[janalsncm]

Yes, things would be more expensive if workers had more rights. I don’t see how that is an argument against or in favor of any particular energy source.

Further, if workers’ well-being are your main consideration (admirable), we should be moving away from coal as quickly as possible.

[defrost]

> if workers’ well-being are your main consideration (admirable), we should be moving away from coal as quickly as possible.

I'm pro renewables and I'm happy to see the back of coal . . .

however ...

Australia is the second biggest biggest exporter of coal, uses no child labour, is heavily mechanised with a small number of workers compared to tonnage moved, has excellent worker conditions in terms of safety, paid overtime, holidays, etc.

You point appears to be based in some Appalachian romance notion of tunneling out coal with pickaxes and coal carts pulled by children.

[seadan83]

I find this an interesting statistics, in 2023 there were 36.5k total people employed in the US coal industry. [1] It's simply just not a lot of people in the grand scheme. That speaks to how industrialized coal production is in the US - it doesn't take that many people to do mountain top removal and drive heavy machinery.

FWIW & for comparison, Circuit city at its peak employed 40k people, that's more people than the US Coal industry employs today [2]

[1] https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/employment/coa...

[2] https://medium.com/@ramireznatalie/the-collapse-of-circuit-c...

[hateover9000]

Proponents of renewables often cite the price and use it as an argument against nuclear energy. Nuclear energetics uses highly regulated local labor, giving it an inherent disadvantage against unregulated foreign labor. If renewables rely on underpaid or even child labor, it's not sustainable nor realistic, the numbers in that calculation have to be updated and the decisions reconsidered.