Making Coal Great Again

It was a busy week at the coal-face.

On Monday, BP"s annual review of global energy trends showed that coal production dropped by record numbers in 2016.

Coal production fell off by 231 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe), a unit of energy common in the energy industry, roughly the equivalent of 6.2 percent of all coal on Earth.

As PopularMechanics.com reports, the decline was most prominent in two of the planet"s largest powers, the United States and China. The U.S, which elected a president dedicated to reviving the coal industry, saw production fall by 33 mtoe, an 8.8 percent fall in total usage. China, which is aggressively pursuing renewable energy, saw a drop off of 26 mtoe, a 1.6 percent change. The UK, which began a transition program to low carbon energy usage in 2009, more than halved its usage of coal, a 52.5 percent down to 12 mtoe, bringing it to its lowest levels in BP"s recorded history.

In a separate report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Friday, officials noted that U.S. coal consumption in 2016 — 677 million short tons — is the lowest figure since 1984.

Then, on Tuesday, President Trump proudly tweeted about the opening of the first new coal mine in recent memory...

Congratulations!

"First New Coal Mine of Trump Era Opens in Pennsylvania" https://t.co/aIRllxNLQA

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2017

Corsa Coal Company will operate the mine in Somerset County, Pa. - outside of Pittsburgh. Corsa CEO George Dethlefsen said the mine will be a boon to the struggling local economy. He praised Trump"s easing of regulations and encouragement for fossil fuel exploration. Dethlefsen told Leland Vittert that for the 70 positions available in the mine, 400 people applied.

"It"s a hard day"s work every day, but it"s worth it," one miner said.

Vittert said the news contrasts with Hillary Clinton"s message that she would "put a lot of coal miners out of work."

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D), who endorsed Clinton, joined the mine company in watching a video message from Trump commemorating the occasion.

And then on Thursday, we got Industrial Production data showing that Coal Mining Production is exploding...

h/t @DonDraperClone

Make Coal Great Again indeed... though of course the base effect may slow this exuberance dramatically.

Can Trump Turn Back Time On Coal Mining Employment?

President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday, repealing many of the environmental regulations introduced by his predecessor Barack Obama and rescinding a moratorium on the leasing of federal land to coal mining companies. In “ending the war on coal”, Trump tries to make good on his campaign promise to bring thousands of unemployed coal miners back to work and secure U.S. energy independence.

As Statista"s Felix Richter notes, Trump, like many of his supporters, blames Obama’s environmental policies for the coal industry’s decline, which, as the chart below illustrates, started long before Obama took office in 2009. While it is true that coal consumption and mining employment did drop significantly during Obama’s presidency, experts keep pointing out that the decline was caused primarily by the rise of natural gas and only secondarily by environmental regulation.

You will find more statistics at Statista

In the late 2000s, a boom in natural gas production, driven by new hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technology, drove down prices for natural gas and the demand for electricity produced from coal subsequently plummeted. In 2000, coal accounted for more than 50 percent of U.S. electricity generation. By 2016, that percentage had dropped to around 30 percent with natural gas going the opposite direction. When natural gas surpassed coal for the first time in 2016, the EIA concluded that the rise of gas “was mainly a market-driven response to lower natural gas prices that have made natural gas generation more economically attractive”.

Repealing environmental regulation will likely slow down the decline of the coal industry, but it is highly doubtful that it will reverse a trend that has been ongoing for decades. By easing fracking limitations, President Trump’s anti-regulation policy may even worsen the coal industry’s situation as laxer extraction rules could drive down the price of natural gas even further.