US coal is enjoying a brief resurgence under Joe Biden — a president who promised to curb the country’s use of fossil fuels and will join other world leaders at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow to pledge big new reductions in carbon emissions.
The amount of coal fed into US power stations this year will rise by almost 20 per cent to 521m short tons, according to the US Energy Information Administration, allowing the fuel to surpass nuclear as the second-biggest source of American electricity, after natural gas.
Awkwardly for Biden, who has pledged to eliminate all carbon emissions from the country’s power sector by 2035, the rise in coal use bucks a downwards trend that endured even during four years under Donald Trump, whose administration promised to revive the American coal industry.
It also comes as G20 leaders sealed a deal on Sunday to end international financing of coal power but stopped short of agreeing an end to domestic coal power in their own countries.
The jump in US coal use this year will also contribute to an 8 per cent surge in energy-related carbon emissions, according to the EIA.
Coal’s revival is partly an outcome of changes in US natural gas production, which fell last year as crashing oil prices forced shale operators to idle rigs and slash planned spending on drilling. That dearth of gas supply, coming alongside a recovery in the global economy and energy demand, has pushed up natural gas prices — and enticed power generators to burn more cheap coal.
First annual rise in US coal electricity generation since 2014
Percent share of US power generation