Is Trump Really A Fossil-Fuel Dinosaur?

His grand promises to the coal industry, his much-quoted remark about climate change as Chinese hoax, and early moves to smother mention of “climate change” in some federal agencies, all suggest the answer is yes. Nonetheless, an article in the New York Times by attorney and commentary writer James B. Stewart says there is reason to believe it’s more complicated. He notes that Elon Musk was among the corporate moguls recently invited to meet with the President, and that the “smart grid” advocated by Musk – a grid modulated by the high-tech batteries one of his companies is gearing up to produce – could qualify as the kind of job-creating infrastructure project that Trump says he wants to promote. More generally, the two seem to share a fascination with super-big projects. On a less speculative note, Stewart cites employment figures recently released by the Energy Department and likely to catch the eye of anyone whose political fortunes could rest on job creation, and that presumably would include Donald Trump. Solar technologies now employ abut 374,000 workers. That’s 43 percent of the “electric generation workforce,” and it dwarfs the approximately 86,000 workers said to be employed in coal generation.