There was a lot of talk last year about coal resources needing to be left in the ground if the world was to reach its 2-degree-celsius reduction environmental targets.The suggestion was that legislation was required to force power generators to switch to less polluting energy sources and, while in the meantime tougher emissions standards have played their part, the market has been much more active than government in encouraging change.

A recent US Energy Information Administration report covered by Reuters states that generators produced 101.86 million megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity with gas in November versus just 87.78 million MWh with coal, the lowest monthly level since May 1980 when monthly coal use was 84.88 million MWh.

Source: The Coal Decline Is Now Irreversible | OilPrice.com