thinking about it more actually, you could get around this to a greater extent (though not completely) by automating and then retraining people, the primary issue likely boiling down to the culture around jobs in some areas of the 'States, and the lack of communal support, which should be counted on both in motivating people to make better job decisions, and easing social costs while those decisions are made. Right now the Coal industry is being held up, when it's really not terribly efficient and has been causing y'all to blow up fucking mountains to get more coal. Because those same people have been convinced that this is their trade and that's how it has been and should always be, any suggestion to shift them sideways into another energy source is going to be met with a lot of anger, but government cant be expected to prop that shit up by directly funding it, or bringing nuclear down
