Coal news and updates

President-elect Donald Trump promised repeatedly throughout his campaign that he would revive the coal industry, billing himself as the “last shot for the miners.” And in traditional mining areas—think parts of West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania—Trump defeated rival Hillary Clinton by large margins. But policymakers on both sides of the aisle say they cannot envision any way for Trump to save the coal industry, whose decline they attribute as much to market forces as Obama-era regulation.

 

Just a decade ago coal provided half of the energy used for power generation in the U.S., but fracking now fracking has driven a boom in the country’s supply of natural gas and made it a cheaper alternative in most cases. And, with cost in mind, utility companies have made the switch even in places without regulation pushing them to do so. Last year, natural gas and coal-fired power plants each provided about a third of the country’s power supply, according to an Energy Information Administration (EIA) report. Total coal production in U.S. mines declined to about 900 millions last year, only three-quarters of production in 2008, according to EIA data.

SOurce: TIme.Com