Glossary
thermal coal
thermal coal is steam coal burned in boilers to generate electricity and heat; Global Coal Exit List (GCEL) coverage records tagging: "thermal coal". In Datadory's catalog of 1,744 datasets, Global Coal Exit List (GCEL) coverage and SteelHome Database are working examples.
What is thermal coal?
Steam coal burned in boilers to generate electricity and heat, as opposed to coal used metallurgically.
Thermal coal is the exposure metric behind the Global Coal Exit List and one of the priced commodity codes in coal price APIs.
In this catalog it appears concretely: - Global Coal Exit List (GCEL) coverage (tagging) — "thermal coal". - SteelHome Database (tagging) — "thermal coal". - OilPriceAPI (what it publishes) — "Newcastle (API6), Central Appalachian, Illinois Basin, PRB, coking coal and generic thermal coal".
Why does thermal coal matter when choosing a dataset?
Conventions decide whether two sources can be joined at all. Buy one side of an analysis that ignores this convention and every reconciliation step — calendar alignment, unit conversion, entity matching — lands on your team instead of the vendor's.
The failure mode is concrete: the label appears in a listing, the delivered files tell a different story, and the gap surfaces mid-project when fixing it is most expensive.
You rarely have to take a vendor's word for it. 82.4% of the 1,744 datasets Datadory catalogs are free to access, and Global Coal Exit List (GCEL) coverage lets you inspect the real artifact before any budget is committed.
How do you evaluate thermal coal in a data source?
Treat every claim of this attribute as testable:
- Read Global Coal Exit List (GCEL) coverage's record on tagging — "thermal coal" — then confirm the delivered artifact matches before you license anything.
- Read SteelHome Database's record on tagging — "thermal coal" — then confirm the delivered artifact matches before you license anything.
- Read OilPriceAPI's record on what it publishes — "Newcastle (API6), Central Appalachian, Illinois Basin, PRB, coking coal and generic thermal coal" — then confirm the delivered artifact matches before you license anything.
See the term applied to real records: coal-consumable-fuels data, electric-utilities data.
Related terms
Adjacent concepts worth reading next: - asset level data - coal price benchmarks - coal receipts - coking coal
Frequently asked questions
What is an example of thermal coal?
Global Coal Exit List (GCEL) coverage is the clearest example in this catalog. Its record on tagging reads: "thermal coal". Across all 1,744 datasets Datadory averages a quality score of 7.81 out of 10, so a named example can be weighed rather than trusted blindly.
Is data described as "thermal coal" free to use?
Treat access and permission separately. 82.4% of the 1,744 datasets in this catalog are free to access, but 235 are freemium and 61 are paid outright, so confirm both the price and the license on the exact distribution before building on it.
How do I verify a source really provides thermal coal?
Open Global Coal Exit List (GCEL) coverage next to SteelHome Database and compare the promise with the download. Field definitions are verified for 1495 of 1,744 datasets (85.7%), which makes that check fast inside the catalog and manual outside it.
Datasets containing this field
Datasets containing thermal coal
6 datasets carry thermal coal in the catalog. Open one, count the fields, judge for yourself.
EIA Annual Coal Report (ACR)
Year · Bituminous Coal · Subbituminous Coal …+8 more
EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) — Printing Sector
YEAR · TRIFD · FACILITY NAME …+15 more
Eurostat PRODCOM Manufacturing Output (Printing Products)
freq · reporter · product …+9 more
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