Japan, one of the world’s largest gas importers, on Friday said it would expand the use of less-efficient coal power plants, as it tries to diversify its generation capabilities. In Bangladesh and India, coal plants are already shouldering the burden of shortfalls elsewhere.
Even in Europe, where plenty of dirty power has been phased out, the Netherlands, Poland and the Czech Republic could all see more coal use if gas prices remain high. Germany is considering reactivating mothballed coal-fired plants as a way to curb electricity prices.
Coal is one of the most expensive per-kwh sources of energy in the modern day. It’s primary appeals are density and reliability - you can generate an enormous amount of electricity for a relatively small geographic footprint and regulate it based on fossil fuel inputs more easily than solar/wind.
Even then, we’ve phased out a lot of the old coal mining operations, thanks to the post-COVID price crash. This is a distressing turn as a stopgap measure, but it is also an economic shock that’s going to force people away from fossil fuels in the aggregate that much sooner over the long term.
After all, the Straight of Hormuz isn’t the only international energy choke point. And coal supply trains can run as long as their LNG/petroleum peers.
One could even hypothesize that this was the goal.
