Warren Buffett bets on Coal

Nice to see someone with a clear view of the realities on the ground and the future they lead to. From Daily Finance:

Warren Buffett's big railroad buy is also a huge bet on coal
If the Sage of Omaha is truly an oracle of future returns and a leading indicator for where the market is going, it's hard not to think that U.S. carbon emissions will continue to grow apace and that the budding green revolution will be more bang than bucks.

Why? On Tuesday, Buffett paid a hefty 25 percent premium to acquire the remaining 77 percent interest in railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) that his company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), did not already own. The fate of Burlington Northern is closely tied to shipments of coal.

In third-quarter 2009, coal shipments accounted for roughly 25 percent of Burlington Northern's total revenue, according to Marketwatch. It shipped 604,000 carloads of coal in the quarter, more than any other single category. And Burlington Northern hauled 297 million tons of coal last year, enough to supply roughly 10 percent of the country's electrical needs. Its coal shipments were down roughly 6 percent in the last quarter, year-over-year. The drop was largely blamed on the economic slowdown and reductions in industrial uses and power generation. The recession has also been closely linked to lower carbon emissions recently.

Very cool -- we have several hundred years of coal and it is cheap to mine. Environmental concerns are bullshit as although the mines look ugly when they are active, the mining companies remediate the land and it looks like a park when they are done. If we are not going to roll out Nuclear on a large scale, Coal is our only realistic option...