We listen to it all the time but do you recognize it? Probably not if you agree with it.

But you really have to have enough disconnect from what is stated to see it.

More often than not, we are told what our ache’s and pain’s are from and you agree,

…then they tell you who to blame for them ! and most follow that !!

While for several years I listened to some local power plant that had 7 units burning coal that shut down many of them. A large number of lay-offs occurred. The powers that be in the plant blamed it on Obama and his war on coal. The same for many coal mines in the next state across the river from it.

Having listened to that for 3 years, I started to actually look at the case for it.

Obama had not had (nor the EPA) any new regulations for coal,  and even new ones that could come in the future do not take effect for some time even after draft proposals are made and they eventually get passed. So it was not from that despite several things he may have said about coal that even I did not exactly agree with. Words and rules are 2 different things.

So what was the real reason for the huge lay-offs…

It appears that while the plant drug it’s feet on the last wave of environmental standards that took place 10 years ago, they thought it cheaper to pay the fines than to do the upgrades like all the other local plants had done.

The increase in the construction costs went up in a large way with the price of oil while waiting so long. Concrete and steel doubled in price and those are the main ingredients for industrial construction.

And the plant had a larger plan to create a huge waste dump for fly ash not just for their plant but for many area plants that burn coal. It was a investment opportunity for them to be able to handle the hazardous waste of others.

So what happened since they did eventually do the upgrades and created a profitable waste dump for the area fly ash ?

It failed miserably because of one thing…     …De-Regulation (that means less regulation) and Shale Gas helped.

The price of new natural gas from shale deposits were making natural gas prices less than 60% cheaper than they were at their peek.

Why does that matter ?

Because of a de-regulated market, the power stations were competing against each other to suppliers within the region.

Gas plants build cheaper, operate cheaper and are more efficient in production and have no heavy environmental clean-up.

Everyone was running their gas fired plants near full capacity and shutting down their coal fired plants as they were unprofitable with this low-cost gas.

If this was Obama’s fault, we must have worked his magic in China also since most of the coal miners over there have been out of work the last few years. Gee, that’s almost funny because when coal was at it’s peek price, China was one of the largest buyers and they could not get it out of the ground fast enough for them, hence, the many safety disasters in the coal mines we had during the time from 2004-2012 till china stopped buying the coal.

Now with nobody burning as much coal, the investment they made in the newly constructed fly ash dump was a waste.

So this is just a example of the herders leading the sheep if you listen to them. Be a good sheep and cork your ears. The only way you will find the truth is to look for it. Most of us are to lazy for that. It’s just easier to let them tell you who to blame for your pain. They already know where it hurts because they most likely inflicted your pain before you knew you had it.

Deregulation and not regulation created this mess. And a unseen surplus in natural gas fueled it’s start. You would think a energy company would know it’s own markets better than anyone. How did they drop their own ball ?

The energy deregulation rules were created by the energy company’s themselves during Bush Jr’s tenure and a Republican held Congress. Go figure !

Money is not always smart, just always powerful. That is enough power to tell you how to think.

It always seems to have it’s way, and sometimes you have to be careful of what you wish for.

You will never fix a problem when you do not correctly identify it. Let them point the finger to lead you to more of the same.

Personally, I see the energy company’s falling off the same cliff that Enron did once they allow them to merge to just a few company’s to hide their own stupidity. 10-15 years ? But someone will make money from it and it will not be the shareholders, since they will bear the losses to come. Pension funds still at risk from that stuff, but that’s a new Moot Story.