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Why has the world started to mine coal again? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Metal_Zealot@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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With climate change looming, it seems so completely backwards to go back to using it again.

Is it coal miners pushing to keep their jobs? Fear of nuclear power? Is purely politically motivated, or are there genuinely people who believe coal is clean?

Edit, I will admit I was ignorant to the usage of coal nowadays.

Now I'm more depressed than when I posted this

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[–] bouh@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because the ecofanatics focused on fighting nuclear power for 50 years instead of fighting fossile fuels.

Fast forward to now, renewable are not ready at all and they need fossile fuels anyway to provide steady energy. But geopolitics is making oil too expensive, so countries are mining coal again.

In brief, ecofanatics were stupid (and still are) and war in Ukraine.

[–] BigNote@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

Were they stupid or deliberately misled, propagandized and manipulated by the fossil fuel industry? Sure some of them were stupid, but I don't think that's the whole story.

[–] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm an eco-fanatic and I am extremely pro-nuclear.

[–] Ostrichgrif@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah but that wasn't the case in previous decades. Environmentalists have protested just about every nuclear power plant opening for the last 60 years. It might even still happen if we bothered to open more plants.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

While environmental concerns, primarily regarding nuclear waste management, are probably the more public face of nuclear opposition, it is the economic burdens that have shut down nuclear plants before they even produce waste, as is the case with a number of canceled nuclear projects around the US at least.