20Aug

Trump Set to Roll Back Restrictions on Coal-burning Power Plants

Via The Wall Street Journal:  The Trump administration is escalating an effort to revive the flagging U.S. coal industry with a planned move next week to replace restrictive Obama-era climate policies with new rules designed to help coal-burning plants run harder and stay open longer. The proposed new rules, which the Environmental Protection Agency plans […]
15Aug

Perspective and Optimism

Appreciating the optimism that now permeates the coal industry requires a little history. After all, context matters. Rewind to 2011, the year the Mine Health and Safety Administration (MHSA) reported a highwater mark of 143,940 coal miners. Just five years later, by the close of 2016, there were just 81,875 of those miners left employed. […]
15Aug

Bank of the West’s Climate Change Mission Fuels Coal Country Backlash

Via The Washington Times: If Al Gore started a savings-and-loan, it might look something like the climate-conscious Bank of the West, and that’s become a source of friction in the coal-mining counties of Colorado and Wyoming. State and local officials are seeking to close their accounts with the San Francisco-based bank over its recently publicized decision to withdraw […]
14Aug

The One Market That’s Sure To Help Coal

Via Forbes:  As still the world’s leading source of electricity (most critically, overwhelmingly so in all-important China and India) at 37-40% of all supply, and still generating 30% of U.S. power, coal is obviously not dead. But beyond electricity, coal is much more essential to another market than the anti-coal business may realize: the very steel that builds our cities. Apparently, […]
08Aug

An Outsized Impact

Coal miners hold a special place in America’s collective consciousness. For years, writers and pundits have tried to identify the reason for coal mining’s importance in the American imagination and American politics. Theories abound. Maybe it’s fascination with work done underground in an atmosphere so foreign from most of today’s over-air-conditioned workplaces? Maybe it’s because […]
08Aug

Coal Production – Study Paints Hopeful W.Va. Outlook

Via The Bluefield Daily Telegraph: While it is unlikely that coal production in West Virginia will ever compare again to those levels that were recorded during the industry’s heyday, there is still hope for the future. There are more coal miners working today in southern West Virginia than there were just a few years ago. Coal production levels also are increasing. […]
07Aug

Coal Industry Still Contributes Big to West Virginia

Via The Daily Mail WV:  As the coal industry continues to rebound, its overall contribution to West Virginia’s economy is nothing short of phenomenal, supporting upwards of 17 percent of the state’s total GDP. According to John Deskins, director of the West Virginia University Bureau of Business and Economic Research, the coal industry and coal-fired […]
06Aug

Coal Forum Releases Study of Coal’s Impact on West Virginia’s Economy

Via The Bluefield Daily Telegraph: The Coal Forum, a Charleston-based coal lobbying group, has released a study on the impact of coal on the West Virginia economy in 2017. The study, “The Economic Impact of Coal in West Virginia,” was completed by the Bureau of Business & Economic Research at the West Virginia University College […]
06Aug

America Needs Coal and Nuclear Power for Energy Diversity

Via The Roanoke Times: Porter is a national energy and environmental consultant, based in Atlanta. He was previously an assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In the face of rising electricity demand, Energy Secretary Rick Perry recently unveiled a plan to preserve some of the nation’s key coal and nuclear power plants. It’s […]
01Aug

Coal Retirements Could Be Lethal

Via The Herald-News: There is growing alarm over the loss of America’s baseload sources of electricity. Coal and nuclear power plants are being pushed off the grid by a three-headed monster of heavily subsidized renewable energy, the legacy effects of overzealous regulation and a glut of natural gas. Since 2010, more than 600 coal-fired generating […]