Post a graph in BTUs showing both NG and coal output. The loss of coal energy is outstripping the increases in NG, and NG production is already cutting back for price support reasons (ala OPEC pricing).
NG can heat directly at a far lower cost than running through 2 energy conversion processes to warm air, water, etc.
One to the advantage is combined cycle natural gas power turbine plants are nearly double the efficiency of modern coal plants.
Let me look for the graphs. But they are not going to be gone soon. It will be slower change than you might expect.
If you click the graph I posted, it will take you to the data source. You can download the actual data. The past 12 months of coal has increased over the previous 12 months, and the same trend from 12 months before. Natural Gas has gone the otherway, decreasing for the past couple years.
We were on a trend of decreasing coal use and more natural gas for the US electric power generation. But that trend reversed a couple years ago, due to recovering prices in the Natural Gas.
The trends are both slight, as the chart shows. We are not far off steady values when you average the seasons together.
