The End of The Coal Age In Sight ?

19 Comments on "The End of The Coal Age In Sight ?"

PracticalMaina on Wed, 13th Apr 2016 2:32 pm 



Peabody is often hailed as one of the most efficient large scale coal mining companys. I guess running dump trucks capable of hauling 400tons, and using thousands of barrels of diesel, a higher value product, to blast away land to get at coal, that is not an overly valuable product in todays utility set up, where renewable generation can come and go so quickly threw ought the day. ($10 a ton, is coal cheaper than manure right now?)
No worries though, they are going to keep mining. That way when they continue to lose money going into the future, they can really mean it when they say they can’t afford to clean up their mines or honor their commitments to employees.

paulo1 on Wed, 13th Apr 2016 2:46 pm 



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fm6YSCOxQk

When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn

“And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the green river where paradise lay?”
“Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away”

Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we’d shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

“And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the green river where paradise lay?”
“Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away”

Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man

“And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the green river where paradise lay?”
“Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away”

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I’ll be halfway to Heaven with paradise waitin’
Just five miles away from wherever I am

“And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the green river where paradise lay?”
“Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away”

Read more: John Prine – Paradise Lyrics | MetroLyrics

PracticalMaina on Wed, 13th Apr 2016 3:01 pm 



I heard that song for the first time that I can recall a few months ago. Now after over a century, the company may soon be chopped up and disappear entirely.

Pennsyguy on Wed, 13th Apr 2016 3:21 pm 



That might be the best post ever for this site paulo! Maybe most of Appalachia will be beautiful again in a few million years. Let’s hope.

dave thompson on Wed, 13th Apr 2016 5:11 pm 



When the natural gas starts to decline, I suspect the coal industry will bounce right back.

makati1 on Wed, 13th Apr 2016 8:06 pm 



“In an age where power generation is largely switching to renewable energy”

Lost interest at that point. More bullshit.

BTW: Over 8,000,000,000 Tons of coal were mined last year. Does that sound like we are ending the coal age? That’s over a ton for every one of us 7+ billion humans.

http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/coal-mining/

Rick Bronson on Wed, 13th Apr 2016 9:31 pm 



Because an American Coal Company declared bankruptcy does not mean the end of Coal age.

India, Japan, Germany, Vietnam, Philippines and many other countries have increased the Coal consumption a lot. This will more than compensate the loss in China & USA.

Besides lot of Coal is converted to Methane and then to Methanol to be blended with Gasoline / Petrol to be used in vehicles.

This part is excluded from Coal consumption and included in Oil consumption. This is another way to fool people.

Recently Australia has opened Coal bed methane which is just another source of coal consumption.

Go Speed Racer on Wed, 13th Apr 2016 9:41 pm 



Peabody Energy made a big mistake. They tried to save money by laying off their senators. Even in hard times, a large coal corporation should keep plenty of senators on the payroll.

makati1 on Wed, 13th Apr 2016 10:45 pm 



China mines 4 times as much coal as the Us. They just don’t need as much American coal as before.

GregT on Wed, 13th Apr 2016 11:05 pm 



Peak Coal: Will the US Run Out of Coal in 20 Years or 200 Years?

October 30, 2013

“U.S. coal production has peaked, and the miscalculations that have led to estimates of a 200-year supply could create a serious electricity deficit for the nation, according to a new report from advocacy group Clean Energy Action.”

“Most U.S. coal is buried too deeply to be mined at a profit and should not be categorized as reserves, but rather as ‘resources.’”

“The economic viability of the U.S. coal resource is compromised because “it is buried too deeply and costs too much to mine it,” Glustrom said. Peabody Coal CEO Greg Boyce’s Q3 2013 earnings report call remarks about reduced capital expenditures in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin seem to confirm that coal is becoming “too expensive to mine,” according to Glustrom.”

“Nationally, coal production appears to have peaked in 2008 at 1.171 billion tons,” the report states. “U.S. coal production in 2012 had fallen by about 155 million tons to 1.016 billion tons.”

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Peak-Coal-Will-the-US-Run-Out-of-Coal-in-200-Years-Or-20-Years

rockman on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 6:31 am 



According to the EIA global coal consumption fell 1.2% from 2011 to 2012…the latest yearly stat. But the 2012 global coal consumption was still higher then at anytime during the entire history of the industry. Coal consumption would have to decline 50% to just get back to the 1980 level.

The “death of King Coal” is entirely propaganda and has no bearing on the reality we see today. If I were a suspicious type I might think the coal industry is behind this effort to hide the facts.

Davy on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 6:32 am 



There is plenty of coal just not the amounts the cornucopians would like to think there is. There is plenty of coal to cook us too.

We have a good diversification of energy sources in the US. “Major energy sources and percent share of total U.S. electricity generation in 2015:”
Coal = 33% Natural gas = 33% Nuclear = 20% Hydropower = 6% Other renewables = 7% Biomass = 1.6%
Geothermal = 0.4% Solar = 0.6% Wind = 4.7% Petroleum = 1% Other gases = <1%
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3

I we could boost renewables to 20% that would be great.

The important doom point to consider is the effects of demand and supply destruction. We will likely not see much build out of new sources because the economy is going to deflate either by deflation or hyperinflation confidence loss. Either way we will have plenty of excess capacity. I hope more alternative energy is produced because of the many advantages it offer for a transition to postmodern man. In any case we are likely cooked with climate destabilization so energy sources do not matter longer term. Population and consumption levels matter because they are the key ingredients in the coming bottleneck die off. How fast and how hard these drop determines our extinction potential

Kenz300 on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 10:02 am 



Wind and solar are safer, cleaner and cheaper forms of energy…………..NO fossil fuels…………….

Electric cars, bikes and mass transit are the future…..fossil fuel ICE cars are the past…………..

Think teen agers vs your grand father…………………. cell phones vs land lines…….

NO EMISSIONS……..climate change is real………

The sooner we switch from FOSSIL FUELS to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources like wind and solar the better.

Climate Change is real….. we will all be impacted by it.

Oil Giants Spend $115 Million A Year To Oppose Climate Policy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oil-companies-climate-policy_us_570bb841e4b0142232496d97

Apneaman on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 9:12 pm 



How coal titan Peabody, the world’s largest, fell into bankruptcy

“The company cited an “unprecedented industry downturn,” which it attributed to a range of factors including an economic slowdown in China, low coal prices and “overproduction of domestic shale gas.” In the United States, cheap natural gas, driven by the shale-gas boom, has been steadily eating into coal’s share of electricity generation.

But Peabody was also weighed down by debt from its poorly timed $5.2 billion acquisition of Macarthur Coal of Australia in 2011, near the peak for coal prices there as Peabody underestimated rival coal supplies and overestimated the growth of Chinese coal consumption. “The debt-laden capital structure became unsustainable as cash flows worsened and access to capital markets evaporated,” Fitch Ratings said Wednesday.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/13/coal-titan-peabody-energy-files-for-bankruptcy/

Gamma999 on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 1:45 pm 



Solar is doubling every 2 years, now 2% of global energy.

You’ve been warned.
Get into a solar index: TAN.
And out of carbon: ETF SPYX.

geopressure on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 1:53 pm 



Interesting advice, Gamma999… Have you seen this chart on SUNE:

http://stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=SUNE&p=W&b=5&g=0&i=t33188447719&r=1460746286119

Any thoughts???

geopressure on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 1:55 pm 



http://tinyurl.com/hbmq3zs

GregT on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 5:14 pm 



“I we could boost renewables to 20% that would be great.”

It would be even greater if we could actually find a renewable way to generate electricity. Unfortunately for us, that would be in opposition to the laws of physics, at least in this universe.

Maybe we should be focussing our energy on inter-universal travel instead. Makes about as much sense. Maybe more.

Kenz300 on Sun, 17th Apr 2016 8:24 am 



The world is in transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper energy production and consumption.

The only question is will we do it fast enough to hold off the worst effects of CLIMATE CHANGE.

100% electric transportation and 100% solar by 2030

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBkND76J91k