Why Coal Has Been So Hard to Quit in the U.S.

In the United States at least, coal is a terminal case.

While it once dominated the nation’s power grid, hundreds of units have shuttered over the last two decades and have been largely replaced by natural gas and renewables like solar and wind. More than half of the remaining coal units in the United States are slated for retirement.

But as Mira Rojanasakul and I reported today, since 2017, utilities have extended the life of nearly a third of coal units with planned retirement dates, either through delays or by reversing course and removing retirement goals entirely.

So why has coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, hung on so long in the United States? Though coal provides only about 16 percent of U.S. electricity, it still wields tremendous economic power in several states that isn’t easy to replace.

Wyoming’s coal economy

Take Wyoming, for example. The largest coal-producing state, it mines two-fifths of the nation’s coal. In 2023, 71 percent of its electricity came from coal, down from a whopping 97 percent two decades ago. As a result, the state is highly dependent on fossil revenue to fund infrastructure, schools and local government.

“Coal declines have really significant impacts on the entire Wyoming economy, not just coal-producing regions,” said Robert Godby, an economics professor at the University of Wyoming.

But what happens in Wyoming coal country can have ripple effects across the nation. In recent years, Wyoming has led efforts to keep coal relevant. In 2019, it was the first state to pass a law that made it more difficult to close coal plants; other coal states like North Dakota, Kentucky and West Virginia followed suit.

Since then, the State Legislature has created a $1.2 million fund for the governor to sue other states if they opt out of Wyoming’s coal (it hasn’t been used to date) and established some of the nation’s first carbon-capture standards.

Godby said coal production had more than halved in his state over the last decade, which he attributes largely to coal-burning plant retirements east of Wyoming, where the state sells most of its coal. Wyoming burns less than 10 percent of what it produces.

The state is now the country’s third-largest net energy supplier, after oil giant Texas and gas giant Pennsylvania. At the same time, the state’s share of renewables has climbed.

The grim economics of coal

Most experts say coal is simply uneconomical.

Every U.S. coal plant except one is more expensive to run than replacements based on renewables would be, according to a 2023 study. That sole coal generator competitive with renewables was the Dry Fork Station, a smaller plant in Gillette, Wyo. It opened in 2011 after spending roughly a quarter of the $1.3 billion it cost to build the plant on pollution control equipment, according to Global Energy Monitor, an organization that collects energy data.

“The power sector doesn’t need coal,” said Seth Feaster, a data analyst who focuses on coal at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a research firm, “but coal needs the power sector.”

The Wyoming Legislature plans to add carbon capture and sequestration technology to older plants in an effort clean up the state’s coal stations. The Jim Bridger Steam Plant, the state’s largest power plant, could add the technology by 2030. But some energy experts say the technology is currently too costly to be realistic.

“Carbon capture is a ploy to preserve coal,” Feaster said.

Wyoming customers pay a surcharge on their monthly bills to study the feasibility of carbon capture.

The Trump effect on coal

In January at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland, President Trump said “good, clean coal” could be used to fuel new power plants to meet the growing demand of artificial intelligence.

Earlier that month, Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, endorsed “clean coal” to power A.I. that was “critical to our national security.”

Most energy experts say “clean coal,” a term with no accepted definition, doesn’t yet exist. Coal is the most carbon-intensive energy source, and the burning of fossil fuels like coal is the biggest contributor to climate change.

The transition to cleaner forms of energy is well underway, even in states like Wyoming, where wind made up more than a fifth of the state’s electricity generation in 2023. Despite the growth of renewables, and despite coal’s long-term decline, some in the coal industry are optimistic that coal’s shrinking margins might shrink a little slower under Trump.

Global temperatures shatter records in January, surprising scientists

Even as much of the United States shivered under frigid conditions last month, the planet as a whole had its warmest January on record, scientists said on Thursday.

The warmth came as something of a surprise to climate researchers. It occurred during La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean, which tend to lower the globe’s average temperature, at least temporarily.

Earth’s surface has now been so warm for so much of the past two years that scientists are examining whether something else in the planet’s chemistry might have changed, something that is boosting temperatures beyond what carbon emissions alone can explain. — Raymond Zhong

Read the full article.

Workers at E.P.A.’s Office of Environmental Justice are told they may be put on leave

Employees at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice were told in a telephone meeting this week that some of them could soon be placed on administrative leave, according to four people familiar with the matter.

The move was seen as the first step in President Trump’s widely expected plan to do away with the office. On his first day back in the White House, he signed an executive order to eliminate all government programs on environmental justice, which are aimed at protecting poor and minority communities from disproportionate harm from pollution. — Coral Davenport

Read the full article.

More climate news:

• Lifesaving climate programs, including disaster-response programs, are on hold as Trump and Elon Musk target the U.S. Agency for International Development, The Washington Post reports.

• The Army Corps of Engineers has paused all permitting for well over 100 actions related to renewable energy projects across the country, Heatmap News reports.

• Also from Heatmap: Despite Trump’s efforts to roll back the Biden administration’s climate initiatives, the tax credit for electric vehicles is up and running.

• “New York City is getting rattier, thanks to climate change,” according to a new study highlighted by The City.

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