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| Image Source: Mining.com link below |
The times I've talked about automation: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and finally here. So it's not a new subject broached, hardly.
However the signature of repealing climate change rules merely to roll back your predecessor's executive order will benefit no one except the owners of the mines.
Robotics, not regulations is the reasons your mining jobs aren't coming back. A robot doesn't get sick, it doesn't have sick kids to stay home with; it doesn't require vacation/medical/dental/retirement benefits or get tired, however it will due to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (Entropy) wear down and eventually need repair. For that you need technicians, a specialty that can be awarded after two years study for an associates degree or military service in communications electronics or related military occupational specialty. So in this instance, a four year degree or higher is a bit of overcompensation and unnecessary from a cost-point concern, i.e. you could find yourself "overqualified" and not be hired due to the fact the potential employer is likely to think this is an interim assignment and you'll just find a better paying job when one opens.
We are ALL on a giant spaceship on an elliptical trajectory around the sun that takes approximately 365.25 days as we measure it, adjusted every fourth year with a "leap day" on which here in America we've parked our presidential election years. Due to the angle of incidence of ultraviolet light and our respective proximity on the globe, Melanin has rendered identifying pigmentation to different groups. We have no spare planets like it within the solar system or light years in human lifetimes. Learning to share within our respective sandbox is the only immediate surety for species survival in the near future.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have been ambivalent and avoided discussing it to placate the electorate through another election cycle, our political thinking like our financial reduced to quarterly concerns, not existential ones. The best way to obfuscate is to punt about "clean coal" (an oxymoron), alternative energy (that will take considerable national will and government investment - e.g. the oil industry has literally been on government subsidies since the Bolshevik revolution), and of course demonize "the other" that doesn't look quite like your constituents in the first place (it tends to work "like a charm"; see ultraviolet and Melanin above).
That would take considerable synaptic activity, some long-range planning and a little less solipsism.
Brookings Institute
Increased automation guarantees a bleak outlook for Trump’s promises to coal miners,
Devashree Saha and Sifan Liu
Mining.com
Study shows 96% of some mining jobs can be automated,
Frik Els
New York Times
Coal Miners Hope Trump’s Order Will Help. But Few Are Counting on It,
Campbell Robertson
Policy Shift Helps Coal, but Other Forces May Limit Effect,
Clifford Krauss and Diane Cardwell
Planned Rollback of Climate Rules Unlikely to Achieve All Trump’s Goals,
Coral Davenport
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