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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (23929)	10/20/2010 9:09:56 PM
From: Eric	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86355

Jorj The reason that lower BTU sub-bituminous coal has surpassed higher BTU bituminous coal is that the Sub-bituminous coal is just so damned easy to get to and there is so damned much of it. In the Powder River Basin the coal seams are often 60' thick and sometimes up to 100' thick. And it is often less than 100' below the surface. While western coal has a lower BTU rating it has one benefit over eastern coal. It was formed in fresh water environments and therefore has very low sulfur content. I've known that for many years. Wyoming will have fun for a few more years! Cost to extract and final cost of delivery to the end user (the power plants) is the key. Costs are going to rise and in the end that will doom coal. Factor in "clean coal" plants and its dead in the water in the long run. If China thought that coal was going to be unavailable in 20 years, they wouldn't have plans to build coal-fired plants at a rate of 2 per month for the next twenty years. They'd certainly stop building plants short of the date that they run out of coal. China has no choice Jorj. They have to build plants they know will be obsolete and costly to run in the long run. No power, no economy, no growth. It all comes back to the cold, hard facts of resource depletion.