03/06/17 City Council Agenda Packet

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Peak Blame and the decline US coal peaked in 1999 Powder River Basin producers finding it more costly to get to coal reserves of concentrated energydue to depletion www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/washington/ The reason we use fossil fuels is they are more Coal depletion is why ÅexportÆ of coal through power-river-basin-producers-finding-it-more- concentrated and easier to use than sunlight and the Northwest is unlikely in large amounts. wind. It would be nice to have simple replacements costly-21402408 Coal that only exists in exaggerated estimates for this stored energy, but our growth based ÅÇThereÈs very little low ratio coal out there cannot be exported. economy requires ever increasing use of resources. anymore,È said Al Elser, BLMÈs assistant district details: www.PeakChoice.org/peak-coal.html Now that the easy to extract fossil fuels are in manager for solid minerals in Casper, Wyoming.Æ decline, replaced by difficult to extract energy, our economy is having increased difficulty sustaining Geology and Markets, not EPA, Waging continued growth. comment from http://ricefarmer.blogspot.com War on Coal Economic impacts of energy decline are leading Powder River Basin coal is some of the cheapest in to increased instability, with social chaos that can cleanenergyaction.org/2014/06/04/geology-and- the world. But as this article shows, the Åeasy be as challenging as the ecological damage. markets-not-epa-waging-war-on-coal/ coalÆ is pretty much gone. That of course Financial hardships lead to demagogues Ä the The EPA is not waging a war on coal. This isnÈt means rising prices, and declining net energy. classic example is 1930s Germany. Trump is to say that a war on coal would be a bad idea, but As with oil, coal is not going to literally Årun indicative of the blaming likely to happen on the energy downslope. rather that itÈs mostly unnecessary. Coal in the US out,Æ but price increases will create an Energy literacy about energy decline could be a is dying off on its own, and at most what weÈre increasing drag onthe economy. ItÈs all downhill partial antidote for scapegoating, but would require doing is equivalent to taking it off life support. Our from here. admitting we have reached the limits to growth task is to manage thegraceful transition to a much on an abundant, round, finite planet. lower carbon energy system. Using solar panels for a quarter century taught The proposed EPA carbon regulations are just me living on our solar budget will power a much smaller, steady state economy no longer based the first baby steps we need to take down the path on exponential growth. of avoiding catastrophic warming. The EPA, the Moving beyond fossil fuels is not about electric state legislatures and regulatory cars, but relocalizing food production, since solar bodies, and (someday) the US panels cannot power long distance food shipments. Congress are all going to have do do Breeding plant varieties for changing climates will probably be the most important adaptation a whole lot more workin the years to to changing climates. come, working together to transform US oil - 1920 to 2014 - peaked 1970 Ä Mark Robinowitz, PeakChoice.org our energy system much faster and much more profoundly than these regulations alone can. A 4 4 Because thereÈs so much more 4 4 work to do, it is important that we do 4 4 4 not allow the EPA and the Obama administration to be made into scapegoats for the decline of the coal industry. We must not allow this kind of work to remain Alaska oil peaked 1988 politically poisonous, or weÈll never North Dakota fracked oil, peaking now build thekind of momentum we need to finish the job.