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The Truth About China's Coal

The Truth About China's Coal

2012-05-24


There was another big blow in the realm of conventional thinking this week. And it comes to us straight from our frenemies in China.

No more coal, they said.

And you can keep your iron, too.

The headlines proclaimed it as a sign of China's great economic plunge. The country's economy is falling faster than even the most bearish of bears had thought.

At least, that's according to conventional logic.

If we gaze through the prism from a different angle, though, our picture changes.

You've probably heard that Chinese traders defaulted on half a dozen coal orders this week. And, like I said, you probably heard that it is because of China's great slowdown.

That's not the truth, though.

The truth is the defaults are the result of a great global shift in energy.

Here in the United States, the EPA is virtually at war with the coal industry. The antiquated fuel source is dirty and, more importantly, it doesn't play well with Obama's alternative energy policy.

For some reason, "all of the above," doesn't include coal.

And the harder Washington works to send coal-fired power plants to the history books, the further coal prices will fall.

In the United States, coal prices have fallen roughly 30% in the past year. And with a declining domestic demand (thanks to stiff rules from the EPA), miners have put their coal on the global market.

That means the price of coal across the planet has dropped. Here's what Australia's coal industry has faced:.....





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