LEFT OUT IN THE COAL

The world has 250 years' worth of coal at present rates of consumption, and the US probably has more than that. The gradual substitution of coal for oil, prompted by the 1973 embargo, might therefore seem obvious.

But we know only of two celebrities dullwitted enough to think so. One was moral-equivalent warrior Carter who wanted to double coal production "bah 1985," the other is energy genius Lovins who proposed making coal the bridge of transition from the energy sources of industrial America to those of colonial days.

In reality, coal is barely holding its own. In 1973, coal accounted for 18% of US energy consumption, and it remained that way until 1978; then, after the quadrupling of oil prices, it inched up to 19% in 1979, 20% in 1980, and it may have reached 21% in 1981 (final figures not in yet). In absolute terms, coal consumption was 14 quads when Carter planned to double it, and five years later it is about 15.6 quads.

In the electric utilities, coal substitution might have been thought more spectacular, with the government promoting it with stick and carrot, but it has hardly been dramatic. The coalfired fraction of delivered electric power hovered between 44 and 46% from 1973 through 1978; after the second oil price increase it inched up to 48% in 1979, 50% in 1980, and the 1981 figures may show it up to 51 % -- not exactly spectacular.

Worldwide, coal consumption is declining as a fraction of the total energy mix, though OPEC may have slowed the decline. Coal accounted for 35% in 1960, was down to 20% in 1977, and the International Energy Agency does not expect that fraction to change substantially through the rest of the century.

What is the explanation of this puzzle?

In the US, mainly the restrictions imposed on the coal industry by the three mortal enemies of a competitive economy: the government, the alleged environmentalists, and the fellow industries that have found a smoother road to profits than the market place. To a lesser, but still significant degree, the decline is due to some inherent disadvantages of coal compared with other fuels.

By that we do not, however, mean environmental damage. True, coal pollutes more than other fuels, but the idea of a society abandoning a fuel on environmental grounds is historically ludicrous; more important, while the environmental issue is wielded as a club in the holy crusade against corporate capitalism, it is in fact the very crusaders who keep the air dirty: the Sierra Club and allied environmental impostors lobby for utilities to spend hundreds of millions on scrubbers that, in the West, scrub already clean coal, and in the East, scrub coal that will never be as clean as could be imported from the West without scrubbing.(1) And their fight to prevent the mining of coal must surely make OPEC's oil sheiks send Allah their daily glowing thanks for the National Resources Defense Council.

The price of shipping coal by rail is set by politicians in Washington who know what the price ought to be.(2) Coal and rail companies assure the ICC and assorted congressional committees that they are being fleeced; whereupon politicians catering to the rail or coal lobby, respectively, hold sermons on the need to keep the railroads solvent or encourage coal use, respectively, on the need to be patriotic, irrespectively, and on the will of the people, respectlessly. The stronger lobby wins; the consumer loses.

[1] B.A. Ackerman, Clean Coal/Dirty Air, $5.95, Yale University Press, 1981.

[2] E. Guccione, "Coal and rails: a strained partnership," Coal Mining & Processing, June 1980]