GE announces it will stop making coal-fired power plants
Someone wet-vac the McNugget sauce off Donald Trump’s adipose-cascading carcass and wake him up. GE has a message for him: Coal is over. You can stop lying about it now.
The guy who once (in)famously said, “We've ended the war on beautiful, clean coal, and it's just been announced that a second, brand-new coal mine where they're going to take out clean coal — meaning they're taking out coal, they're going to clean it — is opening in the state of Pennsylvania,” has never demonstrated any understanding of the realities of our energy future — namely that coal is a thing of the past, and it doesn’t do those who still depend on the industry any good to keep bullshitting them about it. But Trump would rather send every asthmatic kid in the country to the hospital than eschew the huckleberry hosannas he receives at his West Virginia rallies.
General Electric Co. said on Monday it plans to stop making coal-fired power plants, as the U.S. industrial conglomerate focuses more on renewable sources of power generation.
The company said the exit from the business could include divestitures, site closings and job cuts, while it works with its customers to complete existing obligations.
GE has said in the past it would focus less on fossil fuels and more on renewable energy, reflecting a growing acceptance of clean power sources by utilities.
“GE’s exit from building new coal-fired power — after decades as a leader in this space — is an acknowledgement that growth in the energy sector will no longer be in coal,” said Kathy Hipple, a financial analyst at Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “The market will ultimately reward GE for exiting new coal builds.”
This is hardly surprising, unless you’ve been listening to Trump — who, you know, lies a lot. In fact, despite Trump’s empty promises to end the supposed war on coal (which is about as real as the war on Christmas), more coal plants have been retired during Trump’s term than during Obama’s second term. That’s because coal is simply no longer economically viable.
We can all be happy that Trump failed once again to fulfill a campaign promise. Coal is disastrous for the environment and human health — neither of which Trump cares about, of course.
But he does care about pretending to do things, and this certainly won’t help him on that score.
“This guy is a natural. Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry.” — Bette Midler on Aldous J. Pennyfarthing, via Twitter. Find out what made dear Bette break up. Dear Fcking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump and its boffo sequels Dear Prsident A**clown: 101 More Rude Letters to Donald Trump and Dear F*cking Moron: 101 More Letters to Donald Trump by Aldous J. Pennyfarthing are now available for a song! Click those links, yo!
