> Maybe the hack is for those states to get the mine owners established in the manufacturing supporting renewables. Smooth transition, ready workforce.
Those states will bend over backwards to accommodate the coal industry, but they're not going to put any programs together for the actual workers. You would need either a non-profit or a renewables industrialist (Elon?) to put a program together to train and/or relocate these workers to better jobs.
Yeah, I don't expect the typical OSHA-ignoring mine owner to adapt to a new economy, and they probably have achieved enough regulatory capture to keep out competing tech, but state lines are porous, and labor is relatively mobile, so if opportunity beckons across state lines, economic rationality may prevail.
So states bordering coal states--the ball is in your court!
I see plenty of wind farms and rigs on the interstate transporting large turbines to Iowa and Kansas, so maybe the labor will reallocate.
I'm of the mind that we should be making an active effort to recruit coal miners into the renewable industry; there's a whole lot of wind turbines and solar capacity left to install, and those are much safer, healthy, and I'd argue better paying jobs that the coal industry.
I'm biased though, and think the coal industry should be starved of resources as quickly as possible.
Those states will bend over backwards to accommodate the coal industry, but they're not going to put any programs together for the actual workers. You would need either a non-profit or a renewables industrialist (Elon?) to put a program together to train and/or relocate these workers to better jobs.