1.0Sightline Institutehttps://www.sightline.orgClark Williams-Derryhttps://www.sightline.org/profile/clark-williams-derry/Coal's Unprecedented Collapse - Sightline Instituterich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="02KEcWiMbt"><a href="https://www.sightline.org/2012/09/26/coals-unprecedented-collapse/">Coal’s Unprecedented Collapse</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://www.sightline.org/2012/09/26/coals-unprecedented-collapse/embed/#?secret=02KEcWiMbt" width="600" height="338" title="“Coal’s Unprecedented Collapse” — Sightline Institute" data-secret="02KEcWiMbt" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">
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https://www.sightline.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/coal-for-electricity-rolling-monthly-minimum2.png376440The US Energy Information Administration released new numbers today, with shocking news for the coal industry: the nation's electric utilities used 18 percent less coal in the first half of 2012 than they did in 2011, and 27 percent less than they did during the peak year, 2008. In short, big coal companies are in the middle of a free-fall, and nobody's sure when they'll hit bottom. The chart to the left shows one way of looking at the trends: it depicts the minimum monthly coal consumption by the US electric power sector over a rolling 12-month period. And as of April of 2012, monthly consumption had fallen to its lowest level since 1986! In all my years of examining economic and environmental trends, I've never seen anything like this. Gasoline consumption might shift by a few percentage points per year at most. Coal consumption trends had been very much of that ilk: consumption would shift slowly, but with a long-term trend towards steady growth. So a drop of this magnitude is a proverbial "black swan"---an unforeseeable event with dramatic, world-changing consequences.