According to Genscape, US coal consumption rose 10% in the past week as warmer weather, nuclear plant outages and natural gas prices influenced use of the fossil fuel.

The power industry data monitor said that use of coal for the week ended Thursday fell 8% from the same week of 2010. In the populous East including the coal dependent Midwest and Southeast, coal use rose 11% from the previous week but declined 5% YoY.

WSI Corporation weather service said that in the less populous West, which was cooler and has fewer coal fired power plants, coal use rose 8% WoW but fell 18% from the year earlier level. The weather was much hotter than usual in the East over the past week.

High temperatures drive demand for power to run air conditioning. Natural gas prompt prices have been trending higher, reducing the likelihood that dispatchers will crank gas fired plants to meet demand so more coal gets burned. More than 15,000 MW of nuclear power generation is down for maintenance, well above last year and the five-year average. Coal-fired plants tend to fill in when nuclear facilities are offline.

The weather was even warmer in 2010, feeding power demand for cooling that was even stronger than the same week of this year, Weather Insight said. Coal use swings up and down seasonally and varies from week to week and region to region, depending on electricity demand to power heaters and run air conditioners.

Coal plants produce about 50% of US electricity. Power generation accounts for more than 90% of US coal consumption. Genscape's regional indexes are calculated separately from the national index and do not always add up to the separately calculated US total.

(Sourced from Reuters)