coal

     My personal portfolio has gained over 20% this calendar year, despite my somewhat haphazard, off-the-cuff methodology and my general timidity.  Most of those gains have come from a 150-year-old coal company.

     Reading reddit.com, including stuff on their //r/energy as well as r/front, I can see that the large majority of young people in the US have been successfully brainwashed by the "climate change" campaign.  Most are convinced that any use of coal is courting instantaneous disaster, fantastic sea level rise, outrageous super storms, and other cataclysms.

     The USA is still the Saudi Arabia of coal, with the very largest and best seams ever found in the whole world underneath the Appalachian mountains.  Proper use does entail emissions control, to block soot, oxides and acids of sulphur, and mercury from getting into the air.  CO2 is a different issue and far too much has been written about it already, except that no one seems to catch the fundamental anachronism of the argument ... the advocates of "green" don't seem to even understand the most basic biological facts that when CO2 concentration increases in the atmosphere, the planet becomes more green.

     Even if I am correct and the "powers that be" have had their thumb firmly holding down natural gas prices in the USA for the last several years, the production of electricity from gas is still measurably more expensive than using coal.  However, as many people are just beginning to realize, the current prices are not enough to sustain the ongoing growth in demand brought about by the curtailment of the use of coal.

     Worldwide, the use of coal is growing faster than any other source of energy.  Please read that again.
COAL USE IS INCREASING WORLDWIDE.  Because its cheap and abundant.  Here's one source, I could find dozens if I hunted:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/16/coals-share-of-energy-market-at-highest-level-since-1970

     Now the good politicians in Washington have gone and pissed off the russian bear by meddling where they don't belong in the bear's front yard.  Their response has not been surprising.  They have asked Washington and its allies to pay up for the gas they have been selling on credit.

    Europe is suddenly about to freeze.  Russia is quickly building pipelines to China so that the gas, once off, will never return.  The English, French, Germans, etc. will be able to get a little bit of gas from the Middle East but it will be considerably more expensive.  And it won't be enough.  In order to keep their countries from total collapse, their next alternative will be to buy coal from the eastern US and ship it across the Atlantic.

sorry, environmentalists ... your fantasies of solar, of wind, of algae, of hydrogen, of Santa Claus,  were very wonderful, but reality just came down the chimney....