Coal Is Dying Faster Than Anybody Expected

Source: Bloomberg

Coal Is Dying Faster Than Anybody Expected

Chalk it up not to politics but plain old economics.

By Mark Gongloff
October 24, 2019, 4:40 PM EDT

Economics, Not Politics, Is Killing Coal

President Donald Trump asked heartland voters to put him in the White House partly by promising to end what he called a “war” on “beautiful, clean coal.” It looks as if that war was already lost.

Thanks partly to the plunging costs of renewable energy — in train years before Trump’s presidency was even a gleam in Steve Bannon’s eye — coal is in rapid retreat all over the world, writes David Fickling. That includes America's heartland, where the coal-rich Powder River Basin is “distressed,” according to Moody’s; and infamously coal-hungry Germany, where the profitability of coal-fired power is plunging. Demand is dying even in Southeast Asia, long seen as a sort of industry firewall:

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Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-24/coal-is-dying-faster-than-anybody-expected