As you may know, about 50% of the electricity in the U.S. is made by coal burners, and coal is being increasingly touted as the fuel of the future. And also the chemical feedstock of the future, especially for ammonia and methanol, and as the thermal source for those crop to ethanol facilities. Unfortunately, this just cements the position of fossil fuels and CO2 pollution (= fossil fuel combustion byproduct trash dumped into our atmosphere) in "renewable" fuels. It puts the "non-renewable" into renwable fuels. How's that for some truely twisted logic?
But, life goes on, and the energy markets just seem to be quite dynamic and in flux. A case in point is shown by the spot market pricing coal - as shown in the table and graph at the following link (your tax dollars actually at work):
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coalnews/coalmar.html#spot.
The simple explanation is that coal that is accessible to the coasts (Unita to Japan, Appalachia to Europe) is being exported at increasing rates to countries and economies with strong currencies (like the Yen and Euro). When coal goes for 100 Euro/ton, that is the equivalent of $160/ton in US dollars, and coal goes for a lot more than that in Europe these days. No matter, they also tend to be more economically efficient with it; examples include extensive co-generation, so that up to 85% of the energy used in burning coal is used, while in the U.S. coal based co-gen is all too rare, so we generally get a 30 to 40% energy utilization - and the by-product heat is put into the air via cooling towers, or dumped into rivers, lakes and oceans. Extensive use of co-generation could significantly decrease our coal consumption, create a lot of jobs making use of the steam turbine exhasut steam, and also create a lot of new economic opportunities. For example, every coal burner, if allowed to exist, should have to pay a "waste heat tax", which could be avoided if the waste heat was put to work. Even if this means that extensive greenhouses are warmed by this heat making everything from algae to vegetables (strawberries and bananas in January in Minnesota - yeah!) to avoid paying this waste heat tax.....
Anyway, sorry for the digression. In Europe, they have been mining coal for over 200 years, and most of the good mines are already mined out, so now they either have to go for expensive deep coal, or import it. In the U.S. we actually will demolish mountains to get coal - a process considered barbaric in Europe, though that does not stop them from buying said mountain-top removal coal. So, the U.S. is now a good source of cheap raw materials, and for them, cheap coal. And even though they only buy a relatively small amount of coal from the U.S., they set the price for the East coast stuff, which is why it has tripled in the last year, with no signs of slowing down. But other types of coal - such as the lignite in Montana, the Dakotas, and Colorado/Wyoming, is unaffected. That's because it costs so much to transport this "dilute coal" to ports where this can be loaded onto ships and then shipped to Europe in boats that are powered by increasingly expensive fuel oil. Since so few people live near these huge lignite deposits, and so many people live near the Illinois/Appalachian deposits, the price rise for eastern coals has not translated into the Western coals. Besides, the rail capacity for Powder River basin coals is maxed out, and thoroughly under contract, with little to spare.
So, the east coast and even the south coast has to learn to live with expensive coal, for whatever it is used for, whether electricity or for ammonia, "sin-fuels" or methanol. This has the effect of stimulating wind turbine development in this area. Though the midwest has better wind resources, even moderate wind speeds are quite profitable in this new world of expensive coal and much more expensive natural gas in places where much of the people in our country presently reside.
A good way to view this is by comparing the prices in terms of energy values:
13,000 Btu/lb coal @ $149/ton = $ 5.73/MBtu
8,800 Btu/lb lignite @ $12.5/ton = $ 0.71/MBtu
5.1 MBtu/bbl crude oil @ $125/bbl = $ 24.5/MBtu
Ngas, Henry Hub = $11.40/Mbtu (July 2008 average)
What seems to be happening is that coal is approaching Ngas pricing, and Ngas is chasing after oil pricing, unless the local market is swamped by resource and bereft of comparable local demand. As Ngas supplies start to get more and more scarce (our Peak production happened in 2001, and we can't afford to import any as liquidfied natural gas, alias LNG, anymore), coal prices will be expected to rise. Increasing demand (for Ngas substitution, exports to Europe) for coal, and essentially stagnant production rates will make coal increasingly expensive in areas with big energy demands, such as where 150 million people live, in the U.S. And the increase in oil prices has already resulted in as much substitution by Ngas for oil as is readily possible, also raising the price of Ngas, since an increasing demand and stagnant suplly means...you know, higher prices. For example, check out http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3673.
Anyway, let's say you were contemplating making ammonia from coal, like the Rentech people say thay are going to do. Well, they would be using high sulfur coal, and geeting the synthesis gas made from this coal to less than 0.1 ppm of sulfur...well, that's a pain, and expensive. Even Illinois "brimstone coal" is getting more expensive, and that's what they plan on using in their Illinoius facility. Then there is the increasing price on this coal, as well as the imminent likelihood that they will have to "stash the (CO2) trash" and/or pay up big on CO2 pollution taxes, especially since they are a "new" coal user.
But what about when Europe comes to Illinois, and also China, via the Mississippi River? Now the world price for coal (currently in the $200/ton range) will also be applied to this material. Does it qualify as a cheap raw material anymore. And what if the U.S. dollar continues to devalue versus the Yuan,. Yen and Euro? Prices in the U.S. of $300/ton might still be affordable...to Europe and China.
Probably one way to deal with this problem is to put an export tax on coal, or just a mining tax on coal, since it is still undervalued, and the damage done upon the world by coal mining and coal burning is quite considerable. At minimum, it gets money to our destitute government, and does a little bit to discourage cola consumption....
Anyway, with a few local exceptions, coal no longer appears to be a stable priced cheap form of energy. It is still cheaper than Ngas and oil, but more of a pain to use, and its use is less thermally efficient than other fuels. And if more coal starts getting used to make liquid fuels, that increase in demand will also have pronounced effects on the price.
So, if you want a stable price for future energy, wind still seems to be the way to go, along with things like tidal and run-of-river and geothermal. They may not be cheap, but they are affordable, and above all, they are predictable. For anyone in a long-term profession, like farming or energy production, or energy consumption, or who wnats to avoid freezing to death when one can't pay the monthly natural gas bill....that seems important.