{"id":1180804,"date":"2020-04-27T18:47:38","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T23:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1021939"},"modified":"2020-04-27T18:47:38","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T23:47:38","slug":"in-global-electricity-slump-coal-is-the-big-loser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1180804","title":{"rendered":"In global electricity slump, coal is the big loser"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As silent factories and deserted offices hobble demand for electricity worldwide, the biggest loser is coal.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center d-xs-block d-sm-block d-md-none'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In the US, coal\u2019s share of power generation has dropped more than 5\u00a0percentage points since February on the nation\u2019s biggest grid while output from natural gas plants and wind farms held steady. <\/p>\n<p>In Europe, it\u2019s down 2 points. Even in China and India, where coal still dominates, it\u2019s losing market share during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>It comes down to cost. Coal power is more expensive than gas and renewables in many places and, hence, is the first fuel priced out of the market when demand falls. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p> Its plunging use amid the lockdowns is a boon for efforts to fight climate change <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Its plunging use amid the lockdowns is a boon for efforts to fight climate change, hastening a shift that was already underway to weed out the dirtiest fossil fuel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s accelerating coal\u2019s demise,\u201d said Hannah Newstadt, a power market analyst for\u00a0Genscape Inc.\u200b<\/p>\n<p>In the US, coal is now supplying just 14% of power on the grid serving 65 million people from Illinois to New Jersey. <\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s down from almost 20% in February, according to a\u00a0Bloomberg analysis\u00a0of data from the grid operator, PJM Interconnection LLC. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the only major fuel to slump.<\/p>\n<p>Coal miners are already feeling the pain. While output has been sliding for years, the decline has been&nbsp;exacerbated&nbsp;since states began shutting down wide swaths of their economies.<\/p>\n<p>Production at mines has plunged 21% in the past three weeks. <\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, Arch Coal Inc., the second-biggest US miner, reported its biggest quarterly loss since 2016, suspended its 2020 forecast and said it initiated a \u201cvoluntary separation\u201d program to slash staff by 30%.<\/p>\n<p>While many utilities are still contractually obligated to buy the fuel, many shipments are just&nbsp;piling up&nbsp;on the ground at power plants, unused.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cU.S. coal production is in free-fall,\u201d Mark Levin, an analyst with Benchmark Co., wrote in a research note Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>In Europe, coal\u2019s share of power generation has dipped to 12%, from 14% a year ago, according to data from&nbsp;Wartsila Oyj, the Finnish energy technology company.<\/p>\n<p>The decline is particularly sharp in Germany, where electricity from hard coal and lignite, &nbsp;sometimes called brown coal, plunged to 18% of net generation in the first two weeks April. One year ago, they accounted for 35%.<\/p>\n<p>They just can\u2019t compete with gas. During the last week of March, the short-run marginal cost of coal-fired generation was 31.80 euros ($34.33) to 33.50 euros per megawatt-hour, according to BloombergNEF analyst Jahn Olsen. <\/p>\n<p>Gas plant costs topped out at 25.30 euros per megawatt-hour. Part of the reason coal is so much more expensive in Europe is generators need to buy about double the carbon-dioxide permits to burn it compared to gas.<\/p>\n<p>\u200bIn India, coal\u2019s share of the power mix slipped to 65% from 71% in the month since Prime Minister\u00a0Narendra Modi\u00a0announced lockdowns to contain the outbreak. <\/p>\n<p>The country&#8217;s coal imports for power plants in March fell 28% from a year earlier. <\/p>\n<p>The share from from renewables, nuclear and hydropower rose. And in China, thermal power output, which is mostly from coal, slumped 8.2% in the first quarter while solar and wind gained.<\/p>\n<p>Coal had struggled to compete for years. But it\u2019s gotten even tougher as gas prices\u00a0have plunged\u00a0about 35% since early November. <\/p>\n<p>When it comes to renewables, power producers don\u2019t want to cut wind and solar when demand ebbs because they have no fuel costs. And nuclear plants are like massive locomotives that can\u2019t suddenly speed up or slow down.<\/p>\n<p>So when output has to change, coal typically draws the short straw.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to be the first one they turn off,\u201d Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kit Konolige said.<\/p>\n<p>Coal plants aren\u2019t the only ones getting squeezed. In regions with little or no coal power &#8212; including New York, New England and California &#8212; gas plants are bearing the brunt of lockdowns. And in Europe,&nbsp;Electricite de France&nbsp;and&nbsp;Vattenfall&nbsp;are shutting down reactors this summer because of low demand and slumping prices.<\/p>\n<p>But coal is getting hit hardest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have coal looking very much like the energy market\u2019s loser,\u201d Carlos Perez Linkenheil, a senior analyst at Berlin-based Energy Brainpool, said in an interview.<\/p>\n<p><em>(By\u00a0Will Wade, Chris Martin and Mathew Carr)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the US, coal&rsquo;s share of power generation has dropped more than 5 percentage points since February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1035,2849,369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1180804"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180826,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180804\/revisions\/1180826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1180804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1180804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1180804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}