Yeah I've gone into rants about the paper a coal industries before but Kerry dating all coal fired plants will be shut down in less than ten years is not just stupid but arrogantly ignorant of how our economy works.
These morons ars so stupid that they think power companies are the only consumers of coal. Not one of them can tell you why paper products are so expensive. Neither do they have the slightest idea what kind of energy and resources it takes to make them.
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| Paper mills are huge complexes that employ thousands mostly in rural areas. |
The simple fact is paper production is the largest industrial consumer of coal. Why? Because is the only energy source capable of producing the vast quantities of electricity and steam needed to make paper. So much so that drawing the power needed from the grid would shut it down in many areas. And even if they could it still wouldn’t provide the massive quantities of steam and chemicals needed to process wood pulp into paper.
Toilet paper prices spiked across the NE last year because a single paper mill in Jay Maine had their pulp digester blow up. Estimates at the time we’re it would be close to a year before a new one could be built, installed, tested and brought on line.
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| The digester at Androscoggin Mill in Jay Main explodes. |
And then there is the issue of disposing of the highly toxic waste of corrosive acids and bleach that come out of the process. But rather than dump it they put it through an expensive reprocessing to turn it into a fuel that can be burned in specially designed boiler that both destroy the waste but also produce more electricity and steam they need to make paper. There reward for properly disposing of this dangerous waste is to have the federal government tax them on the basis of how much they burn.
So the next time Amazon drops off that pile of cardboard boxes at your door filled with packages made with more paper and cardboard and that nice soft virgin wood toilet paper you love. Try to remember it all depends on COAL.
Town I lived in 65 years had a pulp mill. People cheered when it shut down , said they didn't like the smell. I told them that odor was the scent of money. Thousand people lost good paying jobs.
ReplyDeleteAnd no doubt couldn't figure out why prices and crime went up.
DeleteStrange? The paper mill in Toledo, Oregon where I live near, is powered by wood pulp. The same raw material that they make paper with. Just saying . . .
ReplyDeleteSeems a waste of resources given that pulps energy density is far lower than that of coal and would produce far more ash. I guess that's the luxury of plentiful resources on a local basis. Also goes a way to explain why in so many chain home improvement stores there is so much imported lumber from places like Sweden and New Zealand.
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