Coal is Still a Valuable Asset With Many Beneficial Uses
By James H. Shott, Columnist
November 19, 2024 - Over recent years the amount of coal used in the US for producing electricity has dropped dramatically. This same decline can be seen across the globe, with 100 countries that have either gone coal-free or have set 2040 as a phase-out date.
The environmental movement is responsible for most of this, prompted by the Paris Agreement in 2015, where 75 nations focused on doing away with coal use by 2050. The environmental faction tells the story that burning coal is a major factor in what they say is the dangerous over-abundance of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth’s atmosphere.
To correct this problem, we must stop using fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas to produce electricity, power vehicles or other uses. Even if it is true that we have too much CO2 in the atmosphere — and more than a few scientists argue that position isn’t true — this perspective ignores that fossil fuels contribute to our lives in other ways that are quite useful in addition to producing the power on which we rely so heavily.
And let’s not ignore the idea of many scientists that the level of CO2 in our atmosphere not only should not be reduced, but should be doubled to promote the growth of plant life. Plants and trees consume CO2 and release oxygen, which is critical to human life, into the atmosphere.
On this topic, Mining Digital tells us that “The demise of steam coal — also known as thermal coal — has been well documented, as investors shy away from the fossil fuel that fired the Industrial Revolution and has been an energy mainstay pretty much ever since, save for the past decade or so. Yet one corner of the coal market is thriving: metallurgical coal, otherwise known as coking coal, and vital for making steel.”
Coal is a critical part of steel, and steel is a huge factor in so many things, such as in buildings, as reinforcing rods in concrete, in bridges, tools, ships, trains, cars, bicycles, machines, electrical appliances, furniture, and weapons.
Oil is also used in many things, like plastics, fertilizers, petrochemicals crayons, dishwashing liquids, deodorant, eyeglasses, tires, ammonia, lubricants, coolants and paints.
So, you see, these fossil fuels have other uses as well as their contribution to electricity production and propelling vehicles and other devices of various descriptions.
But the Biden/Harris administration, with its myopic view of reality and the manic anti-fossil fuel attitude of the left, wants to destroy fossil fuels, and especially coal, which has been, and can still be, so valuable to our region.
While coal use is still declining, and coal-fired power plants are fewer and fewer, the rate of that decline has slowed recently, as power demand is rising for data centers and manufacturing entities.
And a forecast from S&P Global Commodity Insights points to this as a lifeline for coal power. “But tech companies are building power-hungry data centers to support new artificial intelligence applications. Additional demand from new data centers will double in just a year, to 47,448 GWh (Gigawatt hours) nbetween 2024 and 2025, and rise more than eightfold by 2030 to 199,982 GWh.”
President-elect Donald Trump named former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is thought that the EPA will ease regulations affecting fossil fuel-fired power plants. Trump said of Zeldin, who served in the House from 2015 to 2023, that he will ensure “fair and swift” deregulatory decisions.
The result of this will be a boon to American businesses and still maintain the highest environmental standards. Zeldin said in a recent statement that, “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”
E&E News offered this idea of what will happen. “Some of the most stringent rules enacted by the Biden administration will likely end up in the dust bin, such as the agency’s regulations to reduce climate pollution from power plants, according to analysts. Other standards may survive in a weakened form, like the administration’s rules to lower methane emissions.”
“I think the power plant rule is pretty easy for them to revoke,” said Jeff Holmstead, who served as EPA’s air chief under President George W. Bush. “There’s really no one in industry who supports that rule. People just think that EPA was entirely unrealistic.” Fortunately for those businesses and individuals who support the continued use of coal, not only for power production, but also for the other uses it has, the onset of the Trump/Vance administration is a breath of fresh air.
Reversing the Biden administration’s mindless restrictions on coal, oil and other fossil fuels will allow the United States to regain its position as energy independent, bring back to our country the sale of coal and gas that was sent to other countries by Biden’s orders, and bring down the needlessly high prices for gasoline and diesel fuel.
These changes will not restore the thriving coal industry of a few decades ago, but will allow its use for energy production as well as other positive purposes that have recently come to light.