West Virginia planning for natural gas trust fund
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 19, 2024, 01:19:47 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Politics
  Economics (Moderator: Torie)
  West Virginia planning for natural gas trust fund
« previous next »
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: West Virginia planning for natural gas trust fund  (Read 730 times)
Indy Texas
independentTX
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 12,241
United States


Political Matrix
E: 0.52, S: -3.48

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« on: September 14, 2013, 01:40:53 PM »

http://news.yahoo.com/coal-w-va-push-natural-gas-trust-fund-135232219.html

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

What shocks me is that West Virginia has never done this. Alaska has a Permanent Fund. Texas has one devoted to financing public universities. North Dakota approved one in 2010. All states that are arguably more conservative than West Virginia, so I can't see how it wouldn't have been politically feasible. Had they done something like this for coal 50 years ago, West Virginia might look less like Hunger Games and more like...the nicer parts of Kentucky or Ohio. And maybe Robert Byrd wouldn't have had to earmark so much of the rest of America's money to build things named after him.
Logged
opebo
Atlas Legend
*****
Posts: 47,010


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2013, 02:05:15 PM »

Communism!
Logged
DINGO Joe
dingojoe
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 11,700
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2013, 05:05:34 PM »

Of course, as the article mentions the rub is that WV is battling budget deficits in part because revenue from coal severance taxes are down, so it's hard to set aside new revenue from NG production.  WV has to be the most schizo state, ranting about the war on coal while production of it's primarly replacement, natural gas, grows by leaps and bounds within the state.  Of course, coal employs more people than NG  can, so that's the rub.
Logged
Snowstalker Mk. II
Snowstalker
Atlas Star
*****
Posts: 20,414
Palestinian Territory, Occupied


Political Matrix
E: -7.10, S: -4.35

P P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2013, 08:20:44 PM »

Excellent, especially if the jobs created will be unionized. Coal is dying, natural gas is cleaner than coal, and the state is badly in need of an economic revival.
Logged
All Along The Watchtower
Progressive Realist
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 15,386
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2013, 10:19:57 PM »


lol wut
Logged
DINGO Joe
dingojoe
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 11,700
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2013, 01:47:01 PM »

The greatest advantage NG has over coal is the ease and affordability of building Combined Cycle Generation which makes a power plant roughly 1/3rd more efficient than a coal plant.  That easily outweighs any other variability involved in getting either form of energy out of the ground. 

And really, the greatest environment abuse caused by Natural Gas in the US right now has to do with oil drilling in North Dakota where the desire to get oil out the ground has outpaced the ability to collect and process the associated NG produced and the feeble state government has failed to enforce regulations requiring it.  The result is that probably about half of all flaring of NG in the US occurs in ND which is only producing about 1% of the NG used in the US.

You can actually see the flaring at night from space.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2012/0713/Thanks-to-North-Dakota-US-waste-of-natural-gas-grows-rapidly
Logged
Pages: [1]  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.031 seconds with 11 queries.