By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL – Published: September 15, 2010

OROSZLANY, Hungary — When the directors of Hungary’s last remaining coal-fired power plant announced that they would close the coal mine and begin dismantling the plant at the end of this year, the news sent shock waves through this weathered industrial city, where a statue of three miners stands in the square.

It was well known that the legendary Vertesi plant and its mine were kept afloat only by more than $30 million in annual state subsidies. But more than 3,000 of Oroszlany’s 20,000 residents work in industries related to coal. The government-owned plant is one of the town’s biggest taxpayers. And the area’s 5,000 homes, its stores and its factories all get their heat from the Vertesi plant.

Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/world/europe/16hungary.html

By Mark Peters, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

MONTREAL -(Dow Jones)- Expanding coal fired generation globally is essential to bringing electricity to the developing world and growing all economies, said Gregory Boyce, chairman and chief executive of Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU).

Boyce encouraged energy policy makers at the World Energy Congress in Montreal Tuesday to embrace coal and set a goal of making electricity available throughout the world by 2050. He said technologies must be developed to reduce the emissions of heat trapping greenhouse gases blamed for climate change, but not at the cost of addressing what he called “energy poverty” around the world.

Read more at http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201009141237dowjonesdjonline000262

By DALE WETZEL – BISMARCK, N.D. – September 15, 2010

A major coal mine land reclamation project in central North Dakota is being abandoned over a dispute about how much a contractor should be paid for doing the earth work, Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer said Wednesday.

Smith Contracting, of Butte, Mont., bid $1.22 million to reclaim about 150 acres of abandoned mine land in Ward County, about seven miles southwest of Velva, commission filings say. It is part of a larger area, covering about 1,100 acres, that must be reclaimed, commission documents say.

Read more at http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9I8NEH82.htm

September 14, 2010

A Central Pennsylvania jury has set values for homes in a central Pennsylvania town decimated by a mine fire at values far below those sought by homeowners who are challenging the state’s condemnation of their property.

Tommy Hynoski said his mother’s home in Centralia should be worth about $90,000, based on what other homeowners in the area got for their properties, even though the home had to be supported by brick pillars after neighboring homes were torn down.

Read more at http://www.claimsjournal.com/news/east/2010/09/14/113196.htm

by Ken Ward Jr. – September 14, 2010

Yesterday, anti-coal activists were busy with their latest publicity stunt, dumping 1,000 pounds of rock and dirt from West Virginia in front of EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C. And today, the folks from the industry front group FACES of Coal continued their own PR diversion campaign as they departed Charleston for a big pro-coal rally in the nation’s capital tomorrow.

But deep in the bowels of the West Virginia Capitol, there was some major good news out of legislative interim meetings here in West Virginia this week: Finally, a discussion at the statehouse about the costs and benefits of the state’s coal industry.

Read more at http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2010/09/14/lets-talk-discussion-of-coal-industrys-costs-and-benefits-to-west-virginia-is-way-overdue/

By JOHN M. BRODER – September 14, 2010, 12:52 PM

The federal Clean Air Act, one of the most consequential pieces of environmental and health legislation in American history, celebrated its 40th birthday on Tuesday. The law, which has been attacked by business interests since its birth as overly costly and prescriptive, is under siege again as the Environmental Protection Agency begins to invoke the law to rein in the gases that contribute to global warming.

Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, delivered an impassioned defense of the law Tuesday morning at a daylong symposium on the Clean Air Act in Washington. She said that lobbyists had falsely claimed for years that the measure and the agency’s application of it would shutter factories, kill jobs and cost billions for compliance. But each of these doomsday predictions was proved wrong, she said, asserting that the bill saves tens of thousands of lives each year and returns $40 in health and environmental benefits for every dollar in compliance cost.

Read more at http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/clean-air-act-turns-40/

A three day conference explores the connection between Wales and Appalachia with specific emphasis on the coal mining industries in both. Fifty years ago, both had coal mining as the backbone of their economy. But in Wales, coal mining was shut down by the Thatcher administration in the 1980s and the economy has switched. With coal mining under threat in Appalachia, what can be learned from Wales? Featuring several national and international speakers including Jeff Biggers (author “The United States of Appalachia”) and Hywel Francis (a historian and former member of Parliament from Wales).

Read more at http://www.news.appstate.edu/2010/09/14/coal-and-after-coal/

By ClimateBiz Staff at Greener World Media – Tue Sep 14, 2010 1:00am EDT
A recent study predicts existing coalmines around the world will reach peak production as early as next year, with peak production levels cut in half by the turn of the century.

This runs counter to current estimates of global coal reserves, which researchers from the University of Texas in Austin and the University of California at Berkeley call overblown and and sometimes based on dated or unreliable information.

Read more at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS222232909720100914

By REBECCA SMITH – SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Power companies are increasingly switching to natural gas to fuel their electricity plants, driven by low prices and forecasts of vast supplies for years to come.

While the trend started in the late 1990s, the momentum is accelerating and comes at the expense of coal. Some utilities are closing coal-fired plants; others are converting them to run on gas.

Read more at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703579804575441683910246338.html

By: James De Long – September 13, 2010

A series of articles on Seeking Alpha and elsewhere have assessed the prospects of the coal industry and, of course, the implications for the stock prices of various coal companies. (See Does Coal Still Reign Supreme?; 5 Top Coal Picks for the Next 20 Years; Coal’s Brightening Outlook; China Coal: Way, Way Up.)

While these acknowledge that concern over climate change and CO2 emissions could affect coal usage, the underlying assumptions are that coal’s U.S. market share as a fuel for generating electricity is secure, that overseas markets are booming, and that there is a strong bullish case for coal stocks.

These assumptions both overstate and understate coal’s prospects, for three basic reasons:

Read more at http://seekingalpha.com/article/224852-the-precarious-crown-of-king-coal