Coal – Page 103 – Republic of Mining

Why coal looms large in India’s future – by Peter Foster (National Post – April 17, 2015)

April 17, 2015

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Narendra Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Canada since Indira Ghandi. For much of the intervening period, relations were sticky because of that unfortunate business of India using Canadian technology to manufacture nuclear weapons. At the same time, India’s growth was held back by poor economic policies and widespread corruption, much of it soaked in socialist cant.

Those lousy policies also go back to Mrs. Ghandi. Mr. Modi is rightly seen as a breath of fresh air, even if he inevitably has to play the hypocritical game of global realpolitik.

The alleged landmark deal of Mr. Modi’s visit is India’s $350 million purchase of Saskatchewan uranium. This both symbolically buries the bomb issue, and enables Mr. Modi to trumpet his country’s commitment to “sustainable development,” even as SD is increasingly exposed for the unworkable non-concept that it is.

The notion first emerged at the 1972 UN conference on the environment in Stockholm. Conceived by British intellectual Barbara Ward, who thought the Industrial Revolution had been a mistake, SD’s conceit was that poor nations had to grow while avoiding free markets and fossil fuels.

Modi’s coal turnaround to ease chronic power cuts – by Krishna N. Das (Reuters India – April 16, 2015)

April 17, 2015

http://in.reuters.com/

NEW DELHI – (Reuters) – Fewer power cuts are likely in India this summer after a surge in output at Coal India (COAL.NS) helped generators amass record stocks, a turnaround for Narendra Modi who had to battle a power crisis within months of becoming prime minister last May.

Fast-track mine approvals, tighter production oversight and more flexibility in coal sales have helped power station stocks recover from a six-year low hit in October, vindicating Modi’s pitch to voters as the state leader who brought round-the-clock power to industrial Gujarat.

As Modi prepares to mark his first year in office and seeks to fulfil a poll promise to provide power to all of India’s 1.2 billion people by 2019, power stations hold 28 million tonnes of coal, a 38 percent jump from a year ago, government data shows.

“The situation is improving,” said K. Raja Gopal, head of the thermal power business at construction, power and real estate conglomerate Lanco Infratech (LAIN.NS), pointing to recent growth in Coal India output. “More needs to be done but 8 to 9 percent didn’t happen before.”

India, the world’s third-largest coal buyer, is expected to cut imports by a fifth in the fiscal year to March 31 from an estimated 200 million tonnes in the previous year. Power companies have relied on imports for 15 percent of their coal needs.

Coal Is Dying and It’s Never Coming Back — by Tim McDonnell (Mother Jones – April 14, 2015)

April 14, 2015

http://www.motherjones.com/

With or without help from President Obama.

Coal, the No. 1 cause of climate change, is dying. Last year saw a record number of coal plant retirements in the United States, and a study last week from Duke University found that since 2008, the coal industry shed nearly 50,000 jobs, while natural gas and renewable energy added four times that number. Even China, which produces and consumes more coal than the rest of the world put together, is expected to hit peak coal use within a decade, in order to meet its promise to President Barack Obama to reduce its carbon emissions starting in 2030.

According to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), this is all the fault of President Barack Obama’s “war on coal”—specifically the administration’s new limits for carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, which probably will force many power companies to burn less coal. If there is a war, McConnell has long been the field marshal of the defending army. His latest maneuver came last month when he called on state lawmakers to simply ignore the administration’s new rules, in order to resist Obama’s “attack on the middle class.”

His logic, apparently, is that if Kentucky can stave off Obama long enough, the coal industry still has a glorious future ahead. That logic is fundamentally flawed. While Obama’s tenure will probably speed up the country’s transition to cleaner energy, the scales had already tipped against coal long before he took office. Kentucky’s coal production peaked in 1990, and coal industry employment peaked all the way back in the 1920s.

Appalachian Communities Scraping By as Coal Taxes Drop – by Kris Maher (Wall Street Journal – April 10, 2015)

April 14, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/

Counties in West Virginia, elsewhere lay off employees and weigh consolidating schools amid dwindling revenues tied to coal mining

Just three years ago, Nicholas County in West Virginia had eight working mines and took in $1.2 million from coal-related tax revenue. Today, just one mine is still churning out coal. The county’s share of the state’s taxes on coal mining, partly based on local production and county population, plummeted to about $100,000 in 2014.

County officials recently responded by laying off 20 employees, including four police officers, meaning there won’t be any officers on duty after 4 p.m., the sheriff said. An additional 74 employees will take a 20% pay cut. A spokesman for the state police said more troopers will be assigned to patrol the county.

“For the first time that anybody alive can remember, we’re having to lay off some county employees,” said Ken Altizer, president of the Nicholas County Commission. “The biggest reason is the coal severance,” he said, referring to taxes on the amount of coal extracted, or “severed,” from the ground.

For decades, severance taxes paid by coal companies helped fill the coffers of coalfield communities throughout Central Appalachia—roughly encompassing southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southern Virginia. The money helped pay for road and sewer projects, parks, libraries, Little Leagues and more.

CREDO Launches National Drive to End Cancer-Linked Mountaintop Removal Mining – by Jeff Biggers (Huffington Post – April 13, 2015)

April 13, 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/green/

Calling for a “national, coordinated response to the humanitarian disaster of mountaintop removal mining,” CREDO Action launched an extraordinary petition drive this past weekend for Congress to pass the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act (ACHE Act) and place an immediate moratorium on “the deadliest and most destructive form of coal mining.” Within 24 hours, over 50,000 signatures had joined the campaign.

Only days after President Obama referred to climate change as a public health issue, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton declared a “child from the hills of Appalachia” should have the same chances as her granddaughter, and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg kicked in an additional $30 million to the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, long-time Appalachian advocates hope the CREDO campaign to ban the cancer-linked mining operations will be ramped up with major resources from national public health and cancer organizations, as well as climate and environmental groups.

“With the national petition launch from CREDO in support of the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act (ACHE Act), an all-hands-on-deck is being called to all regional and national organizations to get behind and support the ACHE Campaign to put an end to the public health threat of mountaintop removal,” said Bo Webb, the Purpose Prize-winning West Virginia activist, whose family has lived under the fallout of mining operations.

Japan Bets on Nuclear, and Coal, for Future Power – by Keith Johnson (Foreign Policy – April 8, 2015)

April 13, 2015

https://foreignpolicy.com/

Four years after Fukushima, Tokyo is angling to get nuclear reactors back online. But dirty old coal will be doing the real heavy lifting.

Japan has a new blueprint for its energy future, one that opens the door for a controversial return of nuclear power four years after the Fukushima accident took the country’s reactors offline. But even more noteworthy is that Japan now appears set to embrace a dominant role for dirty coal in the country’s energy mix for decades to come.

The plan, presented Tuesday, April 7, to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and expected to be finalized this spring, highlights the difficult choices that developing and even developed countries must make — just months before a landmark climate conference in Paris — between cheap but dirty energy and more expensive, if cleaner alternatives. Japan’s struggles are complicated further by the political fallout of Fukushima, which forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people and has left a residue of radioactive soil and water.

Abe’s blueprint envisions stable, round-the-clock power sources such as nuclear, coal, and hydroelectric growing from about 40 percent of the electricity mix today to 60 percent in 2030. The rest of Japan’s electricity would come from natural gas and renewable energy like wind and solar power, complemented by increasingly aggressive efforts to boost energy efficiency.

While there are no hard-and-fast targets yet for nuclear power in the new plan, officials say it would represent about 20 percent of the total — slightly more than the 15 percent that Abe had sought, but much less than the 30 percent of Japan’s electricity in the years before Fukushima.

The Last Coal Miners of Spain – by Nathaniel Rich (New York Times – April 10, 2015)

April 10, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/

oal is on the way out in Europe, and it is dying a slow and ugly death. Its decline has been hastened by competition from the renewable-energy industry, cheaper imported coal from Russia and the United States and new air-quality regulations passed by the European Union. The death throes have been especially violent in Spain, where the national coal-mining industry was created by royal order in 1621 to exploit the coal basin at Villanueva del Rio y Minas in Seville.

In 1990, 167 coal mines employed about 40,000 workers. Today there are roughly 40 active mines, employing fewer than 4,000 miners. The struggling industry has long been supported by state subsidies, but under a recent E.U. agreement, all subsidies must expire by 2018.

When the government issued heavy reductions to the subsidies in 2012, miners responded by holding strikes and sit-ins and by blockading roads, highways and railroad lines. Thousands of them marched to Madrid, some walking 250 miles. When they arrived on the night of July 11, 2012, they were joined by more than 10,000 additional protesters, many of whom saw the miners’ fate as a symbol of economic parsimony taken too far.

They fired at the police with slingshots, catapults and rocket launchers. Clashes with the police followed, and the press carried images of women and children with bloodied heads. Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, declined to hold talks with the miners. The following day, he announced new austerity measures.

Doubling Down with Bloomberg Philanthropies to Replace Coal with Clean Energy – by Mary Anne Hitt (Huffington Post – April 8, 2015)

April 9, 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/green/

Today, I had the honor of standing with Michael Bloomberg and dozens of Sierra Club volunteers, staff, and supporters in Washington, DC, to announce a new round of investment by Bloomberg Philanthropies in the work of the Beyond Coal Campaign. With this new support of $30 million over three years, we plan to double down on our past success and secure replacement of half the nation’s coal plants with clean energy by 2017.

It’s been four years since I first stood with Michael Bloomberg, Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune, and our staff and volunteers in front of the polluting GenOn coal plant in Alexandria, Virginia, to announce the launch of our game-changing partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies. The goal of that first round of funding: replace one-third of the nation’s coal plants with clean energy by the end of 2015.

That initial investment by Bloomberg Philanthropies has delivered some incredible results, and we’re on our way to meeting that goal. The Alexandria coal plant is one of 187 coal plants that have either retired or announced they will retire since 2010, thanks to the work of Sierra Club and over 100 partner organizations, helping to secure clean air and clean water for millions of Americans by supporting the amazing work of activists nationwide. Even better, we’re on track to replace that coal with clean, renewable energy like wind, solar, and energy efficiency.

Bloomberg Philanthropies brings ‘Beyond Coal’ investment total to $80 million – by Sarah Tincher (The State Journal – April 8, 2015)

April 9, 2015

http://www.statejournal.com/ [West Virginia Business Newspaper]

Bloomberg Philanthropies announced it will invest an additional $30 million in the Sierra Club, following a previous $50 million commitment, to secure the replacement of half the nation’s coal fleet by 2017 with clean energy. Sierra Club said it expects the investment in the Beyond Coal campaign to put the United States in a stronger position to drive more ambitious climate action at the 2015 United Nations climate change conference in Paris.

“The single biggest reduction in carbon pollution in the U.S. has come by retiring and repurposing coal-fired power plants — and that’s the direct result of our Beyond Coal campaign,” said Michael R. Bloomberg. “Thanks to the community leaders who have spearheaded this work, the U.S. led every industrialized nation in reducing carbon emissions last year.”

National Mining Association President and CEO Hal Quinn, however, released a statement calling the donation and coalition a “campaign to shut down affordable sources of electricity generation.”

“Policies favored by the Sierra Club have already destroyed large portions of the nation’s most reliable sources of electricity generation, leaving consumers more dependent on fewer and costlier sources of electricity and a less reliable supply, leaving tens of thousands of Americans without jobs and low-income families plus those on fixed incomes with still higher bills to pay,” Quinn stated. “There is no reason to celebrate raising costs for society’s most vulnerable.

Lower coking coal contract price shows downward pressure – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – April 8, 2015)

April 8, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, AUSTRALIA – (Reuters) – – Coking coal prices are yet to show signs of bottoming with bearish signals from both contract talks between Australian producers and Japanese buyers as well as Chinese demand.

Hard coking coal for second quarter delivery was settled at $109.50 a tonne free-on-board between producer BHP Billiton and buyer Nippon Steel, Morgan Stanley said in a research noted on April 6.

This was down 6 percent from the previous quarter’s contract and represented a 7 percent premium to the spot price at the time the deal was concluded. The premium to the spot price is in line with prior settlements, with Japanese buyers willing to pay above spot in order to guarantee supplies.

Coking coal, also known as metallurgical coal, is used in steel-making and is traditionally a higher value product than thermal coal used in power generation because it has a higher energy value and fewer impurities.

However, coking coal prices are now down two-thirds from their peak around $300 a tonne in 2011, while benchmark thermal coal prices at Australia’s Newcastle Port have dropped about 55 percent over the same period.

India: At the coalface – by James Crabtree (Financial Times – March 31, 2015)

March 31, 2015

http://www.ft.com/home/us

Failure to boost energy supplies will hurt Modi’s goal of turning India into a manufacturing force

A large, colourfully painted sign hangs above the entrance to the depths of Jhanjra, the largest underground mine in West Bengal’s Raniganj coal belt. The left side shows Indian mining as it once was, with roughly drawn cartoon figures wielding basic shovels and carrying woven baskets of coal, balanced on their heads. The right paints a more modern scene, featuring large yellow mining machines, operated by skilled technicians.

Take the cage-like lift down hundreds of metres into the darkness below, and walk for nearly an hour through narrow tunnels in stifling heat, and that second image suddenly becomes real as a cutting vehicle with fierce rotating metal teeth, known as a continuous miner and built by US manufacturer Caterpillar, rips tonnes of black rock from the coal face.

Appalachia Miners Wiped Out by Coal Glut That They Can’t Reverse – by Mario Parker (Bloomberg News – March 30, 2015)

March 31, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

(Bloomberg) — Douglas Blackburn has been crawling in and out of the coal mines of Central Appalachia since he was a boy accompanying his father and grandfather some 50 years ago.

The only time that Blackburn, now a coal industry consultant, remembers things being this bad was in the 1990s. Back then, he estimates, almost 40 percent of the region’s mines went bankrupt.

“It’s a similar situation,” said Blackburn, who owns Blackacre LLC, a Richmond, Virginia-based consulting firm. Now, like then, the principal problem is sinking coal prices. They’ve dropped 33 percent over the past four years to levels that have made most mining companies across the Appalachia mountain region unprofitable.

To make matters worse, there’s little chance of a quick rebound in prices. That’s because idling a mine to cut output and stem losses isn’t an option for many companies. The cost of doing so — even on a temporary basis — has become so prohibitive that it can put a miner out of business fast, Blackburn and other industry analysts say.

So companies keep pulling coal out of the ground, opting to take a small, steady loss rather than one big writedown, in the hope that prices will bounce back.

Teck Resources Ltd, Antofagasta Plc deny merger talks – by Peter Koven (National Post – March 30, 2015)

March 31, 2015

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Investors got excited at the prospect of a merger between Teck Resources Ltd. and Antofagasta PLC on Monday, but any deal would likely require major compromises by the families in control of each company.

Vancouver-based Teck is controlled by the Keevil family and Japanese firm Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. through multiple-voting shares. Antofagasta is under the thumb of Chile’s Luksic family, which owns 65% of the shares.

Both companies denied they are in merger talks, but Bloomberg reported that they held early-stage negotiations.

A merger would create a dominant copper producer with more than one million tonnes of output per year, vaulting it into the top five producers worldwide. It would also reduce Teck’s reliance on coking coal, where it is is facing very weak market conditions.

Their valuations are quite similar, as Teck is worth $11-billion while Antofagasta is worth slightly above $13-billion. Any deal is likely to be all-stock or very close to it, which puts the family share ownership in the spotlight. No deal will happen unless the families endorse it and loosen their respective grips on the companies.

ENEMY OF MINE ENEMY: Mining companies and lobbyists are waging the real war on coal – by Jake Flanagin (Quartz – March 30, 2015)

March 31, 2015

http://qz.com/

It is indisputably better to be a coal miner today, in 2015, than in 1969—the year in which Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act.

Generally known in simpler terms as “the Coal Act,” the law precipitated the establishment of a number of crucial regulatory bodies, including the Mining Safety and Health Administration (MSHA)—a sort of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), tailor-made for underground and surface-mining operations.

The act itself, in addition to creating this regulatory framework, laid down a set of nationwide health and safety standards for US miners, who, prior to, suffered some of the highest work-related mortality rates in the country.

The passage of the Coal Act, in conjunction with the establishment of MSHA, is generally credited with the precipitous decline in prevalence of coal worker’s pneumoconiosis (CWP, or “black lung”) between 1970 and 1995. This is an important distinction, because while life for the average coal miner today may be measurably better than it was 1969, it is not necessarily so when compared to industry-wide conditions in 1995.

Coal Producers: Obama Royalty Reform May Shut Us Down – by Mark Drajem (Bloomberg News – March 25, 2015)

March 30, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

(Bloomberg) — The Obama administration has proposed to change how it collects royalties on coal mined from federal land, a move that environmentalists hope, and the industry worries, will cut use of the fuel linked to climate change.

The Interior Department says the accounting change is needed to update rules adopted almost three decades ago, and streamline the program for companies such as Peabody Energy Corp. and Arch Coal Inc. And more changes are on the way.

“It’s time for an honest and open conversation about modernizing the federal coal program,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a speech last week to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “How do we manage the program in a way that is consistent with our climate-change objectives?”

For industry, the broad effort is seen through the prism of their ongoing complaints that President Barack Obama is waging a “War on Coal.” Sales of federally owned coal from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana — the biggest source — topped 350 million tons last year, generating company revenues of almost $5 billion, government data showed.

The Interior Department wants to assess the royalty when mining companies sell the coal to an unaffiliated buyer, not when sales are made to related intermediaries.