We are the World
Where there is no vision, the people perish - Proverbs 29:18
United States exporters of thermal coal earned more than $5 billion in 2023 as they shipped out more than 32.5 million metric tons of the high-polluting power fuel, data from ship-tracking firm Kpler shows.
The thermal coal export earnings were the second-highest since 2017, following 2022's $5.7 billion. The total volumes were the highest since 2018 and came as U.S. power producers cut the amount of coal used in electricity generation to the lowest this century, data from energy think tank Ember shows.
The diverging trends between shrinking domestic coal use and robust coal exports open the United States to charges of hypocrisy given the country's ambitions to become a global leader in energy transition and pollution reduction efforts.
Power thy name is hypocrisy. In this era, you have to wonder if power was ever not hypocritical, certainly hypocrisy is a perk only available to power, the powerless are incapable of hypocrisy.
The Ministry of Power has envisaged adding at least 53.6 GW of coal-fired power capacity over the eight years ending March 2032, it said, in addition to the 26.4 GW currently being constructed. Coal currently accounts for over 50% of India's installed capacity of 428.3 GW.
Coal fires industrialization. Starting two-centuries ago with the US and Britain to the last several decades in China and now India, burning coal is industrialization.
America cutting its coal use in the last half-century has largely been accomplished by off-shoring industry. Despite this, American energy use, per person, remains far and away the greatest on the planet - 4% of the global population accounting for over 20% of world energy use.
In a related matter, the WSJ has a piece on China opening solar manufacturing facilities in the US to take advantage of money offered by DC, along with a cry of outrage from some of the usual suspects. One of the Chinese manufacturers “Zhu, knows there is pushback from U.S. politicians on Chinese manufacturers. But, he says ‘we’re not politicians. We just do the business.’”
Now, there’s an uniformed statement. In the 21st century, energy is politics, though really, that’s nothing new. China is the global leader in solar power because 7 decades ago established American energy interests from the utilities to the National Security State refused to develop solar.
Unfortunately for the Chinese and the Indians, instead of developing along new paths, they have simply copied established industrial ways. That one global number still flashes — a model where 4% of the world uses 20% of its resources is not a viable global development model, nor is it sustainable for the 4%. The NYT reports on the growing problems the US faces with its mad rush to electrify an unsustainable economy instead of facing the much greater fundamental challenge of necessary structural reform than simplistically swapping of fuel sources.
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