COAL

[Sea Island]

The collapse in the share prices of coal companies has been spectacular. I would be interested to learn of other's opinions on the future of coal in the near and long term? It is projected to remain about a 1/3 of the energy generation fuel in the US.

[peter1234]

I think the main driver will be fracking for gas.

 

If you believe gas fracking will turn out to be unsustainable and gas becoming more expensive again, coal looks better.

 

If you believe that the status quo will go on, it does not look good for coal.

 

Also, if you think EPA will move back toward pollution, coal looks better than the other way around.

 

Now, we only need to figure out how to handicap these 2 drivers.

 

;)

 

 

[meiroy]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/12/china-pollution-idUKL4N0PN08320140712

 

" Beijing, will enforce the use of cleaner low-sulphur coal from Aug. 1"

[Sea Island]

BTU indicated that China's change will result in more imports of thermal coal

[augustabound]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/12/china-pollution-idUKL4N0PN08320140712

 

" Beijing, will enforce the use of cleaner low-sulphur coal from Aug. 1"

 

Does that impact the quality of coal that is mined or is it part of the energy producing process itself with scubbers at the actual plants?

I guess more to the point, will this hurt coal miner margins?

 

You'd think after all this time and all the ingenuity in China they'd figure out a way to, I don't know, make a hole in the ozone layer above Beijing, maybe vent this crap out in to space.........................That would solve the pollution problem once and for all................... 

[rukawa]

Interesting article on what is going on in Germany with coal and renewables:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/10/the-unsinkable-german-anti-co2-titanic-just-found-its-iceberg/

[Liberty]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uk-coal-hibernating-summer-john-massey

 

 

[SmallCap]

Interesting article on what is going on in Germany with coal and renewables:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/10/the-unsinkable-german-anti-co2-titanic-just-found-its-iceberg/

 

This was from back in 2014, maybe I haven't been looking hard enough but I am not seeing the ramifications that this article said were on the horizon back in 14 showing up today.