Coal Is Gone, It’s Not Coming Back

LOS ANGELES—Don’t get your hopes up about the return of coal. “The fact is that it is gone and it is not coming back,” said Anthony Hatch, principal at ABH Consulting, said in a presentation on railway systems and the intermodal network at the annual Pulse of the Ports conference. The fact is that we are reliant on an intermodal rail system and, even with coal prices rising, that system isn’t likely to change.

One of the main reasons that Hatch believes that coal isn’t back is because the new Administration is simultaneously promoting coal and natural gas. “It is very difficult to be on both sides of the same war,” he said. Since 2007, US rail carloads of coal have steadily declined with slightly more than 4 million carloads in 2016, compared to more than 7 million in 2007.