Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumGeorge Soros invests millions in coal
Billionaire climate philanthropist George Soros invested more than $2m (£1.3m) in struggling coal giants Peabody Energy and Arch Coal in recent months, despite having once called the fuel lethal to the climate.
Filings with the Securities and Exchange commission show that between April and June this year Soros Fund Management (SFM) bought more than 1m shares in Peabody ($2.25m), the worlds largest private coal company, and 500,000 shares in Arch ($188,000).
The firm, which Soros chairs, bought the large stakes for bargain prices. Peabody and Arch are giants of the US coal sector but have suffered massive declines in recent years, losing more than 98% of their value. SFM made a similar move in 2014 by investing $234.4m in coal and gas company Consol. Those shares were sold off after a few months as gas prices continued to fall.
The Hungarian trading titan is the 29th richest person on earth; according to Forbes he is worth $24.2bn. In 2009, after being convinced by Al Gore of the urgency of the climate challenge, he pledged to spend $1bn of his own money on renewable energy and funded the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) thinktank.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/19/climate-philanthropist-george-soros-invests-millions-in-coal
Billionaires are not your friend anyway check out his history
with mobile home industry if you're not sure..
randys1
(16,286 posts)WDIM
(1,662 posts)People, markets, Governments, tax codes, our natural resources, and workers and consumers.
Duppers
(28,125 posts)cprise
(8,445 posts)mackdaddy
(1,527 posts)I am a big proponent of alternative energy. I installed my own 10kw solar array which provides most of the power for my all electric home. I taught solar, wind, and fuel cells at the local technical college for 3 years.
But, the reality is that most of the electricity in the Ohio valley region, and most of the country still comes from burning coal. Most of these plants burn a train car per hour or more. The resulting CO2 caused global warming may just kill us all, but trying to shut these plants down overnight would cause an overnight economic collapse.
We need to switch to renewables as soon as possible, and much faster than the current rate, but it will still take decades. In the mean time we need the coal. We are addicted, and will be for decades.
So yes, probably an economic investment that will pay money back. Hopefully they will be enough left of humanity to spend the dollars.