Fed up with increasing rates, customers, notably chemical, coal, agribusiness and utility companies, are complaining that these are evidence that the railroads are abusing their market power.

ECONOMIST: American railways

In China, Shell technology is at the center of 15 coal gasification plants being built to produce chemical feedstocks at a lower cost than using natural gas.

FORBES: Companies, People, Ideas

Wall Street values the reserves of coal companies at 7 cents per million Btu of chemical energy.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Chemicals may be a low-margin game, but when you transform coal and other substances into liquid fuels there are huge chemical runoffs.

FORBES: Magazine Article

The grim toll of rising energy costs continues: Dow Chemical (44, DOW), dependent on hydrocarbons (oil, natural gas, coal) for feedstock, has endured a 23% stock slide from a year ago.

FORBES: Magazine Article

There is no free lunch whether with coal mining or deep-water drilling, or for those who are honest, in the enormous underlying mining and chemical infrastructure needed to build vast arrays of wind and solar farms.

FORBES: Post Fukushima-- burn more coal and oil, and hire more engineers not regulators