Five ways to clean up in coal

The fuel of the short-term future isn't natural gas, uranium or even solar power. It's coal. Here's why - and here are five companies that are set to benefit.

The fuel of the future, says Jim Jubak on Moneycentral.msn.com, is not natural gas. Nor is it uranium, solar power, wind or fuel cells (all of which sound good, but don't really deliver). Instead, "for the next five years anyway", it is coal.

Why? Because unlike everything else, coal is cheap and plentiful and its supply is not in any way dependent on the political stability ofthe Middle East. As Wilbur Ross tells Andy Serwer on CNNMoney.com, the US has more coal "than the rest of the world has oil". No wonder then that the Department of Energy is projecting a 73% increase in consumption in the US from 1.1 billion short tons in 2004 to 1.9 billion in 2030.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Charlie Gibson

Charles has previously written for the MoneyWeek, giving readers his share tips regularly and covering other topics on the side such as stock markets and the economy. He has also written for The Business, Shares, Investors Chronicle and The Evening Standard, and Charles has presented on LBC and been a guest on BBC One and BBC World. Aside from his journalist background, Charles graduated as a chemist from the University of Oxford specialising in ligand gated ion channels.