Coal in the News

30Jan

DOE Fossil Head: New US Coal Plants ‘Quite Possible’

Via Utility Dive: Winberg’s Monday comments reflect a broad campaign at the Department of Energy to revive domestic coal generation, which has been battered by competition from natural gas and renewable resources. Late last year, DOE launched the Coal FIRST (Flexible, Innovative, Resilient, Small and Transformative) initiative, which seeks to design smaller, more flexible coal plants. This […]
30Jan

Rick Perry Braces for Outages from the Polar Vortex

Via The Washington Examiner:  Energy Secretary Rick Perry spoke with top energy security officials Tuesday as a deep freeze gripped the eastern half of the United States. Perry tweeted that he received an update from Karen Evans, the assistant secretary of the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, known as CESER, on the […]
18Jan

New York’s Plan to Kill Coal Is Already Boosting Power Prices

Via Bloomberg:  New York’s plan to put the state’s last coal-fired power plants out of business hasn’t even been approved yet and electricity is already trading like they’re shut. The price of power in 2021 in New York City and other regions surged more than 30 percent beginning in May. The only major difference between […]
10Jan

Coal Enters a New Era in 2019

Via TheSourthern.com: For those who follow energy policy in the United States, these are intriguing times. A number of significant changes are under way, with natural gas occupying a newfound prominence in electricity generation. Some older coal plants are being retired, too. And more utilities are exploring wind and solar even as nuclear power continues […]
02Jan

PJM Delineates the Value of Coal in America

Via Real Clear Energy: Serving 13 states and Washington, D.C. (a total of 65 million people), the PJM Interconnection recently concluded that serious problems could arise in five years under a scenario where the rapid, large-scale closures of coal and nuclear plants (baseload 24/7 sources) are exposed by fuel supply issues and an extreme weather event, such as […]
28Dec

Long Overdue Proposed Revisions to MATS Regulation Welcome, Highlight the Damage of Prior Government Overreach

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced it will reassess the punitive and unbalanced Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), the National Mining Association (NMA) said today. “We welcome the agency’s proposal to revisit what stands as perhaps the largest regulatory accounting fraud perpetrated on American consumers,” said Hal Quinn, NMA President and CEO. “By […]
21Dec

Let’s Not Pollute our Waterways with Unnecessary Federal Regulation

Via Inside Sources: Is it possible to have cleaner waterways across the country and, at the same time, less federal regulation?  Fortunately, for a wide swath of the economy — from farming to mining, home building to construction — the answer is yes.  Not just any water quality policy will accomplish these twin goals, however.  […]
13Dec

Trump Rolls Back Anti-Coal Mandate at EPA — Here’s Why It’s Reasonable

Via LifeZette: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2015 mandated the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) for any future U.S. coal plants. This effectively blocked the development of new coal units, since CCS is not yet commercially viable. In effect, the EPA’s decision was another example of federal overreach designed to further limit […]
12Dec

America’s Increasingly Fragile Electric Grid

Via The Washington Times: One of the lesser known economic successes of the modern era is the U.S. electric grid. For the most part, enough electricity-generating capacity to meet the nation’s power needs is available at the flip of a switch. America’s power plants continue to perform at high levels of safety and reliability. The […]
11Dec

Proposed WOTUS Definition Provides Regulatory Certainty and Recognizes States’ Key Role in Protecting Water Resources

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) proposed definition of “waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) provides long-overdue clarity regarding the scope of federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction, and restores the appropriate balance between state and federal authority over waterways, the National Mining Association (NMA) said today. “States have an important role […]