Regaining coal jobs in Kentucky

Something is killing coal jobs in Kentucky.   It wasn't Obama or Hillary or "Climate Change" advocates. And Trump cannot fix it.

Campaign messages take place in an environment of economic reality.   Coal mining in Appalachia is being killed by natural gas, by oil, by automation, and by far more efficient mines in Wyoming.

Trump 63%.  Clinton 33%

Trump and Clinton both put out a message in response to that reality.   People don't want the truth.  They want hope.

Coal Country was the margin of victory in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.  Voters in Appalachia are angry.  The coal jobs in Appalachia are going away.    

Hillary Clinton said a lot of coal jobs were going away.  She talked about job retraining and coal as a dying industry.  Voters said she had thrown in the towel and abandoned them.    In a well publicized event a miner asked her: 

How you can say you're going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs and then come in here and tell us how you're going to be our friend. Because those people out there don't see you as a friend."

Trump had a different message.

Trump said it was due to the war on coal, to Chinese "climate change" hoax believers, and to the EPA and he would bring the jobs back.  Voters liked what Trump said.

"Let me tell you:  the miners in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which was so great to me last week and Ohio and all over, they're going to start to work again, believe me.  You're going to be proud again to be miners."   

There is an objective, factual reality that producing more energy than ever.   But it isn't coal, and it isn't from Appalachia.

CHART 1:   Coal Production 1984 to the present:   Generally up but steady, but now down sharply.

CHART 2: What is taking the place of coal recently?   Oil and natural gas.  Here are the production numbers 1980 to the present.

Chart 3:  Coal Country has moved.   Now Wyoming is "coal country" and they don't need many miners.     Surface mining Wyoming, using giant machines, does more with fewer miners.

As a Bloomberg news story put it, "Many utilities have replaced Appalaciand coal with cheaper fuel from Illinois and the Powder River basin in Wyoming and Montana, or switched to burning natural gas.   

Total Coal Production:   Million tons        Total jobs           Production/miner

Kentucky                           80,380                  12,905                   6.2

Pennsylvania                     50,870                   8,382                   6.1

West Virginia                   115,925                  20,281                   5.7

Wyoming                          387,924                   6,673                  58.1

Click here for the full data chart: Sourcewatch.org

Surface Mining in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming

Now the election is over.   The cycle moves from campaign to governance.   Republicans have the White House and the Congress.    Hope and dreams won.  Now it is time to be real again.   

Jobs in Appalachia are lost to automation, surface mining, and the oil shale revolution that has made natural gas less expensive than goal for generating electricity.  Not to Hillary.  Now Forbes and other media that supported Trump can report it and Kentucky senator and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can say it:   Coal jobs are not coming back to Appalachia.   

People who want to live there and have good jobs need to retrain for the jobs of this century.  We heard this before, voiced by the person who lost.  It is what you say when you have to govern, but it is not what you can say when you campaign.   Forbes article: Jobs aren't coming back.  

Lexington Kentucky Herald Leader, November 11, 2016