Coal

The climate change meetings in Poland are not meeting with much success. While the United States has lowered its CO2 emissions other countries have not. The main offenders are China and India. China is building hundreds of new coal-fired power plants capable of generating a total of 259 gigawatts (GW) of electricity—that’s equal to the entire existing U.S. coal fleet of around 266 GW, findings by advocacy and research group CoalSwarm show. While the US continues to close coal-fired power plants much of the coal is still being mined but shipped overseas.  In 2017, U.S. coal exports surged 61% from 2016 to nearly 90 million tonnes, with 50 million tonnes coming from the more pricey metallurgical variety that is a staple in steel making. "U.S. coal exports could rise 15% in 2018."