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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Juniors, Mid-tiers and Producers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: AuBug who wrote (60082)	6/21/2008 9:37:03 AM
From: E. Charters	Respond to of 78410

A hundred to 150 bucks per tonne. It could double in price over the next two years. Forget the energy math. What you pay at the dock since 1996 has increased a tad. Quality does matter. Energy in the coal dictates the prices. GXS does not know what they are doing with the coal yet, so exact prices are [partially] irrelevant. 100 foot thick coal seams are easily exploitable, and the stuff can be shipped to many locations. Mining should be cheap. "Coal as a traded commodity The price of coal has gone up from around $30 per short ton in 2000 to around $130 per short ton in 2008. In North America, a Central Appalachian coal futures contract is currently traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (trading symbol QL). The trading unit is 1,550 short tons per contract, and is quoted in U.S. dollars and cents per ton. Since coal is the principal fuel for generating electricity in the United States, the futures contract provides coal producers and the electric power industry an important tool for hedging and risk management. In addition to the NYMEX contract, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has European (Rotterdam) and South African (Richards Bay) coal futures available for trading. The trading unit for these contracts is 5,000 tonnes, and are also quoted in U.S. dollars and cents per tonne. EC<:-}

To: AuBug who wrote (60082)	6/21/2008 10:17:38 AM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78410

I think at 150 bucks a tonne, the fuel cost of generating electricity from the coal would be 0.06 dollars per KW hour, but I am not sure on that calc. I take that from how much CO2 coal produces per KW hr. (7.78 * 10^-4 tonnes per KWH.) One BTU equals 2.93 X 10^-4 KW hrs. But electric conversion efficiency is only 35% on average. New high heat turbines or Stirling engines promise about 46%, so we will use the higher figure. 9300 btu/lb coal should produce 4278 BTU's of electricity at 46% efficiency. This is 1.25 KW hrs of electricity. (1 KW hr - 3413 BTU's) If GXS coal cost say, 120 dollars per tonne, then a lb of it would cost $0.054. 5.4 cents. At best the cost of making electricity by the fuel cost would be 0.054/1.25 = $0.043/KW hour. Reasonable. Of course we know with fuel prices today, domestic energy costs must increase. If coal, which makes the majority of the world's electricity increases in price by 3 to 5 times in 8 years, then electricity must play catch up, as politicized as its prices usually are. Utilities cannot go into hock or the infrastructure and industrial capacity of the nation breaks down. ****************************************************