"The reality is that the economic prospects for West Coast coal exports have collapsed," Williams-Derry writes. "China's demand for coal, which once seemed limitless, has been falling for three consecutive years. India's coal imports fell last year and are projected to drop even further as the country increasingly taps domestic coal reserves to fuel its power plants. And while bad weather and shifts in Asian economic policy still cause temporary spikes in international coal prices, the futures market predicts that for most of the next five years coal prices will remain far too low for U.S. exporters to earn significant profits selling to Asia."