The Economics of Coal Was Put to the Test.  Spoiler Alert: It Failed. 

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again – English Nursery Rhyme

Here’s an article for the few remaining believers in the U.S. coal industry, a group probably limited in scope to some subset of Trump supporters in the Eastern Central part of the U.S.  It’s also a good read for everyone who may be wondering about the most probable trajectory for coal vs. clean energy now, and in the coming years. 

It’s the story of the Sunflower Electric Power Corporation’s project in Holcomb, Kansas, deemed just a few months ago to be the last real opportunity in the U.S. for the expansion of coal.  For about a decade, the principal backers of the project, Tristate, fought environmental groups like the Sierra Club in an attempt to add 895 MW in capacity, and had apparently won.  Just last March, in the context of the evaporating environmental restrictions that characterize the Trump administration, the owners received a key air permit, making Holcomb known as “perhaps the most likely prospect for a major new coal plant in the United States.”

Moving forward to today, however, just a few months later, Tristate admits that it’s extremely unlikely the project will go forward, “assessing the probability of us (sic) entering into construction for the Holcomb Expansion as remote.”

As is the case all over the world, the culprit behind the demise of the fossil fuel empire had nothing to do with our concern for our physical health and that of our environment; it had everything to do with the forces of pure market-based energy economics; the Holcomb deal was crushed by the financial pressure brought to bear on it by cheap wind and natural gas.

This is a wonderful example of the fact that there is no force on Earth, regardless of how greedy and malevolent, that can bring coal back into relevance in the future of U.S. energy. In this case, Tristate got exactly what they wanted in terms of favorable permitting–and still couldn’t make it happen.

Given that Humpty Dumpty is down for the count, where do we go from here?  In the central part of the country, the answer is clear: more wind, with more energy storage to keep it there, or transmission to get it out.