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Over four years ago, someone sent me a November 2019 Huffington Post article titled “Coal Knew, Too” by Élan Young, a writer for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of (UTK). The story, remarkably, also promptly appeared in Mother Jones, the UK’s Daily Mail, and even in an article from the Kent Law School. We were told that the Department head, Chris Cherry, “accidentally discovered what is, so far, the earliest known evidence of the coal industry acknowledging its awareness of the impending climate crisis”. The supposed “confession”, which fit nicely into an ongoing activist litigation...

The final coal-fired power plants in New England are slated to shutter in the coming years, making it the second region to phase out the energy source that powered the U.S. economy for decades.

Poland’s top climate official said the country is preparing to set a date for a complete phase-out of coal-fired power generation, just months after the nation elected a new government that has pledged to support environmental policies of the European Union (EU). ... Poland, which currently receives about 70% of its electricity from burning coal, and has long been Europe’s largest producer of the fuel, has been slowly increasing its use of solar and wind power. ... Urszula Zielinska, the country’s Secretary of State for Climate, during a meeting in Brussels, Belgium on Jan. 15, said, “Only with an end...

Ramaco Resources in northeast Wyoming plans to update its rare earths deposit find Wednesday, pushing the estimate on tonnage underground to over 1.5 million tons, and the value to more than $37 billion. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ramaco's coal mine in northern Wyoming is revealing potential to be a huge rare earths deposit. The company has assets all over the country, like this mine in the Eastern U.S. (Courtesy Ramaco) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ramaco Resources Inc. in northeast Wyoming plans to update its rare earths deposit find in the Cowboy State on Wednesday, pushing the estimate on tonnage underground to more than 1.5 million tons,...

John's of Bleecker Street general manager Kevin Jackson details changes the pizzeria must make to comply with new green energy regulations. #FOXBusiness

Coal and fracking don’t work like other declining industries, and that matters for Democrats. A decade ago, the American coal industry began to die. From 2011 to 2016, more than 39,000 jobs eroded away. At a scientific conference last year, I met a group of researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich who were curious about how this had affected American politics and, most pointedly, Donald Trump’s razor-thin victory in Rust Belt statesp>

SNIP 2. Coal is actually radioactive Coal contains uranium and thorium, which are both radioactive elements. In coal’s natural form, they are not an issue as they occur in such trace quantities. However, when coal is burned, these radioactive components can concentrate to up to 10 times their original levels in some of its by-products, such as fly ash. Fly ash is produced by coal-based power plants and carries 100 times more radiation into the surrounding environment than a nuclear power plant that produces an equivalent amount of energy. People who live in the so-called “stack shadow”, or between half...

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — In the run-up to the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, host Britain announced one of its goals of the conference was to consign coal to history. TThat turned out to be easier said that done. Even saying it — in writing — became quite a challenge. Government negotiators in Glasgow wrote and rewrote a paragraph that spells out that fighting climate change requires the world to end coal power, along with fossil fuel subsidies. The wording on coal was weakened one last time just before the gavel came down after coal-dependent India insisted on replacing the...

Carbon sequestration has become Republicans’ most popular answer to climate change, with GOP governors across western states pumping massive stores of concentrated CO2 into underground chambers. Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, who chairs the Western Governors Association, currently leads the charge to his state’s detriment as a carbon-powerhouse and leading coal producer. Last week, lawmakers in Wyoming heard from members of the CO2 Coalition who challenged Governor Gordon’s pledge to decarbonize the energy-intensive state with carbon capture programs. Dr. William Happer, the founder of the CO2 Coalition, compared such efforts to a “religion” before the Senate Agriculture, State and Public Lands...

Six large and "optionally crewed" naval vessels heavily armed with missiles will be added to Australia's surface fleet under a dramatic $11 billion reshaping of the navy that will also see the acquisition of 11 new general-purpose frigates to be partly built overseas. ... long-awaited "Enhanced Lethality Surface Combatant Fleet", which will include six Hunter-class frigates, reduced from an original plan of nine, as well as upgraded versions of the existing Hobart-class destroyers fitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles. Under the sweeping overhaul, Australia's current fleet of combat-ready warships would rise from 11 to 26, consisting of nine "Tier 1" frigates...

Starting this month, 145,000 Wyoming ratepayers will make a down payment on what's projected to add up to billions of dollars in additional costs. Regulators recently approved Black Hills Energy's new $1.1 million surcharge on utility bills to research the viability of adding controversial carbon capture technologies to coal-fired power plants. Rob Joyce, acting director of the Wyoming Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the rate increases are due to the state's mandate for utilities to continue burning coal. "The people who benefit from these kinds of policies are the legislators who are connected to legacy fossil fuel companies, utilities...

US thermal coal exporters recorded more than $5 billion in overseas sales in 2023, shipping upwards of 32.5 million metric tons of the high-polluting power fuel, according to Reuters, citing data from ship-tracking firm Kpler. These coal export earnings were the second highest since 2017, trailing only behind 2022's $5.7 billion. This comes as US utility coal usage for electricity generation tumbles to the lowest in this century. Reuters points out diverging trends between sliding domestic coal use at power plants and a surge in coal exports. They called this "hypocrisy, given the country's ambitions to become a global leader...

United States exporters of thermal coal earned more than $5 billion in 2023 as they shipped out more than 32.5 million metric tons ... The thermal coal export earnings were the second-highest since 2017, following 2022's $5.7 billion. The total volumes were the highest since 2018 and came as U.S. power producers cut the amount of coal used in electricity generation to the lowest this century, ... The diverging trends between shrinking domestic coal use and robust coal exports open the United States to charges of hypocrisy .... Between 2013 and 2023, U.S. coal-fired power generation dropped by 57.5% from...

Higher power demand and efforts to boost energy security pushed China’s coal production to a record-high level in 2023, ... Chinese coal output rose by 2.9% year-over-year to 4.66 billion metric tons in 2023 ... Coal imports also rose last year, as some domestic mining operations were suspended for some time in 2023 ... Higher demand after the COVID restrictions were lifted and higher domestic coal prices led to record-high coal imports into China, which soared by 61.8% year-on-year to 474.42 million metric tons in 2023, ... In the latter part of 2023, China ramped up coal and natural gas...

Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) led a letter to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler and Director Haoxiang Zhu, seeking information on a proposed rule change to permit the listing of Natural Asset Companies (NACs) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Chinese scientists have developed a cost-effective method of converting coal into protein, which they say could feed livestock much more efficiently than natural plants, while using a tiny fraction of the land. According to Our World in Data, grazing land for livestock and farming land for animal feed production combine to take up an astonishing 40 million square kilometers (15.4 million square miles) of land. That's well over a quarter of the Earth's entire dry land area, and nearly 40% of the land defined as "habitable." This is one of the reasons the meat-heavy Western diet is under fire as...

On a recent cold winter day, residents of Munich were surprised to see people skiing in the street. Yes, that is how much snow fell in the German city and other parts of Europe during the early winter of 2023-2024. Despite a disruption to both ground and air travel, the Germans survived the freezing weather with access to heating and basic utilities. But not everyone in our world is as fortunate as those living off reliable energy sources in Western economies. Billions of people all over the world do not have access to secure sources of heat and electricity. For...

The Biden administration has continued the modern Democrat tradition of perverse federal land use policy. It comes as a surprise to most Americans that the federal government owns nearly one-third of the nation’s land mass, in excess of 640 million acres. (It also owns 1.7 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), but that is another story.) Most know of the National Park Service in the Department of the Interior and its 80 million acres of parks, preserves, reserves, monuments, memorials, historic sites, battlefields, and recreation areas, in every state. Many Americans may be familiar with the 141 national...

OPINION The USA, Canada, Australia, Norway and the UK which had the moral responsibility to rapidly phase out oil and gas production are responsible for planned expansion from new oil and gas fields for next decade and half. How can these countries advise India to cut on coal consumption? Our greenhouse gas emission is nearly 3 Giga tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually. We are distant third behind the two top emitters China with 14 Giga tonnes and the US with 8 Giga tonnes Among the important outcomes, COP 28 text proposes to triple renewable energy capacity and double the global...

The Biden administration made two virtue-signaling proclamations at last week’s COP28 conference in Dubai that it says will help save the planet from climate change. The policies aren’t likely to change the planet’s temperature by even one-tenth of a degree, but they might just destroy the 21st-century American industrial economy as we know it. First, Team Biden announced it will stop production of all new coal plants in the United States. This comes on the heels of President Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency saying this year it would impose new power plant emission regulations that are virtually impossible for coal plants...