Brief thread on coal power generation in Alberta.

(Not to be conflated with today's news about AB govt opening up lands for coal mining -- that is most likely for met coal, not subbituminous thermal for power generation)

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First off, power generation from coal plants.

I've noted this several times previously, but coal power is plummeting in AB. Being replaced by wind (a little) and NG (a lot). Here are the last 5 years of monthly generation from coal plants.

Next, coal production.

If AB coal power is dropping but we're just shipping the stuff overseas, well that's no good for CO2 reduction. Good news, we're not. While we export met coal (and may do more), thermal subbit coal is almost exclusively burned locally. It's plummeting too.

Lastly, and this is for the real power nerds, we can divide one by the other to see the average "heat rate" - how much coal is burned to produce a MWh of power.

It's falling!

Why? Could be old inefficient plants retiring. But my bet: "coal" plants running partly off NG already.