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American coal won't stay in the ground any more than Australia's does. There are plenty of coal burning power plants in the world, and while it may not be econo
by jpollock 7y ago
American coal won't stay in the ground any more than Australia's does. There are plenty of coal burning power plants in the world, and while it may not be economic to burn it for electricity in the US, there are countries which import a lot of coal.
https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/coal-market-pricing https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/coal-market-pricing
- Brakenshire 7y agoWe have many hundreds of years of reserves, coal will certainly cease as a source of electricity before the reserves are used up. Many of those reserves are held as assets on the books of multinational coal mining companies. Just look at the stock prices for those companies and the rolling process of bankruptcies to see the market judgment of the value of those assets, and the demand for coal in the immediate future.
- duxup 7y agoAmerican coal mining companies seem to be cutting back or shutting down as it is. I'm not sure what the long term outlook is for them.
- zrobotics 7y agoSpeaking as someone who has recently driven through the powder river basin in WY, there is definitely coal that is staying in the ground. Mining co's are going bankrupt, and are cutting jobs and production; this is a severe enough reduction that the BNSF railway is also suffering in the area due to decreased tonnage exported.
- pastor_elm 7y agoEnvironmentalists should buy the coal, artificially inflate the price, and store it permanently so it never gets burned.
- esarbe 7y agoThat would just increase demand, raising prices only until the coal mining companies caught up with their production. No, the only solution is to get away from coal consumption.
- Causality1 7y agoEven so, and I may be a selfish bastard for saying it, but I'd rather they poison their rivers and groundwater with containment pool breaches and toxic runoff than we poison ours.