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Anyone serious about climate change knows that coal is the worst enemy of the environment. We can have all of the electric cars we want, if they are hooked into a coal-based utility system then the gains are irrelevant. We can also be sure that while all sorts of companies, like the General Electrics (GE) (Cramer's Take) and Cokes (KO) (Cramer's Take) and Nikes (NKE) (Cramer's Take) and Nestles, support climate control, they are not equal to one Southern Company (SO) (Cramer's Take), which is an important coal-burning company and a huge lobbyist for the coal industry.
Our nation has a two-pronged climate philosophy: pushes on conservation and on renewables. Neither is enough to get us through the next 10 years; we can't produce enough renewable energy at a cheap price and we can't caulk our way out of the jam.
So we resort to alchemy. We say that the way we will get to the levels the world wants us to have is to develop methods to clean coal. Last week the Department of Energy's Steven Chu awarded several construction companies $3 billion to develop carbon capture and sequestration techniques to clean coal. It is the latest in the attempts by the coal companies and the utilities to keep the status quo. The fact that these came right from the Cabinet shows that President Obama has not waivered one bit -- despite the fact that we can't find a way for carbon capture to work (and many have tried) -- in his efforts to support the coal industry.
This hypocrisy is extraordinary. If we want to cut carbon emissions while we bridge to better, cleaner fuels, we simply need to demand that the coal-using companies close their old plants, which are the largest sources of pollution in this country other than autos, and build cleaner-burning natural gas plants that can run on our reliable abundant domestic sources.
The natural gas industry didn't realize the power of coal, and companies like XTO (XTO) (Cramer's Take), Devon (DVN) (Cramer's Take), Apache (APA) (Cramer's Take), Anadarko (APC) (Cramer's Take), Chesapeake (CHK) (Cramer's Take), Equitable (EQT) (Cramer's Take) and Range Resources (RRC) (Cramer's Take) didn't think that Obama would be so pro-coal.
Because he is, and because of our insistence that we can sequester carbon, I simply cannot take our Copenhagen foray seriously.
Not only that, but it is obvious that the only companies that can handle the accords are the largest multinationals with the most money to lobby to get the laws where they want. The small to medium-sized businesses can't. It is another reason (besides the ability to pay dividends) that I think the large-caps will continue to outperform the small-caps over the foreseeable future.
Jim Cramer is co-founder and chairman of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in the stocks mentioned.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-07-2009 @ 6:18PM
Lysander said...
Duh ...
12-07-2009 @ 7:35PM
say what? said...
Our "energy policy" boils down to this:
1) Ethanol/biofuels - because you need Iowa to win the nomination
2) "Clean Coal" - because you need Ohio/Pennsylvania to win the general election
3) Pie in the sky renewables - because you need Silicon Valley VC & Wall St money to fund your campaign.
12-08-2009 @ 4:17PM
ebrandler34 said...
"say what?", I could not have said it any better. Kudo's!!
Sometimes, I wish the presidency was a single 6-year term, term-limited. At least then, you might see behavior that is more aligned with the interests of America, than re-election self-interest.
The authors of the Constitution tried to insulate the Presidency (and the Senate) from direct democracy for just this reason. Too bad they're not here today to "cry foul".