Bob Murray, the board chairman of Murray Energy, the largest privately owned — and bankrupt — US coal operator, died on Sunday at age 80. He had announced his retirement less than a week before.
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Bob Murray, ex-CEO of the now-bankrupt Murray Energy, has filed for black lung benefits, as reported today by West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Murray Energy was once the largest private coal mining company in the US, and Murray, who spent decades as a coal miner himself, is currently dying of black lung.
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The Polish government announced on Tuesday that it would be making a major pivot away from coal and toward green and nuclear energy. Here’s why.
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In its first corporate sustainability report, the federally owned utility Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) says it’s on track to reduce emissions by 70% below 2005 levels by 2030.
But on Monday, Donald Trump fired two members of its board of directors, including its chair, on the grounds that it’s hiring low-cost foreign labor. The TVA says that’s not true. So what’s really going on?
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Green energy, which includes wind, solar, hydro, and bioenergy, has generated 40% of European Union electricity for the first time in 2020, compared to fossil fuels generating 34%, independent think-tank Ember said in a half-yearly report.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres yesterday urged countries to stop financing coal and pledge not to build new coal-fired power plants. Guterres made his statements at an online summit hosted by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which drew over a half-million online viewers.
Out of Spain’s 15 coal-fired plants, seven ceased operations on June 30. Four more will soon follow, putting Spain on track to ultimately become coal-free. The country closed all its coal mines two and a half years ago as a result of the European Union banning their state aid.
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):