect Canadians can make a difference to their policies by imposing unnecessary laws on ourselves.

  6. That’s what the German Democratic Republic did last time reality hit them.

    By the late Seventies, the Kremlin could no longer afford to subsidize the uncompetitive industries of the most luxurious barrack in the communist camp, and started charging the GDR world prices for Russian oil. East Berlin had a choice: let GDR citizens freeze in the dark or burn their native supplies of even dirtier lignite, giving all Europe acid rain.

    East Berlin ran out of other people’s money anyway.

    The difference this time is that Berlin, Hauptstadt der BRD, doesn’t have a rich brother willing to shield them from the consequences of their own stupidity.

    1. It put Erich Honecker in a bad spot, because he had based his regime on boosting East Germany’s standard of living from the more austere days of Walter Ulbricht.

  9. yo. deutchland. a suggestion, raid all the greenies, cart off with everything combustible, furniture, paper, clothes, smash their buildings to extract the timbers, you name it, and heave all that into the fire.

    seems to me iirc if l recollect correctly this happened once before so you know the drill. ASSH*LES.
    also that other agreement with the russkies back in what, ’42 might have told you something regarding ‘be careful what you wish for’.

    and feel free to google the phrase ‘made yer bed now sleep in it’ or some translation.
    how does one say ‘ha ha ha’ in german?

  10. The Oil Sands is the world’s largest environmental cleanup of a natural environmental oil spill phenomenon…

    And we’re bastardized for it, for trying to clean it all up…

  11. It’s time to bring back the Bucket Wheel Excavator Schaufelradbagger 289!

  12. I wonder how the restart will go. Having worked in coal fired power plants, I’ve been through a few major overhauls where the unit was down for a couple of months. Even in that relatively short time frame the restart can sometimes be a real SOB. And that was without parts bottlenecks, supply chain disruptions and with experienced workers.

    I hope it works out for the Germans but their “leadership” all need to take a long walk in the snow and think about the awful decisions they’ve made and the hardship that those decisions have caused. The western world has the stupidest political leaders the world has experienced in generations.

    1. Exactly so. The restart of Lakeview by Ontario Hydro in 1988 was a disaster. The capital to restart all four units was barely sufficient to restart one. Everything which once had steam in it was corroded beyond use.

      1. …and high pressure steam plus corrosion or contamination in the ultra pure water can create a catastrophic failure with mass casualties. Safety controls and sensors should shut down the plant before that happens but I’ve viewed training videos where the safety systems have failed. A rushed, desperate restart of a mothballed plant plus political pressure certainly sets the stage for big mistakes.

  13. Until the people rise up and lynch the bastards, then lynch themselves for voting for them, nothing will change.
    Anyone who thinks today’s “renewables” are better than nuclear is probably insane.

  14. I love it, burn coal to save gas. I wonder how big their supply of peat moss is in case the coal starts to run short.

  15. The New York Times link does not work for me

    I get a blank page

    anyone else getting that??

      1. Thanks , I appreciate it, but same thing; a blank page

        I was using Firefox, which is what I always use

        So I tried Chrome and it worked

        for some mysterious reason Firefox will not let me see that article…strange…

  17. Good! Even Elon agrees with restarting coal and nuke plants and more drilling to get out of this jam.

  18. serious Q about these many economic, legal, social trends.

    what in HE-L-L is it about the political mind, they are SO READY to jump from one bandwagon to the next?
    are things that so much fluid that its like friggin pop music ‘whos the hottest most attention getter today?’ and WHY is the populace so eager follow along? its like ants caught in a ‘loop’ following the beaten path till they all perish or gobbled up by a lucky anteater.
    lve never understood that blind herd mentality stuff except drilled in our heads in social studies the need to ‘belong’. then again, born with autism l have a much colder, analytical and skeptical view, the skepticism based on countless betrayals and failed projects depending on other promises never kept.

    in conclusion, l decided waaaay back in the days (daze?) of paul martin to never vote LIEberal until stephen harpooned announced such things as unjustly revoking including ‘time served’ in jail sentences WITHOUT the concomitant increase in spending to match the increase in prison populations. brought on not coincidentally by an intended big step BACKWARDS re pot possession.

    so, oopsie, fessing up, l voted for the TURDeau ONCE and can now toke up in public without fear of following mr robotham’s footsteps (20 YEARS for GIVING away a roach). plus really helps combat insomnia and a wee bit the aches and pains.

    p.s., wtFCUK is SOOOO abhorrent about a plant that has existed for 1,000,000 years and used by neanderthals for above purposes? what in blazes IS the stigma? oh wait. thats kinda like the ‘stigma’ attached to those refusing covid vacc’s. ‘goes against the popular grain’ etc.

    l wonder if there’s gonna be caustic vitriol about this post.

    1. Virtue signaling by people with no redeeming qualities.
      “Look at me! I support the Current Thing, therefore I must be virtuous!”

      Life Of Brian: “Follow the shoe!”
      “No! Follow the gourd!”

      P.J. O’Rourke once said that the more weird a person looks the less interesting their personality is.

      1. I did not know O’Rourke had said that, but I have often wondered if people who have nose piercings, face tattoos, color their hair green purple and yellow are not trying to compensate for having no talent or ability, for being a dull uninteresting person.

  19. Well, I like coal, so I’m not going to hold that against them. I even heated my Pennsylvania house with it. I only hope that they kept these idle coal plants in good repair. They are not something you simply turn off and walk away from until you need it again.

    1. Peter, it can be almost guaranteed they are beyond a quick start up. I’ve seen it so many times in industry. Once a decision is made by management to abandon older systems and update or replace a system of any kind, they deliberately wouldn’t consider keeping the older system maintained. Why would they? When they convince themselves that the new widget machine is the best investment they can make, they would never consider that choice to be wrong. You can apply that same decision process to most anything where “management” is concerned, the term management, should really be called “mismanagement”….Sigh!

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