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6 America’s gas boom has prompted its coal miners to seek new export markets, sending prices plunging on world markets. So long as consumers do not pay for coal’s horrible side-effects, that makes it irresistibly cheap. In Germany power from coal now costs half the price of watts from a gas-fired power station. It is a paradox that coal is booming in a country that in other respects is the greenest in Europe. Its production of power from cheap, dirty brown coal (lignite) is now at 162 billion kilowatt hours, the highest since the days of the decrepit East Germany.

7 Japan, too, is turning to coal in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. On April 11th the government approved a new energy plan entrenching its role as a long-term electricity source.

8 International coal companies face two worries. One is that governments may eventually impose punitive levies, tariffs and restrictions on their mucky product. The other is the global glut. Prices for thermal coal (the kind used for power and heating) are at $80-85 a tonne, which barely covers the cost of capital. Some Australian producers are even mining at a loss, having signed freight contracts with railways and ports that make them pay for capacity whether they use it or not.

9 One answer to that is cost-cutting and efficiency, much stressed by companies such as BHP Billiton. Unlike oil and gas, coal is geologically simple and does not require a costly array of drills, platforms and pipes. If the price is too low, companies can decide to stop production and await better times. But thriftiness with capital has its limits: the cost of mining is going up, as the easiest coal seams are worked out.

10 Some companies have tried to switch efforts to “met” (metallurgical) coal, which fuels smelters. This was thought to be scarcer and more profitable. But that theory has suffered. Supplies of met coal have proved more abundant than expected.

11 Perhaps the biggest hope for all involved in the coal industry is technology. Mining and transporting coal will always be messy, but this could be overlooked were it burned cheaply and cleanly. Promising technologies abound: pulverising coal, extracting gas from it, scrubbing emissions and capturing the CO2. But none of these seems scalable in the way needed to dent the colossal damage done by coal. And all require large subsidies—from consumers, shareholders or taxpayers.

12 A $5.2 billion taxpayer-supported clean-coal plant in Mississippi incorporates all the latest technology. But at $6,800 per kilowatt, it will be the costliest power plant yet built (a gas-fired power station in America costs $1,000 per kW). At those prices, coal is going to stay dirty.

On July 17, Australia's senate held a carbon tax cuts and vote, this let Australia became the first country to determine the price of greenhouse gas emissions.Australia in the past four years has committed $1.14 billion to reduce emissions, as a result, abbott government determined to changes in climate policy, but the move by the workers' party, the greens and palmer coalition party's question.Billionaire Palmer (Clive Palmer) is the key to solve the problem, because he create party about the balance in the senate.But he's industry has huge coal reserves make it impossi本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。