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Certainly, its dependability is appreciated in Alberta clippers
With winter yet to begin, December found tens of millions of Americans struggling to cope with a record-breaking cold snap that affected huge areas of the nation.In the Midwest, some motorists spent days trapped in pileups on snow-covered highways. In the South, some Floridians scrambled to save valuable crops like citrus fruits and strawberries, and others hastened to rescue hundreds of sea turtles reduced to a coma-like state by the cold. But most Americans had heat and light when they made it home after a long day. Those amenities go underappreciated until they go missing.
Let's hope policymakers in Washington preserve dependable power by re-evaluating their ill-considered war on coal.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration released its Annual Energy Outlook for 2011 on Friday. In it, the agency acknowledged that coal, which now provides more than half the U.S. electricity supply, "will remain the dominant fuel" through 2035 "because of the large amount of existing capacity."
The report also included a straightforward assessment of the outlook for Appalachian coal:
"After peaking in 2010, the average minemouth coal price declines gradually as higher-cost coal from mines in Appalachia, particularly central Appalachia, is displaced with lower-cost coal from other U.S. coal basins.
"After 2016, a leveling-off in Appalachian coal production, combined with growth in coal demand, results in a gradual rise in coal prices through 2035.
"The Appalachian share of total coal production, on a Btu basis, declines from 40 percent in 2009 to 33 percent in 2016 and 29 percent in 2035."
Coal is useful. Coal is dependable.
Americans will be better off if they start asking hard questions about where - if not from coal - the nation's policymakers intend to get the dependable energy supply of the future.