LOOKING AHEAD: Coal: is there a renaissance on the way?
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/oet.12498 |
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
LOOKING AHEAD
Coal: is there a renaissance on the way?
Low prices for coal are helping itto compete more eec-
tively with naturalgas, particularly in the electric power
sector. e decline in global consumption that began
in 2015 is showing signs of slowing down and in some
countriestheuseofcoallookssettorise.elong-term
trendisforcoaldemandtogoonfalling,forpoliticalrea-
sons as much as anything else; but politics may providea
boost to the coal industry in some countries, at any rate
in the short-term.
Proposals for growth
One of these countries is the US, where President Donald
Trumpwantstoseearevivalinthefortunesofcoalas
part of his wider plans to re vive the economics of the old
industrial heartland of the US where the coal industry
has played an important part in both their economic
development and their subsequent decline. A numberof
other countries, main ly in Asia, also plan to use more
coal or, at the very least, minimize the rate at which
its use is declining. Several of these countries are large
producers of coal (see Tab l e O ).
Maganomics
In his presidential campaign, President Trump made
much of the decline of America’s coal industry, which
helped him to win ke y coal-producing states like Penn-
sylvania and Ohio. In oce, he has announc ed measures
to remove some of the environmental restrictions on coal
burning, including the US withdrawal from the Pariscli-
mate agreement. Rick Perry, US Secretary of Energy, is
to examine what he believes is unfair competition with
coal from natural gas and renewables, and more is to be
done to encourage the development of clean coal tech-
nology, involving the capture and storage ofc arbon from
emissions. ere could even be a role for coal to replace
some of the nuclear power capacity that is due to be shut
between now and 2050.
In another move to boost coal’s contribution to
theUSeconomy,moreexportsaretobeencouraged.
ese have declined by 52% since their recent peak of
125.7 mnshort tons, to 60.3 mn short tons in 2016. One
way that this might be done is for the US to nance
coal-burning plants overseas, and the US Treasury
Departmenthasbeentaskedwithexaminingthefea-
sibility of this. e main eect of President Trump’s
policies, however, will be in the US rather than in over-
seas export markets since the use of coal globally is in
long-term decline apart from in a handful of countries,
several of which are large co al producers themselves
(see Tables O and P) and more likely to use their own
production rather than imported coal.
Table O
Top-ten Global Producers of Coal, 2016
Country Production
(mn toe)
China 1,686
US 365
Australia 299
India 286
Indonesia 256
Russia 193
South Africa 142
Colombia 63
Poland 52
Kazakhsta n 4
Total World 3,656
Totals rounded
Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy,2017
Table P
Top-ten Global Consumers of Coal, 2016
Country Consumption
Share of Total
Energy Consumption
(mn toe) (%)
China 1,888∗62
India 412 57
US 358 16
Japan 120 27
Russia 87 13
South Africa 85 70
South Korea 82 29
Germany 75 23
Indonesia 63 36
Poland 49 51
Total World 3,730 28
∗Excluding Hong Kong
Totals and percentages rounded
Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy,2017
Within the US itself there are still problems con-
fronting any large-scale re vival in coal burning. e
economics of deep mining for coal are deteriorating as
costs rise. Meanwhile, many coal-red power stations
are likely to close because of their age and declining
eciency. Some of these older plants are even being
retro-tted to burn natural gas. ere a lso remains
considerableoppositiontocoalonenvironmental
grounds and while President Trump’s administration
canimprovethesituationforcoalatthefederallevel,his
measures c an be negate d at the state l evel by plan ning
and other restrictions on coal-red plants.
Asian revival
Half of the world’s leading coal-consuming countriesare
in Asia (see Table P). In the largest of these, China, coal
© 2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd
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