Coal is a relatively cheap, abundant and well-established source of energy.
Ray Hornsay/Flickr
Millions of people live without access to electricity. Now it’s a battle between coal and renewables to bring cheap power.
Miners were fired by a sense of solidarity but also by dangerous working conditions, which produced high death and injury rates.
Janet Lindenmuth/Flickr
Miners were among the first workers to organise into trade unions from the middle of the 1700s, battling a lack of legal recognition and resistance from the mine owners.
Coal powered the machinery and lit what English poet William Blake described as ‘dark satanic mills’.
Sam Leighton/Flickr
Britain lucked out with its coal deposits – but other nations have developed without coal.
Coal has provided us with some stunning fossils.
Bart Bernardes/Flickr
Despite its insidious influence on the climate and our health, coal has a lesser-known positive side to its otherwise dark soul. It has provided us with some stunning fossils.
Trade Minister Steven Ciobo, speaking on Q&A.
Q&A
Was Trade Minister Steven Ciobo right to say on Q&A that global demand for coal is still going through the roof?
Labor has promised half of Australia’s electricity will come from renewables in 2030.
Wind turbine image from www.shutterstock.com
There’s a wealth of climate policies to choose from this election – but what will they do electricity prices?
The closure of Port Augusta’s Northern Power Plant marks the end of coal-fired generation in South Australia.
Gary Sauer-Thompson/Flickr
Closure of the state’s last coal power station will leave a potential gap in the electricity supply.
Acid drainage from surface coal mining site, North Lima, Ohio.
Jack Pearce/Flickr
As coal energy loses market share, major U.S. coal companies are filing for bankruptcy. One multi-billion-dollar question: will taxpayers be forced to pay for cleaning up abandoned mines?
Building more renewable energy will be part of the effort to decarbonise energy systems.
David Clarke/Flickr
We have the technology to phase out fossil fuels, but it will take more than that.
Ignited methane gas from the seep on the Condamine River.
Screenshot from Jeremy Buckingham/YouTube
Coal seam gas may not be responsible for a flaming river in Queensland, but it still raises uncomfortable questions.
Despite the benefits of going renewable, it may be harder to get there than we thought.
Indigo Skies Photography/Flickr
Phasing out fossils fuels would go a long way to stopping dangerous climate change – but it might be harder than we thought.
Labor has promised 50% of electricity will come from renewable sources by 2050, but has left the detail for after the election.
Wind turbine image from www.shutterstock.com
Labor’s detailed climate policy is ambitious, but it remains to be seen if it will capture the voters.
An LNG tanker leaves Gladstone, Queensland. Gas development is one of the drivers behind Australia’s increasing emissions and electricity demand.
AAP/Dan Peled
Over the past year Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions from electricity rose 2.7%.
Is the coal train leaving town?
CSIRO
We hear a lot about how essential coal and other mineral exports are for Australia. Is it true? Only for a relatively small section of the population.
The era of coal is coming to an end.
Alexander G/Flickr
Peabody, the world’s largest private coal company, has filed for bankruptcy, symbolising the world’s swing away from coal.
China’s coal use has gone down two years in a row – or has it?
Reuters
It’s a transition the rest of the world is watching: How can we know whether coal use in China – the world’s largest emitter – is going up or down?
Ministers considering new coal mines need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
The granting of a mining lease to the Carmichael coal project, despite the huge potential greenhouse emissions, shows that ministers need to consider the wider consequences of their approvals.
A river flows into the Indian Ocean along South Africa’s Transkei coast, where residents are resisting a titanium mining project.
Epa/Nic Bothma
South Africans living in communities along the country’s east coast are engaged in intensive protests against mining companies, despite rising danger.
Fife no more.
Graeme McLean
Longannet, the last coal-fired power plant in Scotland, has closed. It might be good news for climate change, but it also signals major problems ahead.
Graphite can be converted into synthetic diamonds used in manufacturing.
Yves Herman/Reuters
Australia needs to move beyond mining graphite and invest in processes that convert it into synthetic diamonds and use it to create carbon fibres.