Funny thing about the rising price of oil, it makes Coal look better and better.
From Bloomberg:
Gore Nightmare Wins as Europe Pays to Ship U.S. Coal
Now that the price of coal is at a historic low relative to oil, there's no stopping consumers and producers alike from embracing Al Gore's nightmare.
A ton of U.S. coal is so cheap at about $47 that European utilities will pay $50 to ship it across the Atlantic, according to Galbraith's Ltd., a 263-year-old London shipbroker. While oil and coal cost the same as recently as 1998, West Texas Intermediate crude is five times more expensive after climbing to a record $96.24 on Nov. 1.
Peabody Energy Corp., Consol Energy Inc. and Arch Coal Inc., the three biggest U.S. coal companies, forecast the largest increase in exports in 20 years, degrading the call for a moratorium on coal plants by former U.S. Vice President and this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore. Coal use worldwide has grown 27 percent since 2002, three times faster than crude, said BP Plc. U.S. East Coast coal has risen 71 percent, while oil tripled on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
And a bit more:
U.S. coal prices are equal to $1.98 for each million British thermal units of energy, compared with $12.51 for fuel oil and $6.91 for natural gas, data compiled by Bloomberg show. A million British thermal units is the equivalent of eight gallons of gasoline.
So if Eight Gallons of Gasoline contains 1M BTUs of energy, at $3.00/gallon Gas is the most expensive of the others at $24. Same energy at just under Two Bucks makes it a really good deal. So I guess we will start seeing the giant papier-mache heads, Che teeshirts and smelly hippies at coal mines and power plants... Hat tip to Tim Blair for the link to Bloomberg.
