The money phrase.

"Meanwhile, the spot price of coal in the Central Appalachia region, which is a benchmark for the eastern US thermal coal market, surged more than $10 to $89.75 last week, the highest in more than 12 years, according to EIA figures, amid rising demand and lower supply."


https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coal

We buy our coal from Valier. It was $100/ton last summer. Don't know if he has increased his prices lately.

Wait! Wait! Rising demand? That can't be true. This is baaad! I thought we were all switching to "Green" energy, so as to save the environment!

Must be we are using more coal to keep those power plants going to provide the electricity to charge all those clean, green, electric cars that are making everyone feel so good about themselves.

What an over simplification and politically charged nonsense statement.

In the US coal power plants have consistently shut down at a steady rate, and while it has slowed a bit there have been no new coal plants in the US since 2018. There has been a steady domestic decrease in coal, and with the rise of green energy and also natural gas plants (themselves a fossil fuel as well, but cleaner burning) it can easily be surmised that very few of the electric vehicles on US roads are being powered by coal generated energy now, and that number will only decrease.

However, coal continues to grow in nations such as India and China and while there are attempts to slow that on an international scale, it currently seems like the Asian market and demand for coal is still massive. A large chunk of US coal production now is for the export market being shipped overseas. Again, how long that lasts though depends on a lot of geopolitical stuff not worth diving into; but it points to how coal can be in high price yet in low demand in the US simultaneously, because most of our market is now going overseas.

Claim its nonsense all you want, but its clear though the future is going to be an increasingly small one for the domestic coal market as policy focuses on cutting emissions. Kicking against the rise of electric vehicles is about as foolhardy as trying to be a Baldwin steam locomotive sales representative in the 1950's... the future is coming if you want to accept it or not, and we should prepare for an electric future in the next few decades where rail preservation will have to make a hard HARD case for being allowed to continue to use heritage fuels, and focusing on snippy soundbits and angry "change is bad" arguments will not gain us any inroads into solving that issue.

"What an over simplification and politically charged nonsense statement.

In the US coal power plants have consistently shut down at a steady rate, and while it has slowed a bit there have been no new coal plants in the US since 2018. There has been a steady domestic decrease in coal, and with the rise of green energy and also natural gas plants (themselves a fossil fuel as well, but cleaner burning) it can easily be surmised that very few of the electric vehicles on US roads are being powered by coal generated energy now, and that number will only decrease.

However, coal continues to grow in nations such as India and China and while there are attempts to slow that on an international scale, it currently seems like the Asian market and demand for coal is still massive. A large chunk of US coal production now is for the export market being shipped overseas. Again, how long that lasts though depends on a lot of geopolitical stuff not worth diving into; but it points to how coal can be in high price yet in low demand in the US simultaneously, because most of our market is now going overseas.

Claim its nonsense all you want, but its clear though the future is going to be an increasingly small one for the domestic coal market as policy focuses on cutting emissions. Kicking against the rise of electric vehicles is about as foolhardy as trying to be a Baldwin steam locomotive sales representative in the 1950's... the future is coming if you want to accept it or not, and we should prepare for an electric future in the next few decades where rail preservation will have to make a hard [i]HARD[/i] case for being allowed to continue to use heritage fuels, and focusing on snippy soundbits and angry "change is bad" arguments will not gain us any inroads into solving that issue."


You just keep thinking that way. We'll see who is right in the end.

Its simple physics. The thermal efficiency of a gas combustion engine is 40% in an ideal scenario. An electric motor can get up to 90% thermal efficiency. The limiting factor was always battery range, and since that has been solved in the 21st century the electric vehicle is already beginning to show serious headwinds against established combustion engines, and will likely further dent into that market as the battery life continues to be improved. From a consumer standpoint, once you can get 200-300 miles off a battery charge the electric vehicle is already comparable to a gas powered one. Yes, I understand that the cycle of production of those batteries involves massive mining operations and emissions there, but again its not that incomparable to the current coal mining process; especially since open strip mining has become the predominant coal mine system.

The current green energy systems of wind and solar are not sustainable in the long term, but don't assume people will rush back to coal once they realize that. If I were to speculate, small modular nuclear power plants with both uranium/plutonium cycles and even thorium fuel sources will begin to displace wind and solar with time; as much of science and engineering education has already long been on the prep course for a future of small nuclear power. Yes, currently nuclear power is to large and costly for mass use; but the push for nuclear will begin to reap its fruit in the next few decades.

But as for fossil fuels, natural gas is plentiful thanks to fracking; and as long as it remains in steady supply it will always be a cheaper alternative to coal for large power utilities. Forget wind, solar, hydrogen wells, geothermal or nuclear... natural gas will always be the true obstacle to a domestic coal come back and it will be here for many many many years. I expect the dominance of natural gas to last well through my lifetime, and it will almost singlehandedly keep domestic coal demand small. The x-factor as already mentioned is if that pattern begins to demonstrate in Southeast Asia as well, or if coal markets will continue to be willing to pay for US coal to be shipped overseas. If that Asian market vanishes, it will be certain doom for any remaining power plant coal suppliers in the US and seriously dent the availability of coal for historic rail.

So outside of iron and steel production which will always rely on high quality coal and coke as a carbon source, there is a very slim market for fuel coal in the future. Which is why we need to seriously realize that for the railroad preservation industry if we don't plan now via showing legitimate research into how the carbon output from historic rail is marginally slim compared to other carbon sources, and how its acceptable due to the historic preservation mission of our cause; we will be caught with our pants down and it will cause a mass ripple effect in this industry within the next decade or two. Because the high quality steel coal will remain too expensive for us, and the cheap power plant coal will eventually dwindle in supply and we won't be able to buy single carloads for rail preservation use anymore without exorbitant prices. Its already happening in Britain, and its only logical we will see that here in the US maybe by the 2030's if not certainly the 2040's.

It might behoove our industry to look into investing in a small, centrally located strip mine so as to secure a supply for the future. Are there any marginal operations out there that may not have enough coal reserves for large scale production but enough reserves for our needs, thinking of shutting down due to low demand? Could a consortium of tourist railways get together to purchase such a mine to secure a supply, even if it is just a hedge against future scarcity?

Can a room full of -cough- preservationists get along together long enough to allow such a thing to happen?

Besides, I think various environmental laws AND expectations both current and future may make mining and combustion of coal nearly impossible, regardless of the detrimental impact on anyone's way of life.

A much better option may be to invest in some renewable biocoal infrastructure. I know it's not everyone's favorite, but would you rather just park it and never run again?

That's a safe bet. Coal fired power plants are being converted to natural gas pretty quickly in the US, not because of government mandate, but because natural gas is cheaper.

As has been mentioned, Britain has shuttered the last coal fired power plant in the entire country (on an island built on a mountain of coal), leaving the preservation community scrambling. The preservationists figure that they use about 26,000 tons of coal per year for all uses (trains, boats, stationary, foundries, etc.)(way more than the US), but that isn't thought to be enough of a market to keep one mine viable, leaving them to have to import coal by the shipload from either Russia, Poland, or the US, at great expense. There is a lot of debate as to what the best long term solution will be, but coal isn't on the list.

In the US, the rate that coal burning steam locomotives are being converted to oil is accelerating, especially in the west, where the drying climate is making coal burning untenable. In the east, there is no threat of wildfires (yet) but the times, they are a changin', and it isn't too far in the future when people will start voting with their wallets and choosing to spend their vacation dollars somewhere else than at "that dirty polluting railroad". At SRC, we had started collecting all of the information that we could find on oil burning after witnessing GCRy's #4960's performance on french fry oil at the TRAIN convention several years ago. Personally, I will be surprised to see the engines at the Strasburg Rail Road still burning coal by 2030.

Huh?

Years ago (1980s), a physics professor who was a hardcore railfan and steam enthusiast said to me, "Coal and oil are far too valuable in a global, planetary sense as petrochemical stock to ever set a match to, but until we are willing to develop alternative portable energy storage media with the same efficiency and density or greater, it's what we're stuck with for the moment." At that time, he envisioned both battery storage from solar/wind and hydrogen (both fuel cell and combustion engines) produced by electrolysis from nuclear power would be the future, even though he personally disliked nuclear. (He took the pragmatic view that rare local accidents like the future Chernobyl were more acceptable than globally spread pollution and climate change.)

Fracking, whatever its panic-monger opponents declare, have enabled us to largely sideline coal as an energy source. But it remains valuable in other ways, from coking (can't keep using petroleum coke if we eliminate petroleum, can we?) to cement plants (the efficiency of using coal as a heat source and its byproducts as content seems still unbeatable, at least at the plants I see).

Until we are willing and able to build more replica steam locomotives (and maybe power them with tiny fission reactors?), I fear that the decline of availability of coal will slowly keep pace with the gradual retirement of aging vintage steam locomotives that burn it.

As nice a thought as it might be, I doubt anybody will buy a coal mine just for the steam railroads, and there are cheaper ways to ensure the supply. Just lately, the Australian government has announced it will not stop mining coal for many years to come. Coal may be a bit costlier to get but it will remain on the market.

And it will surely take two decades for the RRs to completely convert away from oil should they have to. In that phase, it should be feasible to convert the steamers and run them on oil, just to get them off the line of fire. Oil will long time be used on the streets and in all the private jets, so politicians may then have weaker arguments should they go to war on steam.

My two eurocents,
Mike

While avoiding any of the politics of either consuming coal or avoiding doing business with China for any number of reasons, I pass on the following:

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... railroads/



More at the link, including the odd fact that the largest ports for coal exposts are now Norfolk and Baltimore, not the West Coast.

Me thinks Kelly has hit the nail squarely on the head. In today's reality there's zero question that converting to oil is the future and my WAG is before 2030 all the short line tourist operations will have converted and most if not all of the very few mainline steamers.

Time will tell. Ross Rowland

P.S. I had the honor of running the 4960 on the GCRR a few years back with her burning used french fry oil. We worked her REALLY hard on one stretch and she steamed beautifully.

Smelled good too!!!

If we expand that analysis to include Canada, Vancouver currently handles more than either Norfolk or Baltimore, most of which is exported to Asian markets. Along with CN and CP traffic BNSF brings trainloads of American coal to Westshore Terminals (the Roberts Bank superport).

An export thermal coal mine in western Alberta just reopened after being shut down for over a year. According to the mine manager their product is currently selling for over $240/ton (I believe that's in Canadian dollars). I've never seen thermal coal this high.

Australia just found other markets for coal, particularly India. Still exporting around 200MT/pa. Mighty impressive trains!