The coal industry is sick -- and it's terminal

[DonViejo]

Shane Savitsky 8 hrs ago

The coal industry is sick — and it's terminal

President Trump has made a revitalization of the coal industry one of his key campaign promises, and it arguably helped to push him over the top in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. He's pledged an all-out assault on Obama-era environmental regulations, and kicked things off last month with the the repeal of a rule that backers said would save more than 75,000 coal jobs. But like much of Trump's rhetoric surrounding the manufacturing industry, talk of a resurgence of coal jobs ignores economic realities. The energy market has moved past coal, and those jobs simply aren't coming back.

Percent of U.S. energy generation

Data: Energy Information Administration; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon / Axios

1. Coal is past the point of no return

Coal has long had one advantage over other energy sources: it's cheap. But the huge growth in the extraction of shale gas via fracking over the past decade has sent natural gas production soaring and prices tumbling. And advancements in renewable energy technology during that same time span have reduced prices in that industry as well, even allowing utility-scale solar to bring its prices in line with natural gas. Money talks: natural gas overtook coal for a few months in 2016 as the United States' primary source for electricity production.

The EIA's Annual Energy Outlook has coal rebounding for the next few years as record-low natural gas prices start to tick back up, but it predicts that natural gas will become the United States' energy source of choice by the early 2020s. And renewables are pegged to overtake coal before 2030 rolls around.

The market has already made its choice — especially as many utilities have decided to shutter coal-fired power plants — cementing coal's death spiral.

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https://www.axios.com/draft-coal-stuff-2293205721.html

[tonyt53]

1. This assessment is correct. Coal was done in by natural gas - AND profit.

A electrical power producer can make 34%-37% more profit when using natural gas for power production as compared to coal. The coal related costs for mining, shipping the coal to the plants, the plant employees handling the coal, the equipment needed to take the coal to usable state (usually pulverizers), the maintenance issues related to burning coal, the ash handling, all add up. Those costs are ongoing when burning coal with the maximum efficiency of about 50% at best. With natural gas, once the wells are drilled, and the pipeline built, there is little else to deal with.Some routine preventative maintenance at the plant is all that is needed. The workforce at the plant is reduced by 60% and all the equipment needed that is related to coal is gone.

All of the above items do not include the current air quality and environmental issues that were put in place prior to President Obama taking office. Add the costs in for those items and it gets worse for coal. Plus the profit for the power producer goes up.