The economic case for coal is collapsing.

The only bid for the right to mine 167 million tons of coal on US federal land came from a Navajo tribe-owned company that bid $186,000, i.e. 1/10 of 1 cent per ton of coal. As Bloomberg NEF founder Michael Liebreich put it: “You can’t give coal away in the US’s most productive coal region.”

Meanwhile in Russia’s coal heartland region, the Kuznetsk Basin in southwestern Siberia, which mines about 60% of all coal in Russia, most coal companies are losing money on every ton of coal they sell, as it costs them more to dig up and ship coal to a Far Eastern port than foreign buyers in China or elsewhere would pay them for that coal.

Coal is losing out not just to fossil gas but also to renewables like wind and solar (combined with battery storage). In many countries, solar is now the cheapest source of power, followed by onshore wind. According to International Energy Agency (IEA) data, in 2025 for the first time, more electricity (in TWh) was generated worldwide from renewables than from coal, which had dominated output for at least half a century. The falling cost of renewables has been a main factor.

The biggest growth in renewables has been in China and in low income countries in the global South. China installs more wind and solar capacity per year than the rest of the world combined. Pakistan installed 17 GWp in 2024 alone, with a peak output of roughly 1/3 of its existing conventional generating capacity. From January to September 2025, India installed a combined 34 GW of solar and wind. It is targeting 500 GW of non-fossil power by 2030.

Links:

• Company bids less than a penny per ton in biggest US coal sale in over a decade (ABC News)
• Russia’s Coal Collapse Marks The End Of Fossil Fuels’ Post-War Illusion (Forbes)
• Renewables overtake coal as world’s biggest source of electricity (BBC)
• Indien 2025 auf Rekordkurs – Über 34.000 MW neue Solar- und Windleistung in neun Monaten (in German)