It’s a funny thing on the surface that, as reported June 19 by Oilprice.com, the use of coal for power and heat has increased by 15% this spring in Europe, relative to 2019, although a hefty carbon price (effectively a carbon tax) has been put on it by the European Commission which is trying to enforce a ban on it. This is because natural gas is in short supply. The benchmark Dutch TTF gas price is up by 50% this year, and more indicatively is at its highest level since 2008. All this was actually being cited by Oilprice.com from a June 15 Bloomberg News interview with Andy Sommer, a Swiss energy trader, which Bloomberg headlined “Gas Is So Short in Europe That Coal Is Making a Comeback” (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-15/gas-is-so-scarce-in-europe-that-coal-is-making-a-comeback). Natural gas stockpiles are 25% below normal. “Gas storage is so low now that Europe cannot afford to run extra power generation with the fuel,” Sommer told Bloomberg (by “extra,” meaning back-up power to the unreliable interruptibles with which Western Europe is now being choked). So it’s back to coal, despite the $60.50/ton of CO2 tax.
Oilprice.com wants to attribute all this to a cold spring in Europe.
