EU Energy Policy Blog

With the November’s election around the corner, everything in Washington and beyond is viewed from the highly polarized and politicized perspective with both parties trying to milk the issues for all they can. The recent demise of coal is no exception. Coal, long considered the fuel of choice for power generation in the US – as in many other countries – has been gradually losing market share, mostly to natural gas. The coal’s downward trend, however, has accelerated in the past couple of years with gas prices at historically low levels. Although the figures fluctuate seasonally and depending on temperature and load, in the past few months, power generation from natural gas has been running at near parity with coal, something few observers could have imagined only a decade ago. Continue reading »

When you overview the world energy issues, one would think that coal doesn’t matter. Indeed, the first impression is no one among economists, politicians or energy specialists talk about coal. Even that blog follows the tacit rule with only 3 (now 4) articles about coal when there are so many arguing about gas, oil or nuclear energy. But is that trend real? And why?
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Two neighbors, contrasting policies. The fate of coal and the potential cost of carbon emissions in the US remain ambiguous at best, which means that if you are in the coal business, you are in limbo. Canada, on the other hand, is intent on either cleaning up its dirty old coal-fired plants or, failing that, shut them down. At least that is the plan, and if you are in coal business in Canada, you know what the game plan is, even if you do not like it.
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Environmentalists like to see an end to conventional coal, projected trends suggest otherwise.
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Coal, the mainstay of US power generation, has been facing unprecedented resistance, including from some unexpected sources.

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