The tide continues to go out on the coal mining industry, as CBS Moneywatch notes:
Electricity company Dayton Power & Light said on Monday it would shut down two coal-fired power plants in southern Ohio next year for economic reasons, a setback for the ailing coal industry but a victory for environmental activists.
Republican President Donald Trump promised in his election campaign to restore U.S. coal jobs that he said had been destroyed by environmental regulations put into effect by his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.
Dayton Power & Light, a subsidiary of AES Corp. (AES), said in an emailed statement that it planned to close the J.M. Stuart and Killen plants by June 2018 because they would not be “economically viable beyond mid-2018.”
Sadly, the plants employ a lot of people:
“They are by far our largest employer and it will absolutely be devastating to our community here in Ohio,” Michael Pell, president of First State Bank in Winchester, Ohio, said in a phone interview. Pell, one of several local community leaders who have lobbied to keep the plants going, has become a spokesman for Adams County on the issue. …
The plants sit at the heart of a region Trump vowed to revitalize with more jobs and greater economic security during his 2016 campaign. As part of his pledge to reinvigorate the area, Trump also said he would “bring back coal.”
It’s unfair to blame this entirely on the free market economics – part of the straw that broke these camels’ backs were environmental requirements, making it too expensive to upgrade the plants. But it’s entirely fair to shut down coal since a clean environment is essential to human health and overall prosperity. Since Trump’s campaign promises included bringing coal back to this part of Ohio, I wonder if he’ll compensate through retraining programs or some other approach.
Or if he’ll just toss them into the ocean, so to speak.
