The Undisputed Champion of Backward, Costly Coal

Breaking! We have our first ever “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal”! The President received the inaugural award from the Washington Coal Club last Thursday. Really, though, we think the award should be re-named “Backward, Costly Coal.” Here’s why:

Claim: Coal is cheap.

Fact: Solar and wind have dipped well below the price of coal. In fact, a 2023 study found that it is cheaper to build AND operate new wind or solar farms in the United States than to get power from existing coal plants.

Fact: Forcing aging coal plants to stay open doesn’t make economic sense.

Propping up the coal industry – already in yearslong decline – is expensive for everyday Americans. The federal government forced Michigan’s J.H. Campbell coal plant to delay its planned retirement last May, and it has cost consumers $135 million ever since. That’s more than $500,000 each day.

In Craig, Colorado, the owners of the Craig Unit 1 coal plant are actually in favor of retiring the plant, disputing the Department of Energy’s order to keep it open. They say Craig Unit 1 is not needed for grid reliability, and that the cost of keeping it open will fall on ratepayers.

Claim: We need coal to keep up with the boom in energy demand.

Fact: Renewable energy is quickest and cheapest to deploy – that’s why 92% of new capacity added to the U.S. grid last year came from solar, wind, and storage. 

Conversely, most of the country’s coal fleet in this country was built in the 1970s and 1980s, and years of wear and tear have led to a rise in unplanned outages, per researchers at the Rocky Mountain Institute. In fact, offshore wind along the East Coast performed as well as gas plants and even better than coal during January’s big winter storm.

Claim: Coal is “clean” and “beautiful.”

Fact: Thousands of coal miners grapple with black lung disease – an irreversible illness that makes breathing difficult. It is caused by long-term exposure to coal and silica dust.

And researchers found that 460,000 deaths in the Medicare population–aged 65 and above–from 1999 to 2020 can be attributed to coal pollution.

Fact: Coal is the largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions globally. That carbon stays in the atmosphere, causing the planet to overheat dangerously.

Claim: Coal creates jobs.

Fact: Coal mining employment has shrunk significantly and, regretfully, without thoughtful planning, throwing many into social and economic upheaval. Coal communities have helped power the country for generations and deserve to be supported as we move to alternative sources of energy – a process which environmental groups call a Just Transition.

How can we strengthen and diversify local economies undergoing transition? Coal-impacted communities already have the answers we need: from providing job placement support and boosting locally-owned small businesses, to investing in essential healthcare, education, and renewable energy infrastructure.

Many communities are already charting their own paths forward:

Workers in Wayne, West Virginia are learning to install solar panels; Navajo communities and entrepreneurs near the recently closed coal-fired Navajo Generating Station in Northern Arizona are launching clean energy and sustainable tourism enterprises and partnerships; and community members from Southwest Virginia to western Colorado are creating regional food markets.

(National Economic Transition Platform)

The bottom line: Renewable energy is cheap, abundant, and creates good jobs rooted in local communities. Our dependency on dirty, expensive energy is costing us money and our health.

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Cover image by Braeson Holland via Pexels