By Betsy Monseu, CEO
American Coal Council
There is no question that the future is brighter for our nation’s coal industry.
Changes in policy, regulations, and markets are contributing to a stronger domestic coal industry. The U.S. economy is growing again. Global economic activity is increasing. The business prospects of other countries that use our coal for electricity, steel-making, and other industrial purposes are better. U.S. coal exports are up a whopping 70 percent year-to-date through September 2017.
By Roger Bezdek, for the U.S. Department of Energy
(WASHINGTON) – The U.S. coal industry is distressed, and the fate of U.S. coal mining regions and jobs figured prominently in the 2016 Presidential election. EIA forecasts that coal will continue to decrease as a source of U.S. electricity production through 2050. The economic and societal costs of coal mine closures are large, and the decline of the coal industry has taken a heavy toll. For example, the increased poverty associated with coal job losses is startling, and in some eastern Kentucky counties poverty rates exceed 30% and child poverty rates approach 50%.
By Tim Pierce
Daily Caller
WASHINGTON, DC — Ukraine received its first shipment of anthracite coal from the U.S. Wednesday, part of an $80 billion deal between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
This shipment carried 62,000 tons of the total 700,000 tons set to be delivered to Ukraine by the end of the year, the Financial Times reports.
“As agreed with President Trump, first American coal has reached Ukraine. It is a significant contribution to our energy security and a vivid proof of mutually beneficial strategic cooperation between our two nations,” Poroshenko wrote in a Facebook post. “While it continues to steal Ukrainian coal from Ukrainian Donbas, Russia has lost yet another tool for its energy blackmailing.”
By William F. Shughart II
Washington Examiner
The Kemper County, Miss., power plant, once heralded as the future of clean coal, has become the poster child for its struggles.
Over-budget and mired in technical problems, the Southern Company, Kemper’s builder, recently announced that it’s giving up on the plant’s advanced coal-gasification systems. Instead, the plant will be powered solely by natural gas.
Renewable energy advocates and climate hawks had been expecting the announcement for months and reacted with predictable derision and high-fiving. But their gloating is foolish.
KING GEORGE, VA. (COAL AGE) —GE Power (NYSE: GE) today announced plans to convert its 242 MW coal-fired Birchwood Power facility in King George, Virginia, US into a Steam Plant Services Innovation Center.
The center, which provides sufficient electricity to power more than 240,000 homes, is to become a showcase for how the latest GE technologies can greatly increase the efficiency and flexibility of coal-fired steam power plants, while also reducing emissions.
By Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY)
Wyoming is America’s largest coal producing state, mining close to 40 percent of the coal consumed by our nation every year. Common estimates give Wyoming close to 145 billion tons of recoverable coal and 1.4 trillion tons in total coal reserves. This coal is a national treasure.
Heather Richards
Star-Tribune (Feb 13, 2017)
Sheridan County hasn’t experienced active coal mining since the last coal operation ceased in the 1980s, though it was once a booming coal community peppered with company towns.
That may soon change.
Cloud Peak Energy, which operates the Antelope and Cordero Rojo mines in Campbell County, recently applied for a federal permit to enhance roads and a rail spur between the non-operational Youngs Creek north of Ranchester and the bustling Spring Creek mine in Montana. The construction will facilitate the moving of equipment, coal and personnel between the two mines.
By JUDY HISLOP
WASHINGTON, DC (February 14, 2017) – The mix of fuels used to generate electricity in the United States has changed in response to differences in the expected cost of fuels and electricity-generating technology costs and their deployment, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
These factors, together with policies affecting emissions from power generation, will determine the generation fuel mix of the future.
Multiple cases in EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2017 (AEO2017) show how projected electricity generation is affected by fuel prices, especially natural gas prices, and the Clean Power Plan, a final Environmental Protection Agency rule issued in 2015 whose enforcement was stayed by the US Supreme Court in Feb. 2016 pending the resolution of legal challenges.
https://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/article.aspx?CDID=A-38515950-11566&KPLT=4
SNL, 11/29/2016
According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, total U.S. coal production for the week ended Nov. 19 picked up 6.6% year over year to 17.2 million tons, from 16.2 million tons during the same period last year.
For the 52 weeks ended Nov. 19, production posted a 19.8% year-over-year cutback to 739.8 million tonnes, while year-to-date coal output plunged 18.8% year over year to about 657.5 million tons through Nov. 19.
