Yeah, I think we switched to coke during the Industrial Revolution not because it's a better fuel than charcoal, but because we were running out of trees.
Coke was Abraham Darby's doing (around 1709-1710), and that was mostly to corner the market for cheap pots and kettles. There was no way for the charcoal crowd to compete on iron, and the bronze bunch - the norm for that sort of thing up to that point - was left forever in the dust.