Coal

As the administration continues its march toward eliminating coal fired power plants to retard global warming, the continents of Asia and Africa are increasing the use of coal. In the past five years China has built more coal powered plants than the total number in the US. China now gets 80% of its energy from coal and that is rising as compared to the US where 40% is from coal and that is falling. The US has large reserves of coal and will export any it does not use so the effect worldwide will be negligible. Countries around the world want all the coal we can ship them so instead of having a large inexpensive source of energy to use here in the US we will ship at less profit for our industry to countries who will use the coal. The latest example of this is the proposed oil pipeline from Canada. This oil is produced from sand and is less desirable from a global warming perspective so the US has refused to allow the pipeline. This means that the pipeline will be sent to the west coast where the oil will be shipped to China for use. Once again the worldwide effect is negligible but in both of these cases there will be considerable waste of energy associated with the shipping. As oil tankers and coal barges make their way across the ocean they use a lot of fuel to make the trip. There seems to me to be a lack of common sense here or am I missing some important aspect. One final point for those who are worried about spills, pipelines are many times safer than tankers.