Australia’s main mining lobby has unsurprisingly described local thermal coal as the best in the world. 

The Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) has issued a report; ‘Australian Export Thermal Coal: The Comparative Quality Advantages’.

It says there is still value in Australian coal exports, despite the world moving away from it in efforts to decarbonise.

The lobby says Australian coal is the best because of its;

  • higher rank and higher delivered specific energy, enabling less coal to be burnt per kilowatt hour of power station output and lower levels of CO2 emissions than from lower quality coals

  • superior combustion properties and boiler efficiency because of lower moisture, moderate ash, higher ash fusion temperature and satisfactory fuel ratio

  • lower levels of sulphur and trace element contents resulting in reduced power utility flue gas emission levels and wastewater contamination

“The report notes the higher specific energy (SE) of Australian coal at 25 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg) compared to Indonesian coal at 19.4MJ/kg…enabling less coal to be burnt per kilowatt hour of power station output and lower levels of CO2 emissions than from lower-quality coals,” the report stated.

Australia and the United States are in fact tied for the highest quality coal, by this measure, followed by Columbia and South Africa. However, these three competitors fall behind when their volume of coal exports are factored in. 

Despite the wishes of conservationists, coal is not going anywhere. In fact, plans are in place to increase global coal capacity by almost a third of the 2019 total.