Guest post by David Middleton
Politics and Energy
Coal Is Number One
STEPHEN MOORE
July 28, 2017, 12:05 am
Before Donald Trump came along, it was left for dead.
Quick: what was the number one source of electricity production in the U.S. during the first half of 2017? If you answered renewable energy, you are wrong by a mile. If you answered natural gas, you were wrong by a tiny amount.
According to the Energy Information Administration, which tracks energy use in production on a monthly basis, the single largest source of electric power for the first half of 2017 was… coal. See chart.
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What’s that? You don’t believe Stephen Moore or the American Spectator?
Let’s check with the U.S. Energy Information Administration:
Electricity Generation
In 2016, annual U.S. electricity generation from natural gas surpassed generation from coal-fired power plants, the first time this has happened based on data going back to 1949. Natural gas supplied an estimated 34% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2016 compared with 30% for coal. The increase in the share of generation fueled by natural gas last year was driven by sustained low prices for natural gas. The U.S. average price for natural gas delivered to electric generators was $2.88/million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2016.
Natural gas prices have risen since last year, with the delivered price to electric generators averaging $3.58/MMBtu during the first half of 2017. EIA estimates that the share of total U.S. generation fueled by natural gas during the first half of this year averaged 29%, down from nearly 34% during the same period last year. In contrast, coal’s share of generation rose from 28% in the first half of 2016 to 30% in first half of 2017. Another reason for the decline in natural gas generation so far this year is the strong increase in conventional hydroelectric generation, particularly in the western states. The share of total generation in the West census division supplied from hydropower averaged an estimated 32% in the first half of 2017, compared with 27% during the first half of last year.
EIA expects a less pronounced change in generation shares during the second half of 2017. Natural gas is expected fuel 33% of total U.S. generation in the second half of 2017, compared with 34% during the second half of 2016. The delivered natural gas price to electric generators is expected to average $3.60/MMBtu between July and December 2017, up 46 cents from the same period in 2016. Coal’s share of generation in the second half of 2017 is relatively unchanged from the second half last year at 32%.
Natural gas and coal are expected to fuel about the same amount of generation in 2018, with each providing slightly more than 31% of total U.S. generation. Renewable energy sources other than hydropower are forecast to supply nearly 10% of U.S. generation in 2018, up from slightly more than 8% in 2016.
Back to Mr. Moore’s tour de force…
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According to the EIA’s July report, “EIA estimates that the share of total U.S. generation fueled by natural gas during the first half of this year averaged 29%… In contrast, coal’s share of generation rose from 28% in the first half of 2016 to 30% in first half of 2017.” For the full year 2017, EIA estimates that coal will generate 3.453 million kilowatts per day, while natural gas, because of a rise in its retail price this year, will generate a hair less, or 3.432 million kilowatts. Wind and solar remain niche sources of energy providing about one-seventh as much power as coal and gas.
That’s not all. On July 21, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that “mining increased 21.6 percent.… The first quarter growth primarily reflected increases in oil and gas extraction, as well as support activities for mining. This was the largest increase since the fourth quarter of 2014.” No other major American industry had such gains and across all industries output was up less than 2%.
As for the drilling and mining industries, they have gained more than 50,000 jobs since Trump’s election with 8,000 added in June alone. Many of these were in the oil and gas industry, but some were in coal, whose output has increased 12% this year.
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Coal-fired electricity back on top, coal mining up 21.6%, coal and other fossil fuel jobs are up 12% and l’accord climatique paris est mort…
This calls for a song!
But wait, Mr. Moore did find one silver lining in the dark cloud of renewables…
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Liberals complain that coal activity isn’t a major producer of jobs because the industry is producing a lot more coal with a lot fewer workers. That is absolutely true. Ladies and gentlemen, that is called productivity. A new study by the Institute for Energy Research points out that it takes wind and solar at least 30 times more man hours to produce a kilowatt of electricity than are required to produce that same energy from coal or oil. If you don’t think this productivity advantage of fossil fuels is a good thing, then you probably think we should bring farm jobs back by abolishing tractors and modern farm equipment.
[…]
Oh. Wait a second. That’s a silver lining for fossil fuels and nuclear power …
Coal’s Resurgence and Natural Gas Prices
In 2016, natural gas topped coal in electricity generation for one reason: The collapse in natural gas prices:
In 2016, annual U.S. electricity generation from natural gas surpassed generation from coal-fired power plants, the first time this has happened based on data going back to 1949. Natural gas supplied an estimated 34% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2016 compared with 30% for coal. The increase in the share of generation fueled by natural gas last year was driven by sustained low prices for natural gas. The U.S. average price for natural gas delivered to electric generators was $2.88/million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2016.
— US EIA
The increased demand for natural gas caused the price to rise and put coal back on top in 2017:
Natural gas prices have risen since last year, with the delivered price to electric generators averaging $3.58/MMBtu during the first half of 2017. EIA estimates that the share of total U.S. generation fueled by natural gas during the first half of this year averaged 29%, down from nearly 34% during the same period last year. In contrast, coal’s share of generation rose from 28% in the first half of 2016 to 30% in first half of 2017.
— US EIA
The effect of natural gas prices on coal-fired power plant output is bleedingly obvious. I randomly picked a large coal-fired plant in Ohio and plotted its output along with natural gas prices:
| Year | Output MWh | % of Summer Capacity | Natural Gas ($/mcf) |
| 2001 | 8,693,451 | 65% | $ 3.96 |
| 2002 | 12,041,120 | 90% | $ 3.38 |
| 2003 | 10,868,871 | 81% | $ 5.47 |
| 2004 | 9,022,674 | 67% | $ 5.89 |
| 2005 | 9,716,702 | 72% | $ 8.69 |
| 2006 | 9,052,577 | 68% | $ 6.73 |
| 2007 | 10,342,353 | 77% | $ 6.97 |
| 2008 | 9,463,907 | 71% | $ 8.86 |
| 2009 | 6,189,984 | 46% | $ 3.94 |
| 2010 | 6,460,269 | 48% | $ 4.37 |
| 2011 | 6,993,013 | 52% | $ 4.00 |
| 2012 | 5,789,044 | 43% | $ 2.75 |
| 2013 | 6,362,810 | 47% | $ 3.73 |
| 2014 | 7,974,027 | 59% | $ 4.37 |
| 2015 | 5,168,266 | 39% | $ 2.62 |
| 2016 | 4,534,110 | 34% | $ 2.52 |
When natural natural gas is below $2.50/mmbtu, coal is dead. When natural gas is above $3.00/mmbtu, coal is alive and kicking.
Related Story: Was Trump Right About Coal?
Coal with the technology of Carbon Capture Utilization can be combusted putting less CO2 into the atmosphere than combusted natural gas. The CO2 gets transformed into useful-saleable products. Jobs are created because of the CO2. Waste Is Not A Waste If It Has A Purpose, and combusted coal exhaust has a purpose.
The problem is that future administrations may well enact further regulations, aided and abetted by the EPA, to simply make coal uneconomic. Whatever the underlying economic realities, government has the power to drive most industries to extinction if the desire is strong enough. Griff understand this all too well. Obama stated such intentions.
What is being done to defend against these attacks, which are quite likely in the future? Serious EPA reform is needed as a minimum. Even that may not be enough.
Coal’s future remains gravely in doubt. Extracting it is fraught with human health hazards.
have not had chance to read all comments so forgive if mentioned before
http://hotair.com/archives/2017/08/01/south-carolina-nuke-plants-scrapped-may-return-coal/
http://start.att.net/news/read/article/the_associated_press-utility_votes_to_stop_building_billiondollar_nuke-ap
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Billions of dollars spent on two new nuclear reactors in South Carolina went up in smoke Monday when the owners nixed plans to finish them after years of delays and cost overruns, dealing a severe blow to the industry’s future.
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But Monday’s decision may eventually result in the utility putting a coal-fired unit idled earlier this year back in operation. Another option for supplying power needs in the decades to come include building a natural gas unit.
“Absolutely, this pushes us back to more carbon, whether it’s natural gas or coal,” Carter said.
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sad really, coal has many uses so am looking at railroads to see if uptick (nothing really definitive yet) but the cost of bringing a nuke online is killing us.
Time to buy KOL ETF stock!
The US has fantastic strength in electricity generation based on wise decisions dating back more than 60 years to diversify the source of supply (see Margaret Thatcher and coal miners in UK). With competition between gas, coal, and nuclear, and gas facing upward pricing pressures due to projections of higher demand for LNG exports and feed stocks for a rejuvenated US chemical industry, this sector of the American economy will be just fine without subsidies for the rent seekers offering solar and wind jobs.
For the combined electricity sector covering coal, gas, and nuclear, one worker produces electricity for 1,000 Americans (1:1000). In wind and solar, it could be from 5 times to 20 times that (e.g., for roof top installations). This is one of the most highly efficient sectors of our economy and the politicians want to mess it up by ‘creating jobs’. They are singing the old saw (mis-)attributed (?) to Milton Friedman, ‘If You Want Jobs Then Give These Workers Spoons Instead of Shovels.’ (or exercise bikes connected to generators)
A great American and wonderful human being imbued with mega-doses of humility and humor.
Modern day discourse could use both.
All my friends in the coal industry are back to working overtime and their employers are hiring new people. But wait! All my friends in the gas/oil industry are back to working overtime and their employers are hiring new people. And this is odd, people I know in the fabricating industry, equipment maintenance industry and services companies are all back to working overtime and hiring new people. I’m a startin’ to see a pattern here! And the ecotards ain’t gonna be too happy about it! And add to this lots of the people I know in these various industries now don’t have the extra time to do their own yard work and landscaping and home repair so they are hiring people to do these things for them. I tell ya, that bastich Trump, making all these people have to go back to work!
Coal miners unite! Celebrate by a coast-to-coast trip on a coal train while showing Al Gore’s new film in the passengers cabin non-stop the whole trip. Send Gore an invitation to be the guest of honor
If I were three years old, I would be terrified of Al Gore’s eyebrows and nostrils.