Coal’s push to $100 a ton in Europe may benefit the greenest energy providers more than it does for miners.
Companies that provide alternatives ranging from renewable power plants to natural gas turbines are expecting a lift after the commodity reached a five-year high. Far from spurring a revival of the dirtiest fossil fuel, executives of energy companies that provide an alternative expect the move to accelerate a shift toward cleaner power sources.
Higher energy costs also put efficiency on the agenda of industry and policy makers, breathing life into technologies designed to squeeze more out of raw materials of all kinds.
“It’s an opportunity,’’ Paolo Bertuzzi, chief executive officer of Turboden SpA, a unit of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., said at the Bloomberg NEF summit in London. “What’s important is not just the price but also the trend. If prices are rising, people start to think more about what to do about energy costs.’’
The surge in coal stems from record demand for energy in China, which has driven up the cost of power generation fuels of all kinds. That’s drawn cargoes away from Europe and boosted electricity prices from Britain to Italy.
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