Coal in the news

Despite all the hippies and marxists trying to daemonise it, coal is one of the best fuels we have and we have lots of it -- enough for several hundred years at current usage. From Bloomberg:

Coal to Approach Oil as Top Energy Source by 2017, IEA Says
Global coal demand will rise 2.6 percent annually in the next six years and challenge oil as the top energy source, according to the International Energy Agency.

Coal consumption will climb to 4.32 billion tons of oil equivalent by 2017, compared with about 4.4 billion for oil, the Paris-based agency said today in its first Medium-Term Coal Market Report. Usage will rise in all regions except the U.S., where cheap natural gas has damped demand, the IEA said.

Demand for coal rose 4.3 percent last year, with China accounting for 67 percent of the increase to replace Japan as the largest importer of the fuel, according to the report. Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel and without limits by climate change policies, demand and emissions of carbon dioxide will continue to rise, the IEA said.

Emphasis mine -- bullshit. Current technologies for scrubbing yield exhaust gasses of CO2, CO and water vapor. The ash is trapped and stored at the site to be recycled into concrete and asphalt paving materials. China and India burn coal without these technologies so denying the use of coal here while exporting it increases the overall atmospheric pollution levels. Economic factors demand cheap energy and coal is the number one source.