Chunhan
The use of coal for power generation is gradually declining. For 15 years, cheap U.S. natural gas has been hard to beat.
U.S. coal consumption in 2023 fell another 17.4% from the previous year to 426 million short tons, the lowest level since 2023 1963 (red line in chart), based on today’s Department of Energy EIA data. Coal consumption in terms of tonnage peaked in 2007. However, in terms of energy content, coal consumption peaked in 2005, reaching 22.79 megaBtu.
Among them, the power consumption of coal-fired power plants was 388 MMst, a decrease of 18.1% from the previous year and the lowest level since 1972 (blue).
Other industrial users consumed 22.2 MMst, the lowest in data dating back to 1950. Coking plants consumed 15.8 MMst, also the lowest in data dating back to 1950.Coal was once the main transportation fuel, from By the 1960s, this had disappeared. Coal also was once an important fuel for residential and industrial heating, but has largely disappeared.
In terms of power generation, In 2023, the proportion of coal will reach a new low of 15.9%That’s down from 51% in 2001 (black line in the chart below), according to early data from the EIA. The decline in coal power generation was triggered by the following events:
- The advent of the technological innovation of the combined cycle natural gas turbine in the 1990s greatly increased the efficiency of natural gas plants.
- In 2009, a surge in fracked natural gas production caused natural gas prices to plummet, and even today, natural gas costs are a fraction of what they were 20 years ago.
- Cheap natural gas makes the operating margins of these high-efficiency combined-cycle natural gas power plants more favorable than coal-fired power plants, and no new coal-fired power plants are being built, and old coal-fired power plants have been retired in large numbers.
- Fracking made the United States the world’s largest natural gas producer in 2011 and the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas in 2023.
- In recent years, even wind and solar have become more cost-effective than coal-fired power plants. “Fuel” is free, all methods of generating electricity require expensive plant and equipment.
Coal production Temperatures in the United States have dropped 47% since 2011, to 577 MMst in 2023, but have stabilized in recent years. Production was down 2.8% from the same period last year, but was the same as in 2021 and increased from 2020. Both are the lowest levels since the early 1970s.
The coal produced in the United States is mainly bituminous coal and sub-bituminous coal, each accounting for about 46% of total production. Lignite accounts for 8% of total coal production and anthracite less than 1%.
Active export operations have helped stabilize production in recent years. The chart shows the annual production of open pit mines (red) and underground mines (black):
Coal import and export It shows that the trade surplus continues to expand. Coal imports (blue in the chart below) fell to 4 MMst, the lowest level since the 1990s.
Coal exports (red) rose to 99.8 MMst. Of this, 51.3 MMst is metallurgical coal and 48.5 MMst is thermal coal. Exports in 2012 were 126 MMst, the highest in data going back to 1950.
Editor’s note: Summary highlights for this article were selected by Seeking Alpha editors.
