Coal Atlas

Coal is an important part of India’s energy mix. Local production is not enough: strong demand is attracting imports from Australia and elsewhere. However, India has huge potential for renewable energy.

Coal is one of the dirtiest industries in Russia. Apart from hydropower, renewable energy is practically non-existent. Civil society groups that might push for more sustainable sources of power are few and far between.

Germany is phasing out nuclear power and has come to rely more on coal for its electricity. Despite a steep rise in renewable energy, the use of coal is endangering Germany’s ambitious target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

The US coal industry is losing market share to gas and renewables. The nation’s dirtiest fuel is giving way to cleaner alternatives. A chapter from the Coal Atlas.

Coal is the fuel that powered the Industrial Revolution and the transformation of economies and societies over the last two centuries. Its benefits have been huge – while the damage it has wrought was ignored for too long.

Protests against strip mining and coal power are gaining support from left-wing groups. Stefanie Groll and Simon Straub explore the chances of a new alliance.

The coal industry uses taxpayers’ money to keep its prices low – and it does not compensate for the costs of climate change or disease. A brief look at the scale of the problem. A chapter from the Coal Atlas.

Around the world, people are fighting back against the coal industry. Theyface repression, harassment and violence – but sometimes they are successful. A chapter from the Coal Atlas.

The Coal Atlas is available in a printed version, in PDF, epub, mobi format and as an online dossier. All graphics and texts are under the open Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA: You can share and adapt the work in compliance with these conditions. All graphics can be found in different formats and can be downloaded here.

With the promise of “clean coal”, the industry intends to store carbon dioxide underground. However, this method of dealing with the climate crisis fails for both technical and economic reasons.