I am admittedly guilty of this, but the relevant question is not which fuel (or tech) is best.  It is rather "what do we need to do to get more useful energy out of every Btu of primary energy?"  Whether we do that by extracting solar and wind power, by chasing energy efficiency or through hybrid vehicles, those are all good paths.  But building inefficient, central coal/gas/oil/nuclear plants that is unnecessarily expensive, unnecessarily dirty and accelerates the depletion of resources is stupid.  Notwithstanding the fact that it's the standard approach.

The price of coal has doubled on the spot market in the last few months. Most coal companies now are bound by long term contracts.

When the long term contracts expire and as new ones are entered into, watch and see how cheap coal really is!

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

This is also true for distribution utilities that currently have the benefit of long-term power contracts with wholesale suppliers that are "underwater" at current prices.

But keep in mind that even though the price of coal as a fuel is up dramatically, the majority of the costs of a new coal plant are capital recovery.  So the big spike in prices is coming not because of fuel price fluctuation (which will always have a certain degree of volatility) but because of capital costs that are innate to building Clean Air Act-compliant coal plants.