If you’ve got coal, you’ve got problems ~ Buffett: Solving SA’s power conundrum in an age of clean emissions and climate change
27 November 2020
Warren Buffett, often introduced as the Oracle of Omaha, illustrated why he deserved this title by painting coal investments with a tar brush some four years ago. On 6 May 2017 he told a gathering of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that coal was unlikely to make a comeback in the United States. “If you are tied to coal, you’ve got problems; I do not think there is any question [over whether] coal is going to go down as a percentage of revenue,” he said. A telling statistic is that America’s coal industry, which employed 862 000 workers in 1923, accounted for just 81 000 jobs by 2017.