Comments on: Coal’s Unprecedented Collapse

By: Bob Becker

Bob Becker — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:09:46 +0000

Concerning the Pacific Northwest, I live in Oregon. The coal industry has plans for exporting coal to Korea! From ports that need to be built up to handle the coal trains. Cities in Oregon are against coal trains coming through. City Councels in Portland and Eugene, more I think have voted against coal trains. Uncovered coal train cars create coal dust that blows off the cars.Polluting the air and land and rivers. Plus we certainly do not want the coal to be shipped to Korea. For this would contribute to Global Warming. I understand the same issue is being fought in Washington State.

By: matt picio

matt picio — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 18:21:22 +0000

It’s interesting – not all the decline is due to electricity. Your graphs show coal consumption declining 33% in the last 5 years, while US electric utility use of coal only declined by 18%. That’s only a bit more than half the decline. Presumably, the other half is industrial use and exports to other countries? It seems very curious that companies want to build a major export port in the Pacific Northwest when coal exports may be declining.

By: Leif Brecke

Leif Brecke — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 03:36:27 +0000

Another interesting question is if that decreased carbon emission is only domestic and therefore, in addition to increased fracking, be attributed to increased foreign carbon emission following the manufacturing jobs.

By: Leif Brecke

Leif Brecke — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 00:48:03 +0000

Unfortunately, coal is getting less popular because fracking is getting more popular.

“Gas from the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wells in the eastern U.S. has flooded the market and slashed the price of natural from $7-$8 down to $3 per unit over the past four years, reported the AP. That made gas cheaper to use than coal. Since natural gas produces less carbon dioxide and other pollutants when it is burned as compared to coal, more natural gas use has resulted in less environmental contamination.”

Correction, less carbon pollution. Fracking is extraordinarily bad on the environment.

Source: http://news.discovery.com/earth/co2-pollution-down-to-1992-levels-in-the-us-120821.html

By: Clark Williams-Derry

Clark Williams-Derry — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 02:53:37 +0000

Great question. The quick answer is: no, not without a lot of work. I think the fracking is being pretty well studied, and I have no personal knowledge or intuition that might help me figure it out.

Personally, I’m somewhat less concerned about water than I am about fugitive methane emissions — basically, releasing methane, a potent climate-warming gas, into the atmosphere. But that probably reflects my own obsession with climate change.

Agreed, we can do better. All it would take is putting a price on carbon emissions — which would put both coal and natural gas at a disadvantage to renewables and efficiency.

By: pat milliren

pat milliren — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:52:24 +0000

Are you able to do any research about the combined environmental impacts of natural gas vs. coal impacts? I realize there are several if not many factors on each side of the equation.

As I understand it, the fracking has huge negative impacts on water, which is becoming an endangered resource in itself before fracking. Is there any other way to get natural gas? I have a hard time saying that trading coal for natural gas is good when water is in the balance. How can we do this better?