1/1/2011 - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/01/AR20110101021... (Excerpts)"Coal is a dead man walkin'," says Kevin Parker, global head of asset management and a member of the executive committee at Deutsche Bank. "Banks won't finance them. Insurance companies won't insure them. The EPA is coming after them. . . . And the economics to make it clean don't work." From 2000 to 2008, construction started on 20 units in 19 plants, according to Edison Electric Institute. Last year, utilities and power-generating companies dropped plans to build 38 coal plants while announcing that they would retire 48 aging, inefficient ones, according to the environmental group Sierra Club. In 2002, there were plans to install 36,000 megawatts of new coal-fired power by 2007. Only one-eighth of that was completed. Deutsche Bank predicts coal's share of electric power generation will tumble further, from 47 percent in 2009 to 34 percent in 2020 and 22 percent in 2030. [The report, 11/2010 136 pages: http://www.dbadvisors.com/content/_media/NaturalGasAndRenewables.pdf
According to the Energy Information Administration - http://www.eia.doe.gov/ the US coal mining industry was operating at an anemic 75% of its production capacity in 2009, down from 85% in 2008 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/58623225@N00/5353384910/ That low capacity utilization is the result of a huge drop in demand for coal as well as competition from a burgeoning supply of natural gas. To put the current controversy in perspective, the 2.7 million tons of coal that the Spruce mine would have produced annually represents less than 1% of the unused production capacity at already-permitted US mines. Moreover, the EIA's recently released 2011 Annual Energy Outlook - http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/gas.html projects that coal demand will not return to 2008 levels for the next 15 years.
12/14/2010 - Exelon Corp.is closing three of its coal facilities in Pennsylvania in 2012 and is planning on replacing them with natural gas units. Ditto for Progress Energy, which said it would rather build new gas plants at a cost of $1.5 billion than to modify its older coal fleet at a price of $2 billion. ...tougher regulations on coal will reduce the demand for that product by as much as 30 percent while increasing that of gas by as much as 16 percent over a decade. Among the regulations: tougher rules for nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury. On the horizon: those involving disposal of coal ash and greenhouse gas emissions.
Exelon Chairman and Ceo John W. Rowe forecasts a continual decrease in coal-fueled electricity. http://www.exeloncorp.com/peopleandculture/leadershipteam/rowe.aspx
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/12/best-boss-09_John-W-Rowe_GKOT.html
12/10/2010 - (Excerpt) In all, the plan calls for Xcel to retire four Denver-area coal-fired power plants and switch the remaining unit to natural gas. The plan also calls for the accelerated phase out of coal-fired electricity at Arapahoe Units 3 and 4 in Denver. Source: Black day for coal industry http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=10978
Short-Term Energy Outlook - December 7, 2010 Release
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/contents.html#Coal_Markets
(Excerpts)
Natural gas working inventories end November 2010 at 3.8 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), slightly less than last year's record-setting end-of-November level.
EIA expects electricity consumption in 2011 to decline by 0.1 percent and generation from non-fossil-fuel-fired sources to increase. Although natural gas-fired generation also declines, EIA expects that lower electric power sector natural gas prices will keep natural gas competitive as a generation source and lessen its decline. EIA projects that 2011 coal consumption in the electric power sector will decline by 0.2 percent
Coal production for the first 6 months of 2010 fell by 3 percent despite a 5-percent increase in U.S. coal consumption. Drawdowns in stocks, particularly in the electric power sector, met the demand increase. EIA projects coal production in 2011 will remain relatively flat as coal consumption shows little change.
Chart: Electric Power Coal Stockpiles (Thousand short tons)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coalnews/images/elec_stocks/elec_stock...
Soouthern West Virginia coal production (January-October) is down by 3.3% in 2010 comparted to 2009 http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/weekly/weekly_html/wcpmonth.html
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"Natural Gas: Fueling America's Clean Energy Future" February 24, 2010 at Harvard University. http://vimeo.com/11331142
NATURAL GAS IS THE BEST SUBSTITUTE FOR DIRTY COAL
http://www.chk.com/NaturalGas/Pages/default.aspx
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Renewable Energy Is The Energy Of The Future! A Viable Source Of Energy!by scalarenergypendant620 views
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