''coal production from the Appalachian Basin will enter a period of irreversible decline''
Just like the SCAM NEWL Is in now,Irreversible DECLINE
NEWL WILL NEVER GENERATE POSITIVE COAL RELATED REVENUE FROM THIS AREA.LMAO
Appalachian coal is not only losing market share to natural gas but also to other U.S. coal basins.
The largest, easiest-to-access coal seams in Appalachia have already been mined, forcing coal companies to spend more resources to extract coal from lower-profit seams. Coal companies in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming can extract more than 10 times as much coal per employee hour as coal companies operating in the Appalachian Basin.
The sudden abundance of natural gas from shale deposits in the United States has put significant pressure on the coal industry nationwide. Between 2007 and 2012, natural gas production from shale increased fivefold in the United States, driving natural gas prices down from a 10-year high of $8.86 per million British thermal units, or BTUs, in 2008 to an average of $2.75 per million BTUs in 2012 and $3.73 per million BTUs in 2013.
These low prices—combined with the air-quality benefits that come with burning gas rather than coal for electricity—have eroded coal’s position as the go-to energy source for power generation. Coal accounted for half of the country’s net generation of electricity in 2004, compared with the 18 percent provided by natural gas. Coal’s share dropped to 39 percent by 2013, with natural gas accounting for 27 percent of the nation’s electricity generation. During the first half of 2014, natural gas power plants accounted for more than half of the new electricity-generating capacity that utility companies placed into service.
This trend is likely to continue well into the future. The Energy Information Administration, or EIA, estimates that natural gas production will increase 56 percent between 2012 and 2040 under a business-as-usual scenario. Given these ample supplies of cleaner-burning natural gas, the EIA anticipates that electric power producers will choose gas rather than coal when adding new fossil-fuel-fired generation capacity in the coming decades. The EIA projects that natural gas-fired plants will account for 73 percent of capacity additions through 2040, compared with just 1 percent for coal.
AI
