International Association for Energy Economics | 37 The Increasing Role of Coal in the Energy Balance of APEC Economies for the Period till 2040

With the continuation of economic turbulence, APEC is needed a stable energy supply of energy to continue achieving fairly high economic growth, in the long run. The region faces some significant en-ergy challenges even in the period of non-tight oil and gas markets we observed in late 2014-early 2015. Too many uncertainties including constraints on infrastructure to deliver energy sources to the market, geopolitical instability in some key energy exporting regions and threats of possible natural disasters bringing acute misbalance of supply of certain energy sources have all resulted. Coal with development of clean coal technology and more efficient coal production and utilization is becoming an energy source which allow to provide the stability on energy markets in the APEC econo-mies, taking into consideration that coal has the advantages of being widely available and relatively inexpensive in many APEC economies. With the primary objective of the Asia Pacific Energy Centre (APERC) to conduct studies to foster un-derstanding among APEC members of regional energy outlook, market developments and policy issues, in 2014-2015 APERC has conducted the 6th edition of the APEC Energy Demand and Supply Outlook, representing a 28 year look-ahead (2012-2040) assuming business-as-usual and several alternative cases. This study summarizes findings of the Outlook on development of coal industry and it includes a