Asklemmy

43945 readers

818 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

306

Why has the world started to mine coal again? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Metal_Zealot@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

293 comments fedilink hide all child comments

With climate change looming, it seems so completely backwards to go back to using it again.

Is it coal miners pushing to keep their jobs? Fear of nuclear power? Is purely politically motivated, or are there genuinely people who believe coal is clean?

Edit, I will admit I was ignorant to the usage of coal nowadays.

Now I'm more depressed than when I posted this

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Hasn’t even really slowed down.

I think thats... not wrong per say, but somewhat misleading. Coal consumption has been steady worldwide for the last decade despite the population going up a whole billion, and as the average persons energy usage has gone up (largely as a result of growing quality of life in developing nations).

[–] tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Absolutely. Coal has remained consistent as demand for power has risen steadily. Renewables are growing, but remain a tiny slice of the whole generation picture.

Natural gas has become a cheap and reliable replacement for coal over the last 10-15 years as it’s become less expensive to transport. Many coal plants have been converted, even. So as demand has risen, it’s natural gas, not renewables, that is filling the gap.