India is unable to rapidly ramp up coal output due to the long process of getting environmental clearance and difficulties in acquiring land for opening new mines.
At the same time East Kalimantan, where Bayan operates, is considering plans to cap annual coal output in an effort to promote alternative energy and cut back on the damage coal mining has done to the environment.
As a result, the German power generators' association, the BDEW, says gas-fired electricity output in Germany fell last year by 13bn kilowatt hours, or 16 per cent, while coal-fired plants upped output by the same amount, recording a 5 per cent increase to 275.8bn kWh.
As more and more men, steel and coal went into military output, non-military output declined, bringing down standards of living.
By changing operating procedures and burning a higher grade of coal, Midwest boosted output from the 40-year-old plants 12% last year--while reducing emissions.
Furthermore, there is a positive environmental impact as natural gas from shale, for example, produces roughly 50% of the carbon dioxide emissions compared to coal for the same energy output.
Throw in 3 cents in federal and state subsidies and the electricity is competitive with the output from a new coal-fired plant.
Coal-burning power stations have cut output significantly, while gas-burning has surged ahead, faster than renewables.
Measuring the real output of steel bars or coal over time is relatively simple.
But that could encourage more output from Denmark's coal-fired plants, which are already blamed for spilling acid rain on Swedish forests, and perhaps also from nuclear plants in Russia and eastern Europe.
The coal produced in the region is ridiculously cheaper even if we consider its increasing price and lower energy output in terms of BTU per ton compared with Appalachia coal.
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Coal provides some 60% of its power output, and its second-cheapest source after hydropower (which is 10% of total output).
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The 10 megawatts of power that will be generated by the Sound of Islay turbine farm pales into insignificance when compared to the output of a large nuclear or coal power station, which according to American hydro energy non-profit the Ocean Energy Council, can produce up to 100 times as much electricity.
Several studies find, for instance, that when an electricity generator can choose between the output of many nearby coalmines that produce coal of a particular quality, it tends to buy its coal on an open market.
When anticipated supply is sufficiently high, gas undercuts coal as the fuel of choice for electrical generation, which results in reduced carbon dioxide emissions, as natural gas produces only about 50% to 70% of the carbon dioxide per unit output (depending upon your metric) that coal does.
The output of the other, Falconbridge, complements the coal, copper and zinc businesses of its purchaser, Xstrata.
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For energy, more than a billion tons of coal -- a quarter of the world's total output -- are burned every year, coating metropolitan areas with sulfur dioxide, soot and smoke.
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Officials say the dam's colossal energy output will help reduce the country's dependency on coal by some 50m tonnes a year.
Another way of thinking about it is the output of manufacturing industry minus any influence from oil, coal or other mining industries.
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With electricity generation up 14% this year in China and 8% in India, and global steel output expanding by 8%, demand for thermal and metallurgical coal has been steadily growing.
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Any country with lots of coal, including China, India, Russia and much of Europe, should be able to increase gas output in the same way.
Spot coal is up 20% this year, in part because Japan is buying more of it to replace the output of nuclear power stations that have recently gone offline.
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