The global demand for coal is projected to reach 8.77 billion tonnes in 2024, where it is expected to stay close through 2027 as renewable energy takes a more major role and consumption slows down in China.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China is important for global coal markets with one of every three tonnes of coal consumed worldwide burned at a power plant in the country.
This year, Beijing continued to diversify its power sector, advance the construction of nuclear plants and accelerate its expansion of solar and wind capacity. This should help limit increases in coal consumption through 2027, according to the report.
“The rapid deployment of clean energy technologies is reshaping the global electricity sector, which accounts for two-thirds of the world’s coal use. As a result, our models show global demand for coal plateauing through 2027 even as electricity consumption rises sharply,” said IEA Director of Energy Markets and Security Keisuke Sadamori.
“However, weather factors – particularly in China, the world’s largest coal consumer – will have a major impact on short-term trends for coal demand. The speed at which electricity demand grows will also be very important over the medium term,” he added.
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Jimmy Carter and Kentucky
The political life of Jimmy Carter had several threads in Kentucky, which in turn influenced the state’s political and economic life.
Perhaps the first major law Carter signed as president, and one that hasn’t been mentioned in any of his many obituaries I’ve read, was the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. It ended the state-by-state patchwork of laws on strip mining, a business with much to gain or lose at the hands of politically influenced state regulators. Republican President Gerald Ford had vetoed two previous versions, and when Carter campaigned in Kentucky the week before its 1976 Democratic primary he said he favored “strict, uniform, nationwide strip-mine laws.”
The law greatly changed the coal industry, greatly reducing the ranks of small operators, who tended to be less obedient of regulators, and requiring that stripped land be restored to its approximate original contour — with one big exception. It allowed the tops of mountains to be pushed into the heads of hollows, creating flat land that coal companies said could be developed. But little of it was because of low demand and distance from infrastructure. Only in the last year or two, after the disastrous southeastern Kentucky floods of 2022, are some old strip jobs being turned into badly needed housing outside the floodplains.
Jimmy Carter campaigns during Kentucky’s primary season in this undated photograph by James Edwin Weddle.
University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center, James Edwin Weddle Photographic Collection
Still, the law reduced the environmental damage of coal mining, which was probably worse in Kentucky than anywhere else, and included a severance tax that financed the reclamation of abandoned strip mines, which covered 70,000 acres in Eastern Kentucky alone. The abandoned-mine-land law is also being used to finance water projects in areas of Kentucky affected by coal mining.
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West Virginian Worker Safety
When the legislative session begins, West Virginia legislators need to remember the importance of safety for all West Virginians who work in unhealthy and dangerous industrial work environments. For decades, those who’ve worked near rivers where carcinogens are dumped in the name of industrial success and those who’ve worked the mines so corporate can provide millions to their stockholders have not been afforded the safety precautions they deserved.
On January 2, 2006, International Coal Group’s Sago Mine in Upshur County explosion outright killed one miner, 16 others escaped, but 12 other miners died before help could be given. In April, 2006, the lone survivor, 26-year-old Randal McCloy, Jr. wrote a letter to the families and others who knew those deceased miners at the Tallmansville mine site. For the sake of keeping within my 500 word limit, this excerpt follows:
“About three weeks before the explosion that occurred on Jan. 2, 2006, Junior Toler and I found a gas pocket while drilling a bolt hole in the mine roof. Our detector confirmed the presence of methane. We immediately shut down the roof bolter, and the incident was reported up the line to our superiors. I noticed the following day that the gas leak had been plugged with glue normally used to secure the bolts.
“The explosion happened soon after the day shift arrived at the mine face on January 2, right after we got out of the man-trip. I remember that the mine filled quickly with fumes and thick smoke, and that breathing conditions were nearly unbearable.
“The first thing we did was activate our rescuers, as we had been trained. At least four of the rescuers did not function. There were not enough rescuers to go around.
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WV Public Service Commission Chairman's Column: Welcome to the New Year
The future looks better for developments in West Virginia, with a change in administration taking place in Washington, D.C.
Our Commission has engaged in several battles over the past year with the Environmental Protection Agency. Those disagreements primarily involved proposed federal pollution regulations, many adversely affecting our coal-fired plants.
All of them ended up in court, and we lost most, if not all, of the first rounds of arguments. Regardless of one’s stance on pollution controls, coal still remains a vital part of the energy makeup of West Virginia.
Charlotte Lane
Our concern in each of these instances was that increasingly harsh rules, which in some cases included questionable solutions, would prematurely shut down our coal-fired electricity plants.
Those plants are the backbone of ensuring electric reliability.
These plants are essential for the regional electrical grid, of which we are a part, along with a dozen other states and the District of Columbia.
In many of these lawsuits, I gave sworn statements relating to the damage the EPA proposals will have on reliability.
I would like to reiterate that neither I nor our Commission is against permitting nontraditional energy sources to operate in West Virginia.
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Coal & Energy Division at MINEXCHANGE
At the MINEXCHANGE 2025 SME Annual Conference & Expo and CMA 127th National Western Mining Conference, you're surrounded by people as excited and passionate about the mining industry as you. People who share the same professional interests and technical aspirations.
There's something tailored for you throughout the conference, including exciting events and learning opportunities from the Coal & Energy Division.
