Experts: Coal's decline imminent, with or without Trump's regulatory changes

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Experts: Coal’s decline imminent, with or without Trump's regulatory changes -- from @KateMishkin

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Experts: Coal’s decline imminent, with or without Trump's regulatory changes

By Kate Mishkin Staff writer 18 hrs ago

A little more than two years ago, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump came to Charleston for a rally and made a promise to West Virginia’s coal miners: ... “We’re going to put the miners back to work, we’re going to put the miners back to work. We’re gonna get those mines back open,” Trump said in 2016. ... As the Trump administration continues to promise a rebound to the coal industry by walking back Obama administration rules, experts say those regulatory rollbacks still will not prompt a resurgence of the industry.

Trump is expected to announce plans to roll back Obama-era regulations on coal-fired power plants at a Charleston rally Tuesday night, where he’s scheduled to stump for Republican West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who is running for U.S. Senate. The rally is slated to start at 7 p.m. ... The Trump administration’s rules most likely would leave it up to states to handle emission standards, giving coal plants an incentive to stay open longer. ... But those effects will not last long, experts said.

“All it does is to delay the closure or conversion of some existing coal plants,” said Michael Gerrard, who teaches environmental law and energy regulation at Columbia Law School. “If they had to comply with the Clean Power Plan as released by the Obama administration, many utilities would be required to go to more use of natural gas and renewables, so this will delay that impact.”

Despite Trump’s repeated promise to fight the “war on coal,” it is not regulations, but cheaper natural gas, that has hurt the industry, experts say. ... “Killing the Clean Power Plan will not bring coal back, because the Clean Power Plan did not kill coal. It’s still economics,” West Virginia University law professor James Van Nostrand said.
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Reach Kate Mishkin at [e-mail],

304-348-4843 or follow @katemishkin on Twitter.

[hunter]

1. Watch the world. Coal is not dying yet.

And "natural" gas isn't any better, most especially fracked gas.

If coal is the fast death, natural gas is the slow death.