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[Lord Shonus]

US could produce a bunch more gas to liquefy and send to Europe, but Biden committed to ending subsidies, etc., and he's obviously not going to give any incentives.

No, the US can't. Even if we magiced up the supply, LNG is not easy to transport. The specialized tankers needed to ship it across the ocean (putting it in an oil tanker means you either vent it uselessly to atmosphere or create an unstable nuclear-scale bomb) do not exist in sufficient quantity. The specialized terminals to load it onto the nonexistent tankers do not exist. The pipelines to funnel it to the nonexistent terminals to load it onto the nonexistant ships do not exist. Supplying Europe with US natural gas as anything other than a token stopgap would take ten years and billions (if not trillions) of dollars worth of infrastructure.

[EuchreJack]

The US is also still untangling it's shipping issues from COVID.

[anewaname]

Even though Trump advocated for the EU's energy independence, he didn't try to put the EU or the USA on the better track of reducing overall fossil-fuel dependence, and he also disrupted the USA's involvement in the global discussions regarding climate change. So, this was an attempt to claim right-to-rule and not an attempt to resolve the mutual problem of Russian authoritarianism or the global problem of carbon-release.

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In the current situation, burning coal in the EU is not as bad a choice as it might seem... The economic cost of coal is much lower and while the topic is in the public eye, EU politicians will be more able to extract that economic value and push it into nuclear or wind/solar/wave (by not reducing consumer/industry electrical prices and taxing the economic value away from the mining/burning organizations). It could be argued that if the EU public eye wasn't on global warming, EU politicians would never begun measuring carbon-release and upgraded from using EU coal to using Russian CNG.

[Dunamisdeos]

The problem is the same. Reducing reliance on coal and oil mean less profit from coal and oil. We can't have that, because then the people at the top of the coal and oil pyramid will not have as much money as they used to. The very bottom line is that they believe that they deserve that money, because they can take it.

If there's a single principle that guides our economy, that's it.

[Lord Shonus]

Coal's effectively dead already. Pure economics are strangling the industry, and only the immense existing infrastructure justifies mining it at all. Outside of steel production and a few other niche uses, we're looking at the end of coal mining within a decade or two.

Oil will last a lot longer, because it is so very useful for production of goods, but the days of oil as an energy source are numbered. Again by pure economics (though government mandates can and should hasten the transition) - electric vehicles are increasingly cheap, and the operating costs are far lower than ICE vehicles even ignoring the cost of fuel. For core power generation, renewables aren't quite the obviously cheaper choice that they are for coal, but close.

[Il Palazzo]

Coal's effectively dead already. Pure economics are strangling the industry, and only the immense existing infrastructure justifies mining it at all. Outside of steel production and a few other niche uses, we're looking at the end of coal mining within a decade or two.

And yet, the Aussies keep opening new humongous coal mines all the time, it seems. Exports keep growing. Can't imagine why they'd be the only ones thinking there's still massive profits to be made here.

[wierd]

Coal might find its niche as the 'easily shipped" precursor to synthetic natural gas, to satisfy local LNG needs.

(Basically, get it wet, and then get it real hot, such as with solar concentrator setups-- You will get all the 'methane' you can handle.)

[None]

Coal's effectively dead already. Pure economics are strangling the industry, and only the immense existing infrastructure justifies mining it at all. Outside of steel production and a few other niche uses, we're looking at the end of coal mining within a decade or two.

And yet, the Aussies keep opening new humongous coal mines all the time, it seems. Exports keep growing. Can't imagine why they'd be the only ones thinking there's still massive profits to be made here.

Aussies also think that copper cable is the future of the internet. They're very upside-down about these things. Established corporations want more money and the top brass wants to keep them there against all logic.

[EuchreJack]

Coal's effectively dead already. Pure economics are strangling the industry, and only the immense existing infrastructure justifies mining it at all. Outside of steel production and a few other niche uses, we're looking at the end of coal mining within a decade or two.

And yet, the Aussies keep opening new humongous coal mines all the time, it seems. Exports keep growing. Can't imagine why they'd be the only ones thinking there's still massive profits to be made here.

Aussies also think that copper cable is the future of the internet. They're very upside-down about these things. Established corporations want more money and the top brass wants to keep them there against all logic.

They also have the advantage of not having mined for coal quite as long as everyone else, so there should be more of the easier to access deposits, reducing cost.
As for copper cable, it probably comes down to not having copper cable everywhere, so it would be an improvement over what they got. Which I imagine is satellite internet with some reliability issues. Any Aussies want to clarify/refute?

[Mech#4]

Specifics I don't know about our internet. Mines fine for the most part but can get laggy if playing with others over in US or UK.

NBN (National Broadband Network) is the main plan countrywide for the internet. It varies a lot depending on where you are with differing amount of fiber to metallic cables depending on what type of connections you have to the network.

As for coal. Sorry. You'd think we'd be head in the world for solar but opinions are mostly stuck on what it was like 20+ years ago.

[Il Palazzo]

Full disclosure, all I know about Aussie politics is the completely impartial hilarious Honest Government Ads series.
Seriously, check it out on youtube if you haven't yet.

[EuchreJack]

Specifics I don't know about our internet. Mines fine for the most part but can get laggy if playing with others over in US or UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadband_Network#2020 is the main plan countrywide for the internet. It varies a lot depending on where you are with differing amount of fiber to metallic cables depending on what type of connections you have to the network.

As for coal. Sorry. You'd think we'd be head in the world for solar but opinions are mostly stuck on what it was like 20+ years ago.

Your link doesn't seem to work.

[Rolan7]

Specifics I don't know about our internet. Mines fine for the most part but can get laggy if playing with others over in US or UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadband_Network#2020 is the main plan countrywide for the internet. It varies a lot depending on where you are with differing amount of fiber to metallic cables depending on what type of connections you have to the network.

As for coal. Sorry. You'd think we'd be head in the world for solar but opinions are mostly stuck on what it was like 20+ years ago.

Your link doesn't seem to work.

It's fine for Mech but we're on the other hemisphere, so we have to flip it: 0ᄅ0ᄅ#ʞɹoʍʇǝN‾puɐqpɐoɹq‾lɐuoᴉʇɐN/ᴉʞᴉʍ/ƃɹo˙ɐᴉpǝdᴉʞᴉʍ˙uǝ//:sdʇʇɥ

[EuchreJack]

Now THAT is talent.  Well done, your honor.

[Dunamisdeos]

All to recognize Rolan as a Jedi Master specializing in internet forum jokes, say aye.