"War on <enter noun>" seems to be rather common rhetoric among the US, certainly a lot moreso than over here. And on coal? Yes please! The sooner we get rid of it, the better.
This is great news and much appreciated. The US is in a great position to shift it's energy production. The country is vast and varied, with huge areas of desert that lend themselves perfectly to build vast solar farms. Built as Concentrated Solar Power stations, they can even handle baseload, storing the heat generated over the day in large containers.
Long coastlines are great for wave power generation, and off-shore wind farms. Also, biogas from ranches etc. etc. There is huge potential, and with these plans it is finally going to be tapped.
However, there will likely be significant resistance from all kinds of lobbies against this, and they have proven time and again how powerful they can be, and how much they hate to see a change towards a better future.
My knowledge of macro economics is limited, but here's my take on the protesters who say "This will cost good jobs!" - The undertaking is huge in it's proportions, and there will be plenty of jobs to go around. All those alternative powerplants will have to be built, run and maintained by someone. It will either create more jobs than are 'lost', meaning it's less efficient than the current system. But this is outweighed by the huge benefits to the environment and the sustainability of the power generation. Or, it will create less jobs than will be lost, in which case it's more efficient than the current model, on top of the other benefits, and it should be done for economic reasons, too.
People like to argue "But building all this is so expensive!" Yeah well, where does the money go? It doesn't disappear, it goes in a circle. Yes, it's effectively "gone" if it goes overseas, but then you might want to consider making the solar/wind/etc. industry in your country able to compete. Cut taxes where necessary in the name of a cleaner future, I say. The problem is not the money going away, the problem is the money going into different pockets. The old pockets have a problem with that.
