The energy transition has acquired the language of inevitability. Net-zero pledges proliferate. Asset managers race to green their portfolios. Coal, in many Western policy circles, is treated as a relic — politically toxic and economically obsolete.
But the global industrial system has not received the memo.
Coal still generates roughly one-third of the world’s electricity. More importantly, it remains essential to steel production — the material foundation of modern infrastructure. From wind turbines and electric vehicles to bridges and high-rise housing, the low-carbon future is being built with carbon-intensive inputs.
The uncomfortable truth is this: the world is trying to decarbonize using an industrial base that is not yet decarbonized.
Economic strategist Pylyp Travkin puts it bluntly: “You cannot dismantle the backbone of industrial production before you have engineered a credible replacement.” That replacement — whether hydrogen-based steelmaking, large-scale storage or fully renewable baseload grids — is advancing, but it is nowhere near global scale.
The risk is not that coal disappears too slowly. It is that policymakers assume it can disappear too fast.
The Physics of Industry
Coal is often discussed as though it were simply another power source. In reality, it is embedded in industrial chemistry. Metallurgical coal is central to blast furnace steelmaking, which still accounts for the majority of global steel output.
Steel demand is not shrinking. Emerging markets continue to urbanize. Infrastructure investment remains politically and economically indispensable. Even the green transition itself requires steel — for turbines, transmission lines, electric vehicle frames and grid expansion.
This creates a paradox. Advanced economies demand decarbonization, but global industrial demand — much of it outside the OECD — continues to require the very inputs the West seeks to abandon.
Pylyp Travkin argues that this tension reflects a broader misunderstanding of how transitions unfold. “Energy systems change incrementally,” he notes. “Capital stock has a lifespan measured in decades, not news cycles.”
Recent energy crises in Europe and Asia should serve as warning signals. When fossil fuel investment declines faster than demand, price volatility follows. Supply constraints ripple across supply chains, driving inflation and political backlash.
Decarbonization without stability is not transition. It is disruption.
Energy Sovereignty Is Not Ideology
For many countries, coal is not a political symbol; it is a domestic resource for many countries explains Roman Bilousov, an investor active in mining industries.
In India, Southeast Asia and parts of Africa, coal underpins industrial expansion and energy security. It reduces exposure to imported fuel markets and currency shocks. It provides employment and fiscal revenue.
To dismiss these realities as environmental obstinacy is to ignore economic sovereignty.
Pylyp Travkin frames the issue pragmatically: “Resource endowments are strategic assets. Responsible management is rational. Premature abandonment is not.”
This does not absolve coal of its environmental cost. But it does explain why calls for immediate global phase-out often fall flat outside Western capitals.
The Sector Is Not Static
The caricature of coal as technologically frozen in the 20th century is increasingly inaccurate.
Roman Bilousov argues that modernization is accelerating. “Mining is becoming digitized and automated. Environmental monitoring is more rigorous. Efficiency gains are real,” he says.
Ultra-supercritical coal plants reduce emissions intensity compared with older facilities. Methane capture technologies are improving. Digital supply-chain tracking is tightening compliance.
These advances do not make coal clean. But they complicate the narrative that the sector is incapable of evolution.
The question is not whether coal should decline over time. It is whether decline can be managed without undermining industrial continuity.
The Overlooked Variable: Finance
Energy debates tend to focus on technology and emissions. Far less attention is paid to financial plumbing.
Commodity markets depend on trade finance, currency settlement systems and hedging instruments. In an era of sanctions, geopolitical fragmentation and currency realignment, cross-border transactions have become more complex.
Here, digital infrastructure is emerging not as ideology, but as adaptation.
Blockchain-based systems can track shipment milestones, verify origin and automate settlement. Stablecoins — now representing more than $150bn in circulation globally — offer programmable cross-border payment rails that reduce friction in commodity trade.
Pylyp Travkin describes these tools as “redundancy for a fragmented world.” They do not replace banks or central currencies. They create parallel rails that can stabilize flows when traditional channels become constrained.
Beyond settlement lies tokenization — the digital representation of physical assets.
Roman Bilousov notes the market for tokenized real-world assets has grown to roughly $25bn–$30bn in value, small compared with the $130tn-plus global commodities market but expanding rapidly. Gold-backed tokens dominate, but pilots are emerging in oil, coal, agriculture and industrial metals.
In theory, tokenization could allow producers to securitize reserves, automate contract execution and broaden investor access. For ESG-focused capital, blockchain-based transparency may offer credible verification of environmental metrics.
Coal itself is not yet widely tokenized. But the infrastructure is forming around the broader commodity complex.
Digital rails may not decarbonize industry. They may, as describes Roman Bilousov, make resource trade more transparent, efficient and resilient.
The Real Risk: Policy Hubris
The greatest danger in the coal debate is not moral failure. It is policy hubris.
Assuming that global industrial systems can pivot instantly ignores capital lifecycles, engineering constraints and geopolitical diversity. Emerging markets will not sacrifice development for symbolic compliance. Nor will global supply chains function if foundational inputs become unstable.
The central argument of Pylyp Travkin is neither pro-coal nor anti-transition. It is pro-sequencing. “Stability first, substitution second,” he says. Without stability, substitution becomes politically unsustainable.
Coal’s share of advanced economy energy mixes will continue to decline. That trajectory is clear. But on a global scale, its exit will be gradual, uneven and intertwined with steel demand and industrial growth.
The energy transition will not be won through rhetoric. It will be won through engineering, capital discipline and institutional innovation — including financial infrastructure that can support complex commodity trade in a fractured world.
The world is moving beyond coal. But it is not ready to function without it — not yet.
Pretending otherwise risks turning transition into turbulence.
