The Economist writes, from some angles it seems as if thermal coal is having a tough year.
Our Take, With Doug Sheridan
The Economist writes, from some angles it seems as if thermal coal is having a tough year. Prices are down a bit. China, which gobbles up over half the world’s supply, is in economic trouble—a surge in hydropower generation there is squeezing out the fuel. In May, G7 members agreed to phase out coal plants, where emissions are not captured, by 2035. Mining stocks are trading at a huge discount.
Zoom out a little, however, and it is clear the embers of thermal coal remain noticeably hot (metallurgical coal, burnt to produce steel, is a much smaller market). Although prices have come down from the peaks reached in 2022, when the stand-off between Europe and Russia sparked a global dash for energy, they have stabilized at higher levels than before the war in Ukraine began, even in real terms.
Existing coal investors who stay in the game, or new entrants with a desire to gamble, could hit the jackpot. Private-equity groups, as well as Chinese and Indonesian companies, are already snapping up existing mines on the cheap in the hope of making it big, says Rystad Energy, a consultancy.
Our Take 1: For reasons we'll explore in future posts, we are increasingly of the opinion that the future of coal might be materially brighter than conventional wisdom holds post-Paris Accord. And it's all due to the politically and ideologically driven bungling of energy policy that everyone from Bill Gates to John Kerry to Angela Merkel has pushed for several years.
Our Take 2: As the Economist suggests, King Coal looks to reign for a while yet. In fact, it could even have a very good decade ahead of it. Once that reality sets it, we should expect heads to explode on the left, especially among greens and climate activists. Whether they'll finally admit failure is another question.
Our Take 3: It's increasingly clear that the hoped-for energy transition is simply not going to materialize. And with our leaders making things worse than they need to be, it could become a complete crackup. If we don't embrace a smarter approach to global energy policy—one centered around nuclear and natural gas, rather than feckless and phony "all-of-the-above" pretenders like wind, solar, biomass and hydrogen—to replace coal, we're going to find the world... for the rest of this decade, and even into the next... with no path whatsoever to meaningfully reducing GHG emissions. What a mess.
"If we don't embrace a smarter approach to global energy policy—one centered around nuclear and natural gas, rather than feckless and phony "all-of-the-above" pretenders like wind, solar, biomass and hydrogen—to replace coal, we're going to find the world... for the rest of this decade, and even into the next... with no path whatsoever to meaningfully reducing GHG emissions."
The very idea of a "global energy policy" is not just nonsense, but tyranny on steroids. Everything in society requires energy, and therefore everything any individual does will require energy. Only if the individual has the freedom and liberty to make the innumerable tradeoffs which result in the best outcome for his life can scarce resources be deployed for the most good in the aggregate. The options for individuals in oil rich Guyana will be far different than individuals in oil scarce Japan. Any approach-of any individual or any individual country, which isn't centered on ALL of the hydrocarbons-gas, oil, and coal- , which hydrocarbons currently supply 80% of all world primary energy, is feckless, phony, impoverishing, anti-physics, and in denial of economic reality.
Nothing but curses upon any "global" approach to anything...it is tyranny promoted by sophist arguments. There is no page in the history of mankind where any "global" solution to anything can be found.
There are no rich low energy consuming nations.
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