Look at this chart for a coal company[1]. It's already been almost dead and a major chunk of the coal GHG emissions are already cut way back (albeit at the expense of natural gas emissions).
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ACI+Interactive#{"range":...
1949-2011: http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/sec7_9.pdf
2008-2014Q2: http://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/pdf/t32p01p1.pd...
Unfortunately, it doesn't back up your claim at all that it's "almost dead"... It looks like we're about 18% off from the peak in 2007.
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=1&pi...
Sorry if it wasn't obvious, but coal companies have to make money. They are at the point now where they are on the verge of being wiped out by natural gas.
It will reach a point where coal makes absolutely no sense to invest in and the game will stop there. It's already at the point where nobody in their right mind is putting money into new large coal prospects.
http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/HNRG
A single company's stock production does not indicate the state of coal any more than Gateway's stock chart represents the state of technology.
It's a bit daft to point to a company that has a pretty be hedge against the decline of coal.
I pointed to ACI because they mostly depend on coal sales in the US so it's a pretty nice reflection of the US domestic coal market.
In the ten year period between 2002 and 2012 (the only figure I have the most recent numbers for) coal consumption went from 5 and a half billion tons to over 8 billion tons, and it's slated to hit 9 billion tons by 2019.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=73&t=11
That is already a big win.