On February 20, Hartshorne Mining Group, who owns Poplar Grove, a thermal coal mine in western Kentucky that was lauded as the first to open under Donald Trump’s pro-coal administration, filed for bankruptcy. Hartshorne then filed a lawsuit against the US government this month because they were not awarded coronavirus relief money.
A coal mine in South Tyneside that has been abandoned since 1932 will be transformed into a green energy heating system as part of a new £7 million renewable energy plan.
Just days after Austria shut its last coal power plant, Sweden has followed suit with the closure of Stockholm Exergi AB’s Värtaverket plant, two years ahead of schedule. Belgium shut down its last coal power station in 2016.
American coal generation declined 36% in March compared to the year before. With oil prices at new low levels, coal is now the most expensive fossil fuel on the planet. Reuters reports that nearly half of global coal plants will run at a loss this year. That’s all sad news for coal country, but it means that electric cars continue to get cleaner.
Coal developers risk wasting nearly $640 billion because it’s already cheaper to generate electricity from green energy than from new coal plants in all major markets, Carbon Tracker Initiative reported yesterday.
The environmental nonprofit The Nature Conservancy is working with West Virginia’s Coalfield Development Corporation to put large-scale solar energy on a decommissioned coal mine site. This would be a first in West Virginia.
The Wyoming legislature proposed a bill this week that would have penalized — yes, penalized — utility companies for using green energy to supply electricity to customers. Fortunately, the bill didn’t receive sufficient votes to advance.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) shut down its last operating unit at its Paradise Fossil Plant (pictured) in western Kentucky this week. Paradise was one of TVA’s biggest coal plants.
The TVA was created during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933 to bring power and economic development to one of the areas of the US hit hardest by the Great Depression.
The US saw a 2.1% fall in greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, according to a new report titled “Preliminary US Emissions Estimates for 2019” by independent research company Rhodium Group.
This was due to a decrease in coal plants, which resulted in an emissions drop of 190 million metric tons.
Tim Buckley, the director of energy finance studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis in Sydney, puts forward the case in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about how India is pulling away from coal and toward green energy.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are the keepers of the Doomsday Clock.
While his company spiraled into bankruptcy, Robert Murray spent tens of millions from the company coffers to pay himself, his successor, and several anti-science and anti-environment lobby groups, according to new court filings.
This money was spent at the same time as Murray is asking courts to excuse his debts to his workers, in the form of pensions and healthcare plans.
US and European insurers are now refusing to cover coal, yet the Independent reports that UK banks are still loaning money to finance new coal plants (in addition to many other global banks). Throw in new Energy of Secretary Dan Brouillette’s rather bizarre statement this week that “coal has a bright future,” and it’s apparent that the demise of coal isn’t going to be entirely straightforward.
The US Senate confirmed former deputy energy secretary Dan Brouillette to be the next energy secretary last night. Yesterday, Brouillette said that Donald Trump told him to figure out a way to boost coal.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Brouillette, who was accompanied by his predecessor, Rick Perry, said, “What the president has directed us to do is to look for different ways to utilize coal.”
Dominion Energy, Virginia’s largest energy provider, is removing a coal plant from a portfolio it is selling to consumers as “100% renewable energy” after backlash from environmental groups and businesses.
In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
The 2,400-MW Navajo Generating Station (NGS) in northeastern Arizona — the largest coal plant west of the Mississippi River — is shutting down this week.
In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
After an increase in 2018, energy-related CO2 emissions in the US are expected to decrease this year, and a drop in coal consumption is far and away the biggest reason for the change.
In today’s EGEB:
The Environmental Protection Agency, failing in their sole duty to protect the environment, has moved ahead with its plans to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, as EPA Administrator and former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler signed the final so-called “Affordable Clean Energy” rule into effect today.
US electricity generation capacity from renewable energy sources surpassed coal for the first time this April, and that gap looks to grow substantially during the next three years.