DEREGULATION CANNOT BRING BACK OUT OF DATE COAL JOBS

NBC had an evenhanded piece on the issue of Trump deregulation and coal jobs. Turns out, it's just all bullshit. Trump may well go down a hero for "standing up to save coal miners" - but it's the equivalent of someone in 1900 "standing up to save ship canvas sailmakers" - meaningless drivel, in the face of reality. 

Inter alia, the piece reports that: 

- [ ] Coal jobs not "coming back" because coal does not make economic sense:; we cannot legislate against reality.
- [ ] Wind, other renewables and natural gas are the business reality for power generation in North America
- [ ] Wind cost per KW down 50% and now competitive.
- [ ] Natural gas lower cost, cleaner, more efficient, more easily obtained 
- [ ] Multi billion dollar coal processing plants are extremely huge physical behemoths, are old/worn out and will not be replaced. It simply doesn't make sense to replace them
- [ ] Coal's only use in N America is power generation. It is just not going to continue. It's over.
- [ ] The ONLY possible positive news for coal miners is that the loss of jobs might (might) be slowed, IF we could increase EXPORTS of mined coal. Other countries are not yet switched to renewables etc. 
- [ ] Stemming, to some degree, the increased job loss among miners is not going to really solve anything.