... Yet there is a definite price advantage: U.S. coal prices are equal to $1.98 for each million British thermal units of energy, compared with $12.51 for fuel oil and $6.91 for natural gas, data compiled by Bloomberg show. A million British thermal units is the equivalent of eight gallons, or 30 liters, of gasoline.

"There is a huge advantage with coal, and this will continue indefinitely," said Gianfilippo Mancini, the head of fuel purchasing for Enel, the largest Italian power company, which is spending €4 billion, or $5.8 billion, to convert oil-fed plants to run on coal.

... Still, U.S. coal exports to Europe for the first nine months of this year were 11.4 million tons, up 15 percent from the same period in 2006, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

... More than 1,000 coal-fed power plants will be built in the next five years, mostly in China and India, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. China, the world's biggest coal producer, became a net importer for the first time this year, taking supplies from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa and reducing the amount available for Europe.

1,000?! China, as readers know, is building 100 750MW plants a year and may accelerate slowly, but India is, so far, very far behind that rate of growth.  Then again, India, almost as big as the giant, is a great deal behind China and has much farther to go to bring reasonably levels of available electricity to its vast population - so, if the political and infrastructure issues were quickly resolved, it's not inconceivable that they could build 400-500 plants by 2013 - perhaps in concentrations of their famous "super ultra-mega" 10-20GW projects.  Or perhaps they build larger numbers of smaller capacity plants.