The Sun Is Finally Setting on Coal Power in the U.S.

In 1990, coal provided almost 1.6 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity in the U.S., more than half of all that was generated. By 2022, that number had dipped to 829 billion, and the dirty rocks accounted for only about 20 percent of the total. If a new rule from the Biden administration takes effect as planned, it won’t be long before that number falls to zero.

The rule requires that all existing coal-fired power plants, as well as any new natural gas plants, cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent by 2039. This is effectively a death sentence.

In theory a coal plant could install carbon capture tech or reduce emissions by other means, but that remains an expensive and unproven concept that is almost guaranteed to play little role in propping up the dirtiest fossil fuel. Instead, the 200 or so still-operating coal plants will join the 300-plus that have already retired over the last couple of decades, consigned to the dustiest bin of history.

The Environmental Protection Agency actually issued four new regulations in total, with rules limiting mercury emissions, reducing coal plant wastewater discharges, and better management of dangerous coal ash joining the signature greenhouse gas emissions regulation.

Coal has been on its way out for some time, regardless of EPA regulations. The market has already made other fuels, including both solar and wind power as well as natural gas — which now dominates U.S. power generation — much cheaper. Along with widespread activism and advocacy to move away from a fuel that not only poisons the climate but also any people who happen to live nearby, that led the steady decline in coal’s place on the electric grid. Though the Trump administration undid some Obama-era efforts to nudge this process along, even that couldn’t stop the decline.

Today’s move, if it stands — there will be legal challenges from Republicans and the coal industry, of course — could be the final proverbial nail in coal’s coffin.

Environmental groups hailed the move in unequivocal terms. “The Biden Administration is taking historic and decisive action to protect our health, our clean air and water, and safeguard our collective future,” the Sierra Club’s executive director Ben Jealous said in a statement. “Today is the culmination of years of advocacy for common-sense safeguards that will have a direct impact on communities long forced to suffer in the shadow of the dirtiest power plants in the country.”

The EPA estimated that the new rules will prevent the emission of 1.38 billion tons of carbon dioxide through 2047, equivalent to taking 328 million gas-powered cars off the road every year. They will also provide $370 billion in “climate and public health net benefits,” and avoid up to 1,200 premature deaths.

The move could help tip the balance back in Biden’s favor where it comes to climate change and young voters. His checkered record on the issue has been a source of tension, but youth groups are on board today. “The EPA’s new power plant regulations are a game-changer,” the Sunrise Movement’s communications director Stevie O’Hanlon in a statement — that’s the same group that said Biden’s decision on the Willow oil project in Alaska “abandons” young voters. “These regulations are the kind of bold action that young people have been fighting for.”