In Praise of Coal, Once More! By James Reed
Coal, often vilified as a relic of the Industrial Revolution, remains a cornerstone of global energy production. In 2024, coal accounted for 35% of global power generation, outpacing all other energy sources, with production hitting a record 8.77 billion metric tons. Vijay Jayaraj, writing for American Thinker on June 18, 2025, argues that "big, beautiful coal is here to stay," driven by sustained demand in Asia, Africa, and Southeast Asia, and bolstered by U.S. policies under President Donald Trump. This blog piece makes the case for coal's enduring relevance, highlighting its economic affordability, reliability, and strategic importance, particularly for developing nations and energy-intensive technologies like AI. While environmental concerns and market challenges persist, coal's dominance is likely to continue for decades absent a disruptive, cost-competitive alternative.
The Economic Case: Affordability and Accessibility
Coal's primary strength lies in its economic advantages. As Jayaraj notes, coal is "fantastically cheap, widely available, [and] can be stockpiled easily," producing intense heat for electricity and industrial processes. Unlike wind and solar, which rely on weather and expensive storage solutions, coal provides consistent, dispatchable power at a fraction of the cost. In the U.S., coal's decline from 50% of electricity generation in 2000 to 20% in 2024 was driven not by environmental mandates but by cheaper natural gas from fracking and subsidised renewables. Yet, coal remains cost-competitive globally, especially in developing nations.
In India, coal supplies over 70% of electricity, fuelling a 12% production increase in 2024 to nearly 1 billion metric tons, with projections to surpass U.S. and European consumption combined in 2025. China, consuming 30% more coal than all other nations combined, started construction on nearly 100 GW of coal plants in 2024, the highest global approvals since 2015. Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam and the Philippines are boosting imports by 3% annually, while South Africa's Eskom generates over 70% of its power from coal, recently adding 800 MW to stabilise its grid. These trends underscore coal's role in powering economic growth and alleviating energy poverty, lifting millions out of darkness, as Jayaraj recalls from his childhood in India.
For industrial applications, metallurgical coal is irreplaceable in steel production, converting to coke for smelting iron. South America's steel output rose 6.5% in March 2025, with Brazil leading at 80%, driving demand for coal. Even the U.K., despite "net zero" rhetoric, imports coking coal to sustain British Steel, highlighting coal's indispensability absent viable alternatives.
Reliability: The Backbone of Energy Security
Coal's reliability makes it critical for baseload power, especially as electricity demand surges from AI data centres and industrial expansion. X posts emphasise that solar and wind cannot provide consistent baseload, and battery storage remains economically unviable for large-scale applications. Coal, by contrast, offers energy density far superior to renewables, ensuring stable grids in high-demand regions. In the U.S., Trump's executive orders, as reported by Politico on April 9, 2025, aim to keep coal plants open using emergency powers, citing grid reliability concerns for AI and quantum computing, which renewables cannot yet support.
In Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe are restarting coal plants and expanding mines like Maamba Collieries to address power crises, prioritising energy security over emissions targets. South Africa's grid stabilisation efforts further illustrate coal's role in preventing blackouts, a lesson learned from Europe's energy crises when coal plant retirements outpaced renewable deployment. The global coal-fired power fleet grew by 19 GW in 2024, the lowest in two decades due to European retirements, but Asia's modern, ultra-supercritical plants, like Adani Power's $2 billion, 1,500 MW facility in Uttar Pradesh, offset this decline with cleaner, more efficient technology.
Strategic Importance: U.S. Policy and Global Competition
In the U.S., Trump's administration has revitalised coal through deregulation and project approvals, as outlined in American Thinker articles from March and June 2025. Executive orders fast-track mines like Warrior Met's Blue Creek in Alabama (60% output increase for exports) and Montana's Spring Creek (40 million tons over 16 years), aligning with Trump's "beautiful, clean coal" vision. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum emphasise coal's role in energy dominance, countering China's coal expansion and securing U.S. competitiveness in AI and manufacturing. The New York Times on April 9, 2025, notes Trump's symbolic embrace of coal miners, reflecting a populist commitment to working-class communities.
Globally, coal is a geopolitical asset. China's coal build-up, consuming over 4 billion tons annually, supports its manufacturing and technological ambitions, while India's coal surge underpins its rise as an economic powerhouse. Developing nations in Africa and Southeast Asia view coal as a path to industrialisation, rejecting Western pressure to prioritise renewables that cannot meet their immediate needs. This dynamic challenges the narrative of coal's demise, as nations prioritise sovereignty and growth over climate commitments.
Addressing Environmental Critiques
Coal's environmental impact, high CO2 emissions and health risks like asthma and heart disease, must be addressed by coal's champions. MIT Technology Review on June 19, 2025, calls coal "the dirtiest power source," linking its decline to reduced emergency room visits. However, modern coal plants, particularly in Asia, use ultra-supercritical technology and scrubbers to cut emissions significantly. In the U.S., advancements since the Industrial Revolution have made coal cleaner, as American Thinker argues on March 25, 2025, countering claims of inevitable environmental harm.
Critics exaggerate coal's climate impact, ignoring that global emissions are driven by developing nations' growth, not U.S. production, which is a fraction of China's. X posts highlight the hypocrisy of Western "net zero" policies, as the U.K. imports coal while demonising domestic mining. Coal's health risks are also mitigated by modern filters and plant siting away from urban areas, balancing economic benefits with public health. While renewables and nuclear offer long-term solutions, their scalability and cost cannot displace coal for at least three decades, as Jayaraj predicts, barring a technological breakthrough.
Challenges and Market Dynamics
Coal faces hurdles, including sluggish prices in 2024 and market-driven retirements in Europe, where natural gas and renewables are cheaper. In the U.S., the J.H. Campbell plant in Michigan closed in May 2025 due to economic pressures, not regulations, as MIT Technology Review notes. Battery storage, up 40% in the U.S. from 2024–2025, helped Texas avoid blackouts, suggesting renewables' growing role. However, batteries cannot scale to replace coal's baseload, and Trump's gutting of renewable tax credits may slow their growth, reinforcing coal's position.
Policy inconsistency is another risk. Trump's aggressive coal push contrasts with global trends toward diversification, and future administrations could reverse course. Yet, global demand, led by Asia and Africa, ensures coal's resilience, with Indonesia's export records and India's billion-ton target for 2025 insulating the industry from Western policy shifts.
In conclusion coal is here to stay, driven by its affordability, reliability, and strategic importance. It powers over 70% of electricity in India and South Africa, fuels steel production globally, and supports energy security in crisis-prone regions. In the U.S., Trump's policies revive coal as a bulwark against energy instability and foreign competition, while developing nations embrace it to escape poverty and build industrial capacity. Environmental concerns are real but mitigated by cleaner technologies, and renewables cannot yet match coal's scale or cost. As Jayaraj concludes, coal will dominate for decades unless a disruptive innovation emerges. Predictions of its demise are, indeed, "hot air," drowned out by the clatter of coal trains rolling across the globe!
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/06/big_beautiful_coal_is_here_to_stay.html
"Big, beautiful coal is here to stay
As a boy growing up beside India's railway lines, I found magic in the metallic thunder of passing trains. Now and then, freight cars piled high with black coal would roll by. That same evening, our lights would flicker out.
There, I'd sit still in the hush of a powerless night, staring into the warm dark, wondering why electricity was so elusive. Hours earlier, the answer had clattered past: coal, in plain sight, yet out of reach.
At the time, India lacked its currently extensive coal mining and power-generation facilities. Today, however, coal is the backbone of energy production, supplying over 70% of India's electricity. The dark evenings of my childhood have been brightened.
Other developing countries have learned from China and India how coal jump-starts economies and lifts millions from poverty. Now, they too line up for their share of the fuel that sparked the Industrial Revolution.
Global coal production reached an all-time high of nearly 9 billion metric tons in 2024. Chinese and Indian output continued to grow, and Indonesia set export records.
India is on track to burn twice as much coal as the U.S. and Europe put together -- possibly within the year -- while China has already surged ahead, consuming 30% more coal than every other nation combined.
Growing by almost 12% in 2024, India's production is projected to climb to over 1 billion metric tons in 2025 -- a harvest that would exceed America's peak in 2008.
This week, Adani Power invested $2 billion in a 1,500 megawatt, ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant in India's state of Uttar Pradesh to supply one of the most densely populated regions in the world.
Coal shipments to Southeast Asia are on a steady climb, with nations like Vietnam and the Philippines leading the demand. Annual imports across the region are projected to grow nearly 3%.
Rising production of South American crude steel will increase demand for metallurgical coal, which is converted to the coke required to make steel from iron. The continent produced 3.7 million metric tons of steel in March, up 6.5 percent from a year earlier, with Brazil contributing nearly 80% of the total.
With African energy production on the rise, South Africa remains the continent's largest coal producer and consumer. State power utility Eskom uses coal to generate more than 70% of its electricity and recently added 800 megawatts of capacity to help stabilize the power grid.
Zambia and Zimbabwe are restarting coal-fired plants and advancing new coal projects to improve their energy security amidst power crises. Zambia's largest coal mine, Maamba Collieries, is slated for an expansion.
Even the U.K. government, while still parading its "net zero" credentials, is, nonetheless, procuring coking coal to keep British Steel alive in Scunthorpe. The U.K. may import the fuel from Japan or Australia, presumably because mining coal from Britain's indigenous deposits is more scandalous than the hypocrisy of its absurd climate policy.
In the U.S., President Trump has prioritized coal under a new executive order, fast-tracking projects like Warrior Met's Blue Creek mine in Alabama, which will boost metallurgical coal output by 60% for export markets. Additionally, the U.S. approved the expansion of the Spring Creek Mine in Montana, enabling nearly 40 million tons of coal to be mined over the next 16 years.
The global coal-fired power fleet increased by less than 19 gigawatts in 2024, the lowest net rise in two decades. This is due to retirement of coal plants in Europe and the transition to more modern coal plants in Asia. Coal prices, too, have been sluggish in recent months.
Nevertheless, sustained growth and demand in the existing coal markets of Asia and the emerging markets of Africa and Southeast Asia will continue to propel production and consumption across the world. In 2024, coal accounted for 35% of total power generation globally, the highest among all sources of energy generation.
Coal is expected to dominate the energy sector for at least three more decades, barring a disruption by rapid innovation that would enable its economical displacement. Similarly, the mineral will continue to play a crucial role in iron and steel production absent development of a viable alternative.
Predictions to the contrary are just so much hot air -- largely from those most averse to a warming atmosphere.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.
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