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Originally Posted by oil pan 4
While it seems all the other major energy consuming countries are increasing coal use, most notably Germany, japan and china the US is not.
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I don't know about the quality of coal there in the U.S., but here in Brazil most of local coal reserves have too much sulphur contamination to be safe for steel production, so it's rather used for power generation (with some ashes being used for cement production) while coal with a higher purity is imported from South Africa for steel production.
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For Germany I blame Russian collusion. Because if the Russians can convince Germans that nuclear is dangerous and that coal and natural gas are safe then Germany becomes dependent upon russia for most of its energy needs.
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Germans are usually quite stubborn. But anyway, German nukes are way safer than Chernobyl used to be. Even the Angra I and Angra II powerplants installed in Brazil, resorting to some obsolete German designs (IIRC the Angra I reactor was imported already as a second-hand unit), have more safeguard measures than Chernobyl.