The cheap natural gas has pulled the price of coal down, though less dramatically.
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The price of coal has gone up and Europe is faced with an energy gap.
But the other trend is that the price of coal and other fossil fuels are going up.
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At the same time, a new rule from the Environmental Protection Agency is pushing the price of coal up.
In recent weeks, it has restricted power utilities from raising prices even as the price of coal has risen dramatically.
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Wind is closing in on the price of coal, as well.
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Part of the problem is weakening growth in exports, driven largely by a recent drop in the price of coal and other commodities that Indonesia sells overseas.
First, the price of coal's competitor, natural gas, is decreasing.
Wayne Thomas said the rise in the price of coal and the quality of the anthracite in the local area had seen mining become more profitable in recent years and led to a "resurgence of interest".
However, in 2009, the carbon intensity of the electric power sector decreased by nearly 4.3 percent, primarily due to fuel switching as the price of coal rose 6.8 percent from 2008 to 2009 while the comparable price of natural gas fell 48 percent on a per Btu basis.
Alpha coal is priced at 6% off the benchmark price of thermal coal exports from Newcastle in Australia.
In Michigan, meanwhile, the public service commission there says that the 10 percent target by 2015 is saving money for energy customers, largely because the price of future advanced coal generation is greater than the current subsidized price of green power.
In December, steelmakers suffered the doubling of the benchmark price of coking coal, which fuels the blast furnaces that turn iron into steel.
The price of fuel is tempting coal mine owners to dig more holes and buy more trucks to shift the dirt.
It has also led to a massive surfeit of CO2 emissions permits, pushing the price of carbon, and therefore the cost of coal production, sharply lower.
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Three-fourths of U.S. electricity--69% of which is used in buildings, nearly all the rest in industry--can be saved for less than the price of just running a coal or nuclear plant.
Just five years ago, coal was flourishing in the U.S. With electricity demand and the price of natural gas both rising, coal was viewed as essential to keeping power costs under control.
But those utilities are now coming around, noting that the price of natural gas is on par with that of coal, and that they will mostly construct gas plants for the foreseeable future.
Yanzhou indicates in its latest SEC filing June 29 that it has contracts to sell 50 tons of coal at an average selling price 17.6% higher than it received on the 80 million tons of total coal it sold in 2009.
The additional nuclear power plants would also have the advantage of being less vulnerable to fuel price changes than coal or gas-fired generation, helping to enhance the security of electricity supplies.
America has plenty of coal, but as exports grow its price will start tracking world coal prices.
The users of fossil fuels pay nothing towards that cost, but a carbon tax would build some of those costs into the price of oil, gas, and coal.
The metals and coal sectors aren't demand driven, but they are price sensitive to the dearth of incremental supply, particularly coal, iron ore and even copper with all its mine outages.
Coal-fired power plants and coal mines are being shuttered at an unprecedented pace mainly because the price of natural gas has dropped so far that it has made coal power uncompetitive.
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This has led to an oversupply of coal, pushing the price down.
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Miners are getting around the ban on price increases by mixing in cheaper grades of coal in their shipments and even imposing illegal surcharges.
But German industry has become restive at paying much higher rates for power than its competitors, and wants the kind of electricity reform that would price coal out.
Europe has a price on carbon, via cap and trade, but it burned more coal last year because its price on carbon is so low in the wake of the recession and because it needed coal to make up for the disruption of oil exports from Libya.
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Cheap US gas is already driving down the price of the biggest substitute for generating electricity, coal, freeing it up for export to Europe, where it is displacing Europe's relatively highly-priced gas.
Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, says the shift was accelerated by the low price of natural gas.
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