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Faltering Wyoming Coal Industry Bets on Emissions Capture Breakthrough

Steve Baragona

   GILLETTE, WYOMING - It was a sobering moment this July 1 in Gillette,
   Wyoming, when two of the largest coal mines in the country closed in
   midshift.

   Melissa Peterson Worden was one of about 600 people who lost their jobs
   that day, when the nation's sixth-largest coal mining company,
   Blackjewel, abruptly went out of business.

   "It is the thing they said would never happen," Worden said. "And it
   happened."

   Blackjewel had applied for bankruptcy protection that morning. But the
   company couldn't get funding to keep the mines running while courts
   sorted out its finances. So the mines closed that afternoon. They
   haven't opened since.

   Blackjewel's bankruptcy underscores the paradigm shift taking place in
   the electric power industry. In just the last decade or so, more than
   half of the nation's 530 coal-fired power plants have shut down or
   announced plans to do so as cheaper, cleaner alternatives have moved
   in, [1]according to the Sierra Club.

References

   1. https://content.sierraclub.org/coal/victories

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