Word: coal
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...industry is suffering because the Carter Administration's coal policy was never fully thought out. The idea was that increased output would enable utilities and factories to switch from oil and gas to coal for generating electricity and for heating. In terms of energy content, coal is indeed a bargain compared with other fossil fuels. A ton of coal contains about the same amount of energy as 4 bbls. of crude oil, but at the going rate of about $25 a ton for most existing long-term delivery contracts, coal is only half as costly as OPEC crude. Unfortunately...
Seeing all this, businessmen are coming to the conclusion that burning coal is just asking for trouble. Since the annual growth of U.S. electric energy consumption has slowed from nearly 7% in the early 1970s to little more than 4% now, utilities are scrapping or deferring plans for new generating plants...
During the winter, Energy Secretary James Schlesinger began urging oil-fired utilities and factories to convert not to coal but to natural gas. This was to have been only a short-term move to help soak up the gas glut, but it created the misleading impression that coal was not the Administration's favorite fuel after all. Asserts Jim Larson, president of Energy Fuels Corp., Colorado's largest coal producer: "There is a simple lack of leadership. From where I sit, you just have to wonder what in hell is going on back there in Washington." The industry...
...Greenwich, Conn., the EPA has even successfully sued another quasi-independent federal agency, Conrail, and forced it to stop using a coal-fired generator that produces electricity for commuter trains. The generating plant is being converted at taxpayer expense to burn the very fuel the White House is trying to discourage-imported...
...coal companies are faring well in spite of the industry's travail. In the West, strip-mine operations have benefited from low labor costs and long-term contracts at profitable rates. But other companies have wound up merely digging up the coal and dumping it on the ground. Utility companies have stockpiled so much that many now have no more room to store the fuel. Meanwhile, the surplus is forcing down contract prices for single shipments, which have tumbled from about $31 a ton a year ago to as little...