Two related stories about coal in Asia broke earlier this week: that India just doesn’t have enough coal to meet the country’s demands, and that China burns nearly as much coal as the whole rest of the world.
By the end of the year, the country is expected to have exported 125-133 million tons of coal—which shatters the previous record of 113 million tons set in 1981. This is largely due to a very strong first six months of the year, and the EIA notes that since then, the global demand for American coal has been slightly waning.
Last week, there was huge news for the coal industry. Kentucky coal producers signed a deal to export up to nine million tons of coal a year for the next 25 years, to the reported tune of $7 billion.
A recent deal to send millions of tons of Appalachian coal to India could bring billions of dollars to Kentucky coal producers over the next twenty-five years. But it’s not very good news for climate change.
The deal will ship up to nine million tons of Appalachian coal to India for the next 25 years. This is a lot of coal—nine million tons is actually about equivalent to the amount of coal purchased by the state of Virginia in 2010.
