Comments by "" (@DanielSMatthews) on "Australia needs to ‘face the fact’ coal mining is a ‘declining industry’" video.

  1. Australia can keep digging up coal at the current rate for another 300 years before it runs out and it will be a long time before the need for our highgrade coking coal is replaced by other technologies. Metals can be reduced from oxides using just electrochemistry, but it is not economically viable and will not be until fusion reactors are rolled out across the globe and electricity prices have dropped to a fraction of what they are today. Steel is actually an alloy that contains carbon, so until carbon can be extracted from CO2 more cheaply than it can be obtained from coal there will always be that demand too. Therefore it is not that it is in decline (also debatable) but that the decline is a long slow one that is multifaceted. Ignore any pundits who don't even show the base level understanding described above, there are either shills or zealots with no idea about the coal markets.
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