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King Coal’s crown may have developed a slight tarnish, but Coal is still King

King Coal - No More?



You know that you have arrived in the history books when your discards are being elevated to World Cultural Heritage status. The UN has just done that with the entire Calais coal mining region of northern France, slag heaps and all.

The Calais Region

The Calais region has been mining coal for over three centuries. That coal propelled France from the Middle Ages into the Industrial Age. Now the Calais region has become a cultural heritage site despite plenty of coal left there. One might ask then: Is coal no longer of any value?

The Power of Coal

The power of coal is undisputed. Coal powered much of the technological advances during the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, and up to the mid 1900s. From railway steam engines, to all kinds of other energy-consuming activities – coal was king.

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From the mid 20th century on, coal lost some of its “steam.” It simply got replaced by oil. For many applications oil was just more convenient to use than coal. Then, a decade ago or so, environmental activists came up with the slogan “dirty coal”. Many politicians fell for that slogan like flies for sugar. If there were any additional need to kill coal, many western governments were quick to provide the death knell. They bought into the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims of man-made carbon dioxide causing a runaway global warming. According to the IPCC, the main product of coal (carbon) combustion, i.e. carbon dioxide, was going to kill us all by causing a runaway global warming, etc. The IPCC and Al Gore persuaded many that we urgently needed to embrace “alternative energy” sources. Well, the facts are not quite in keeping with the promises of alternative energy sources. For example, over the last decade, even in Denmark, which is regularly being touted as THE example of alternative (in this case, wind power) energy production, more COAL-fired power plants were built than WIND-powered production capacity. Another example is China. Despite its construction of nuclear power generation plants at breakneck speed, China is also building new COAL-fired power plants at the rate of about one per week.

The Need for Coal

France’s coal production (30 million tons per year in 2003) has all but disappeared though it still consumes about 10 million tons per year. France is now getting most of its electricity from nuclear power stations. In contrast, China’s coal production has increased from 1,800 million tons in 2003 to 3,200 million tons in 2010. In addition, China still imports in the order of 200 million tons per annum. In the US, coal production has barely changed between 2003 and 2010, with about 1,000 million tons per year. Despite all the talk about “dirty coal” and “yesterday's energy”, coal continues to provide a reliable source for much of the electric energy consumed in today’s world. In fact, the world’s consumption of coal has steadily been increasing over the years and stands now at around 7,000 million tons per year. That is more than double the amount of carbon burnt from crude oil and its products. It seems to me that King Coal’s crown may have developed a slight tarnish, but Coal is still King.


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Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser -- Bio and Archives

Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser is author of CONVENIENT MYTHS, the green revolution – perceptions, politics, and facts Convenient Myths


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