[Hoot Gibson]

Snarky comebacks are the liberal's stock in trade. But I would take a bit of exception to the notion that the coal industry is dying. It may be under killing assault, due to EPA regs that make it impossible for coal fired generating stations to do business without losing money though.

The reason that I say it is a dying industry is that coal is a non-renewable resource. The average thickness of the seams containing economically recoverable reserves decreases continuously because the thickest, best quality reserves are mind first.

Something that I noticed during my years working in the coal industry was that the criteria for estimating "minable and merchantable' underground coal reserves changed very little from the early 20th century to the 21st century. The minimum thickness of most reserve estimates remains unchanged at around 28 to 30 inches.

There are some exceptions to the rule. The Blue Gem seam in some parts of southeastern Kentucky contains very high quality coal with some unique characteristics and it has been mined where the seam is a few inches short of 28 inches, but the exceptions to the 28 inch limit have been rare.

The thickness of surface minable reserves is much more variable because it depends more on the price of coal rather than the geometry involved in fitting men and machines into the seam.

The mining industry in any area is by definition a dying industry because the recoverable reserves are finite, so mining operations will eventually be forced to follow the supply.

Eventually, even with President Obama out of office, economics will prevent further mining in eastern Kentucky. Mining operations will move to areas like Montana, New Mexico, Colorado, and Alaska.

The damage to the mining industry that enviromental-whackos like Obama do, besides driving costs of mining through the roof through regulation, is that they destroy the skilled workforce that coal mining requires. In the event of a national emergency, modern mines cannot quickly be re-opened, even if regulations were suspended, because skilled labor, engineers, and managers who know how to mine coal become increasingly scarce.

Training coal miners involves more time, money, and expertise than training liberal burger-flippers does. That is the insidious impact that electing elected officials like Obama into positions of power has on the coal industry. In the short term, Obama is destroying jobs, but his real goal is to destroy the industry itself.