The problem for Americans is that almost half the nation’s annual coal production—about 250 million tons last fiscal year—is mined from leases on federal land, mainly in Western states, including Wyoming, Montana and Colorado. Last year, 22 percent of U.S. electricity was generated from coal and 9 percent of coal demand was used by the industrial sector, much of it high-quality metallurgical coal. ...
China tasked its coal industry to boost production capacity by 300 million tons this year, and the top state-owned producer said it would boost development investment by more than half. Coal India is also expected to develop new mines, under pressure to do more to keep pace with demand from power plants and heavy industry. China and India worked together at Cop26 in Glasgow last November to change language in a global climate statement to call for a “phase down” of coal use instead of a “phase out.” ...
The situation is so dire in Germany that a previously shuttered coal-fired power plant will be reconnected to the electricity grid, which demonstrates the failure of Germany’s energy transition to “green energy” and its policy of relying on Russian natural gas to back up its wind and solar technologies that cannot produce power 24/7. ..."