2024-07-03
6 分钟The Economist Hello, Mike Bird here, co-host of Money Talks,
our weekly podcast on markets, the economy and business.
Welcome to Editor's Picks.
We've chosen an article from the latest edition of The Economist,
which we very much hope you'll enjoy.
From some angles, it seems as if thermal coal,
the world's dirtiest fuel, is having a tough year.
Prices are down a bit.
China, which gobbles up over half the world's supply, is in economic trouble.
A surge in hydropower generation there is squeezing out the fuel.
In May,
G7 members agreed to phase out coal plants where emissions are not captured by 2035.
Mining stocks are trading at a huge discount.
Zoom out a little, however,
and it is clear the embers of thermal coal remain uncomfortably hot.
Metallurgical coal burnt to produce steel is a much smaller market.
Although prices have come down from the peaks reached in 2022,
when the standoff between Europe and Russia sparked a global dash for energy,
they have stabilised at higher levels than before the war in Ukraine began,
even in real terms.