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发帖数: 901 | 1 Coal today is largely a story about electricity use… And the world consumes
staggering amounts of power. Electricity is a fundamental fact of modern
life. It powers virtually everything we do – from heating the stoves that
cook our dinner and lighting up the TVs we watch, to powering the massive
factories that build cars and refine natural resources.
And as countries like China and India (aka "Chindia") modernize their
economies, the volume of electricity they devour is mind-boggling.
In the U.S. alone, we use almost 4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity
every year, an amount the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says
is growing about 1% a year.
Now, consider China. Power consumption there grew from 1.2 trillion kilowatt
-hours in 2000 to about 4.5 trillion kilowatt-hours this year. That's a 275%
increase in 11 years. India's consumption has grown from 375 billion
kilowatt-hours in 2000 to more than 600 billion kilowatt-hours today. And 80
% of that electricity is created by coal.
This table below, using numbers from the International Energy Agency, shows
how "Chindia's" coal consumption is growing:
China India
Total Coal Consumption 2009 (Tonnes)
3.1 billion 592 million
Growth In Coal Consumption from 1973 to 2009
645% 710%
Growth in Coal Consumption from 2000 to 2009
154% 74%
Growth in Coal Consumption from 2008 to 2009
15% 8%
Environmentalists would like to change coal's vital role. Burning coal for
power generation creates more pollutants than other fuels, like uranium and
natural gas. But relatively poor economies like India and China are more
concerned with the cheapest, most plentiful sources of power right now. They
'll worry about cleanliness later. As long as coal is cheap and plentiful,
it will serve as a cornerstone of the world's power industry.
This next charts shows the U.S. Energy Information Agency agrees with me.
You'll note how coal is expected to play a huge role in power generation for
decades:
In addition to Chindia's coal consumption, Japan's tsunami tragedy is a
tailwind for prices. Japan and many other nations will be forced to burn
coal if they want use less nuclear power (which is a big topic I'll cover
another time).
But as I hinted at the beginning of this essay, the big thing to keep in
mind here is the BIG TREND. Below is the trend in coal prices since 2002.
When you slice out the crazy credit crisis action 2008, coal sports a solid
uptrend that has lasted for years.
When I consider the bright economic future of massive countries like China
and India (which collectively hold nearly 10 times the population of the U.S
.), the world's recent aversion toward nuclear power, and the black stuff's
big uptrend, I end up issuing my readers one piece of advice: |
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