Mountains of unused coal causing financial headaches for US power sector: Report

9 comments

1. >These mountains of coal are not only creating storage problems, but they are also posing financial challenges — piling up to about $6.5 billion in unused inventory, based on an average $47.22 per ton delivery rate, per the analysis.

   >“No power producer wants that much money idly sitting around,” the report authors stated. “But it has become much harder to burn that coal without losing money.

   Energy companies hire smart people with access to excellent information, but those analyst’s expectations about coal demand were wrong as fuck. The gas boom plays a big part in this, but also wind and solar.

   $6.5 billion spread across all the nation’s utilities is not a huge amount of money, but it is significant. They could have earned tens of millions of dollars simply keeping the money in interest bearing accounts.

2. Can this excess coal be exported to Asian and European coal plants or can those plants use this type of coal? Like oil i’ve heard plants are optimized for certain types of coal

3. Is this santa’s present to those naughty utilities?

4. Turn em into filters

5. Here’s hoping this leads to a couple of bankrupt coal mining companies

6. More good news for the coal industry. Coal is uncompetitive and dirty. It’s all-in cost is significantly higher than natural gas, and much much higher than wind or solar. Time to let this energy form die off.

7. What if they ionize it to attract carbon? I don’t know if that’s the terminology but isn’t there a way to make elements attract like?

8. >These mountains of coal are not only creating storage problems, but they are also posing financial challenges — piling up to about $6.5 billion in unused inventory, **based on an average $47.22 per ton delivery rate**, per the analysis.

   Uh. tahts intresting.

9. Can they not sell it to China? We’re already sending a lot of coal to China.

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