The market has spoken: Coal is dying
President Donald Trump has gutted regulations on the coal industry, falsely claimed that windmills cause cancer and installed a former coal lobbyist to lead the EPA.
In the face of those efforts to rescue coal country, America's aging fleet of coal-fired power plants continues to shrink. New coal plants are not getting built.
Trump's vow to rip up environmental rules has been overwhelmed by an even more powerful force: the free market. Coal just can't keep up with dirt-cheap natural gas and increasingly affordable renewables.
"It's hard to see any scenario where coal rebounds," said Joe Aldina, manager of coal research at S&P Global Platts Analytics.
Approximately 15% of America's coal fleet has been retired since 2017, the year Trump took office, according to Platts.
And that trend will probably continue. Platts expects another 10% of the coal fleet will be shuttered between 2019 and 2020. That translates to more than 100 coal-fired units at power plants.
"Coal is going to get phased out over the long term," Aldina said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-market-has-spoken-coal-is-dying/ar-AAHB3xu?li=BBnbfcL
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