More Coal Power Plants Have Closed In Less Than 2 Yrs Of Trump Than In 8 Years Of Obama

The last time U.S. coal consumption was this low, Jimmy Carter was president. Despite campaigning on a pledge to save the dirtiest of fossil fuels, President Donald Trump has presided over a faster rate of coal plant retirements in his first two years than President Barack Obama saw in his entire first term.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that while 15 gigawatts of coal-fired plants were shut down in Obama’s first four years, Trump’s first two years have seen some 20 gigawatts retired (with more than two thirds of those occurring last year). As a result, U.S. coal use dropped 4 percent in 2018 to a level not seen since 1979, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

In fact, the EIA now projects that the decline in coal consumption will speed up in 2019 — with power sector coal use forecast to drop a whopping 8 percent this year. So what went wrong? After all, Trump had said he would end Obama’s supposed “war on coal.”

The answer is there never was any such war. The fundamental problem for coal was — and still is — economics, not politics. Indeed, as one leading industry analyst explained back in May, “the economics of coal have gotten worse” under Trump.


Ed. - Emphasis added.

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https://thinkprogress.org/more-coal-plants-shut-down-in-trumps-first-two-years-than-in-obamas-entire-first-term-e6b72f354330/