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Page Updated:
May 27, 2023

• • New Zealand: Biggest Emissions
  Reduction Project in History

  It Will Use Government Funds To Transition From Coal to Electricity at New Zealand’s Largest Steel Plant
  
  

  May 21, 2023 -New Zealand has announced its largest emissions reduction project in history, transitioning from coal to renewable electricity at the country’s major steel plant in a move that the government says is equivalent to taking 300,000 cars off the road.

  The government will spend $140m on halving the coal used at Glenbrook steel plant to recycle scrap steel, replacing that generating power with an electric-powered furnace. The plant will contribute $160m to the project’s cost.

• • E.P.A.'s Crackdown on Toxic Coal Ash From Landfills

  Another Environmental Threat is Handled
  
  

  May 17, 2023 - The Biden administration is moving to close a loophole that had exempted hundreds of inactive coal ash landfills from rules designed to prevent heavy metals like mercury and arsenic from seeping into groundwater, the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday.

  Coal ash, a byproduct from burning coal in power plants, contains lead, lithium and mercury. Those metals can pollute waterways and drinking water supplies and have been linked to health effects, including cancer, birth defects and developmental delays in children. They are also toxic to fish.

• • Experts Forecast Big Drop
  in New Coal-Fired Power Plants

  It Just Doesn't Make Sense to Keep Investing In Coal
  
  

  May 10, 2023 -Our fight against climate change seems to be one step forward and two steps back. But maybe, just maybe, this time it could be two steps forward and one step back.

  By the middle of last year, countries around the world announced the construction of new coal power plants totaling 476 gigawatts. Considering how much greenhouse gas coal emits, this would make it impossible to meet the world’s climate targets. However, 50% of those projects are set to be canceled, a study found.

• • Coal Divestment Does Work!

  Now The Finance Industry Must Reject Requests For Coal Capital
  
  

  Apr. 26, 2023 - It’s clear: bank divestment from coal reduces carbon dioxide emissions. That’s because the coal industry is reliant on large amounts of capital, typically from banks. When they don’t have it, they struggle.

• • More Federal Funding For
  Pennsylvania to Combat Coal Mining's Impact

  Earlier On Fish Couldn’t Survive in the Aylesworth Reservoir Lake
  
  

  Federal funding secured in the 1990s helped to construct an acid mine drainage treatment facility about a half mile from the lake, said Bernie McGurl, the executive director of the Lackawanna River Conservation Association. It fell into disrepair and in the early 2000s was restored again with federal funding.

• • Legal Action Mooted Over Welsh
  Ffos-y-Fran Ongoing Opencast Mining

  Climate Campaigners Consider Legal Action Over Ongoing Coal Mining at the Nation's Largest Opencast Mine
  
  

  Apr. 13, 2023 -Digging for coal at Ffos-y-Fran, near Merthyr Tydfil, was supposed to stop last September after 15 years.

  The mine's operator has applied for an extension and is waiting on a decision.

• • The Toll of Coal Plants

  Earth Could Warm 3 Degrees if Nations Keep Building Them
  
  
  

  Apr. 7, 2023 -Earth is on track to significantly overshoot a critical global climate target, largely because not enough coal-fired power plants are being retired, researchers warned in two new reports. Some nations are even planning new coal projects despite promising two years ago to begin reducing their use of the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel.

• • Clean Energy Projects vs. Coal Mines

  Biden Offers $450M to Get It Done
  
  

  Apr. 5, 2023 - The Biden administration is making $450 million available for solar farms and other clean energy projects at the site of current or former coal mines, part of his efforts to combat climate change.

  As many as five projects nationwide will be funded through the 2021 infrastructure law, with at least two projects set aside for solar farms, the White House said Tuesday.

• • Kentucky Is No Leader in Renewables

  The State is Dead Last
  for Wind and Solar Production
  
  

  Mar. 31, 2023 -Andy McDonald recalls a decade-old Kentucky legislative hearing on an energy diversification bill with the same sense of frustration that he felt back then, when he testified before a panel of lawmakers who were mostly coal industry loyalists.

  McDonald, a clean energy advocate and energy policy consultant, was armed with a study by Synapse Energy Economics of Boston that made an economic case for requiring utilities to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

  Lawmakers didn't buy it.

• • U.S. Renewables Surpassed Coal in 2022

  This Was a First
  
  

  Mar. 30, 2023 -Renewables also surpassed nuclear generation in 2022 after first doing so last year.

  Growth in wind and solar significantly drove the increase in renewable energy and contributed 14% of the electricity produced domestically in 2022. Hydropower contributed 6%, and biomass and geothermal sources generated less than 1%.

• • The Coal Challenge

  Forecasts For Global Warming Assume That Developing Countries Will Quit Coal Rapidly. South Africa’s Case Shows That It Won’t Be Easy
  
  

  Mar. 3, 2023 -Getting rid of coal is often seen as the easier part of the global transition to renewable energy. Developed countries have made great strides in abandoning coal, and investors have long avoided it.

  But for some developing countries, it hasn’t been so easy. Today, I asked my colleague Lynsey Chutel, who’s based in South Africa and has been following the country’s shift to renewables, to help us understand why.

• • China is Still Moving Ahead With Coal Power

  This Is Despite the Climate Crisis
  
  

  Feb. 28, 2023 -Last year, China approved the highest number of new coal-fired power plants since 2015, according to a new report, showing how the world’s largest emitter still relies on a fossil fuel that scientists agree must be quickly phased out to address the climate crisis. China approved the construction of 106GW of coal power capacity, four times more than in 2022.

  The report, released this week by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and the Global Energy Monitor (GEM), found that 50 GW worth of coal-processing infrastructure out of the new 106 GW approved are already under construction across China.

• • Almost All Coal Plants in the US
  Are More Expensive Than New Renewables

  There's Basically No Reason
  to Cling On to Coal
  
  

  Feb. 1, 2023 -The writing is on the wall for coal power — it’s no longer just a question of environmental responsibility, but also economic viability. A new report reveals that energy from all but one coal-fired power plant in the US is more expensive than rapidly evolving solar and wind energy. Thanks to plummeting costs for renewables, the decline of the coal industry seems unavoidable.

• • Rare Earth Elements Could
  Be Pulled From Coal Waste

  The Scheme Would Provide Valuable Metals and Help Clean Up Coal Mining’s Dirty Legacy
  
  

  Jan. 20, 2023 -In Appalachia’s coal country, researchers envision turning toxic waste into treasure. The pollution left behind by abandoned mines is an untapped source of rare earth elements.

  Rare earths are a valuable set of 17 elements needed to make everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to fluorescent bulbs and lasers.

• • A Deal to Help South Africa Quit
  Coal Is a Breakthrough for the World

  The Country Has Relied Heavily On Coal For Electricity Generation
  
  

  Jan. 14, 2023 -South Africa generates 80 percent of its electricity by burning coal, more than any other industrialized nation. Some 200,000 people are directly employed by the coal mines, coal transports and coal-fired power plants that dot the flatlands east of Johannesburg, but the prosperity of the rest of the nation also rests on a foundation of black rock.

• • Thousands Protest in Germany
  Against Coal Mine Expansion

  Rain Did Not Keep the Crowd Down
  
  

  Jan. 14, 2023 -Thousands of people demonstrated in persistent rain on Saturday to protest the clearance and demolition of a village in western Germany that is due to make way for the expansion of a coal mine. There were standoffs with police as some protesters tried to reach the edge of the mine and the village itself.

  Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg joined the demonstrators as they protested the clearance of Luetzerath, walking through the nearby village of Keyenberg and past muddy fields. Protesters chanted “Every village stays” and “You are not alone.”

• •  $15.5bn Mobilised for
  Vietnam’s Coal-To-Clean Transition

  The Deal Will Help Vietnam to Peak Its Greenhouse Gas Emissions 5 Years Earlier Than Planned and More
  
  

  CLIMATE HOME NEWS, Dec. 14, 2021 -Wealthy countries and banks will provide $15.5 billion to help Vietnam transition away from coal, the UK foreign ministry announced on Wednesday.

  Half of the money is to come from governments, the Asian Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation. The rest will come from private investment co-ordinated by the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.

• • A Montana Coal Mine’s Descent Into Chaos

  The Signal Peak Mine Was Embroiled in a Web of Criminal Activity
  
  

  Jan. 13, 2023 -Larry Price Jr., a 42-year-old father of six, was an industrious businessman who ran surface operations at an underground mine, one of the nation’s largest, near Roundup, Mont.

  As night fell, a driver traveling along a state road some 20 miles away from Bluefield noticed a man on the roadside: a disheveled Mr. Price, who was rushed to a hospital. He told investigators he had been abducted by an outlaw biker gang that drugged him and took him to his motorcycle shop where they robbed him before loading him into a van and dumping him on the roadside.

  But the whole thing was staged.

• • The New UK Coal Mine

  In a Full-Fledged Climate Emergency This Is Not Helping the Cause
  
  

  -Dec. 8, 2022 - Michael Gove, a controversial British politician, has greenlighted the first new UK coal mine in decades, despite firm opposition from environmental experts, the general public, and even his own party colleagues. The coal will largely be used for exports and will add 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year — the equivalent of adding 200,000 diesel cars on the road.

• • Renewables Will Overtake Coal by Early 2025

  Says the International Energy Agency (IEA)
  
  

  Dec. 6, 2022 -Worldwide, growth in renewable power capacity is set to double by 2027, adding as much renewable power in the next five years as it did in the past two decades, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.

  Worldwide, growth in renewable power capacity is set to double by 2027, adding as much renewable power in the next five years as it did in the past two decades, the IEA said.

• • Standoff Over W.Va Devotion to Coal Power

  Prices Are Soaring
  
  

  Nov. 20, 2022 -West Virginia regulators accuse American Electric Power of driving up costs with skimpy use of its coal plants. Others say the high costs of those aging plants are a growing burden to citizens in one of the nation's poorest states.

• • Vietnam Nears $11 Billion-Plus
  Deal to Shift Economy from Coal

  Decarbonizing Power Sector, Activists Among Last Deal Hurdles
  
  

  Nov 16, 2022 - Vietnam is set to follow Indonesia and South Africa with a climate financing package of at least $11 billion to shift its economy away from coal and boost the rollout of renewable energy sources.

  Vietnam and its donor countries, led by the European Union and the UK, are aiming to announce the Just Energy Transition Partnership funding deal -- which could total as much as $14 billion -- at the EU-ASEAN summit on Dec. 14, according to people familiar to the matter.

• • Wealthy Nations Offer Indonesia
  $20 Billion to Curb Coal

  The Most Ambitious Effort Yet By the U.S and European Countries to Persuade a Developing Nation to Abandon the Dirtiest of the Fossil Fuels
  
  

  Nov 15, 2022 - Indonesia, one of the world’s largest consumers of coal, pledged to sharply reduce its reliance on the fossil fuel and speed up its transition to renewable power as part of a $20 billion climate finance deal announced on Tuesday with the United States, Japan and other developed countries.

• • South Africa's Transition From Coal

  It Could Be a Model For Other Countries
  
  

  Nov. 4, 2022 -Ahead of the U.N. climate summit in Egypt, South Africa's president announced a plan today to help the country transition away from coal-fired power plants. South Africa relies on coal for nearly 90% of its electricity. The U.S. is among several wealthy countries trying to help it switch to clean energy. The Allegheny Front's Reid Frazier reports this deal could become a model for helping other countries.

• • China Is Burning More Coal

  A Growing Climate Challenge
  
  

  Nov. 3, 2022 -China is poised to take advantage of the global urgency to tackle climate change. It is the world’s dominant manufacturer and user of solar panels and wind turbines. It leads the world in producing energy from hydroelectric dams and is building more nuclear power plants than any other country.

  But China also burns more coal than the rest of the world combined and has accelerated mining and the construction of coal-fired power plants, driving up the country’s emissions of energy-related greenhouse gases nearly 6 percent last year, the fastest pace in a decade. And China’s addiction to coal is likely to endure for years, even decades.

• • Portugal Just Shut Down
  Its Last Coal-Fired Power Plant

  It's Boldly Moving Towards 80% Renewables by 2026
  
  

  Oct. 21, 2022 -In the small town of Pego, in central Portugal some 120 kilometers (70 miles) away from Lisbon, the smoke stacks and cooling towers of the country’s longest-lived coal power plant peer towards the sky. But no smoke has been seen emerging from these stacks for one year now. The plan was shut down last November, after more than 30 years of operation.

  It was closed down eight years sooner than planned and just a few months after the Sines coal plant — and it was the last coal-fired power plant to operate in the country.

• • Lululemon Criticized for Using
  Coal-Powered Factories to Make Clothes

  Campaign Raises Complicated
  Questions About Sustainability
  And Consumerism
  
  

  Sep. 16, 2022 - Yoga apparel company lululemon is coming under scrutiny for how its clothes are made. A new campaign says that many of its products come from coal-fired factories in Asia, a fact that is inconsistent with lululemon's claims to be a sustainably-minded and ethical company.

  An open letter to Glenn K. Murphy, chairman of the board, has so far collected 1,698 signatories from 30 countries, all self-identified as either yoga students or teachers. The letter asks that lululemon commit to phasing out coal and sourcing 100% renewable energy to power its entire supply chain by 2030.

• • Hawaii Says 'Farewell' to Coal

  Hawaii Closes Its
  Last Coal-Fired Power Plant
  
  

  Sep. 2, 2022 - Hawaii shuttered its last remaining coal-fired power station on Thursday, a major milestone in the state’s ambitious effort to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.

  The station, the AES Hawaii Power Plant near Kalaeloa, in southwest Oahu, provided more than 11 percent of the state’s electricity in 2021, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

• • Earthjustice Is Suing EPA Over Coal Ash Dumps

  That Leaks Toxins Into Groundwater
  
  

  Aug. 25, 2022 -Environmental groups are suing the Environmental Protection Agency to close a gaping loophole in the agency’s rules regulating the management of coal ash dumps that have leached toxic pollutants into rivers and lakes across the country.

  The environmental advocates identified buried ash from power plants dumped in open pits in nearly 40 states, often with no liner systems to protect groundwater, or dumped in old landfills—all still unregulated by EPA.

• • Florida Utility Gets $500K
  Fine, Probation for Fatal Blast

  A 2017 Deadly Explosion at a Coal-Fired Power Plant that Killed Five Workers
  
  

  Aug. 23, 2022, -The U.S. Justice Department said in a news release Friday that Tampa Electric Co (TECO). also must adhere to a new safety compliance plan. The fine is the maximum allowed for willful Occupational Safety and Health Administration workplace rules violations such as this.

  The explosion at TECO’s Big Bend plant near Tampa happened when an effort was made using high-pressure water to clear a slag byproduct that accumulates in tanks under the coal-fired furnaces. The workers died and several more were injured when they were sprayed with molten slag that came loose.

• • Louisiana Coal Power Plant Site Closed

  A Solar Farm Replaces It
  
  

  Aug. 23, 2022, -A Louisiana utility and a New York-based renewable energy company say a big solar farm will be built near a coal-fired Louisiana plant that closed last year.

  Cleco Power and D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments LLC have a long-term agreement under which Shaw Renewable will build a 240-MW solar installation and Cleco will buy power from it, according to a news release.

  Cleco said in federal filings that if the Louisiana Public Service Commission approves the Dolet Hills Solar Project, it hopes the $250 million solar farm will provide power by 2025

• • Abandoned Mines and Poor Oversight
  Worsened Kentucky Flooding

  Have Strip Mines Playoff a Role?
  
  

  Aug. 6, 2022, -As eastern Kentuckians continue to search for missing loved ones, muck out their homes and prepare for more rain, they are beginning to ask who could be at fault for this past week's deadly flooding and whether it was a natural disaster or one caused by the coal mines that have drastically reshaped and scarred the landscape.

• • What We Learned About Coal
  Phaseout By Studying 15 Countries

  Many Countries Continue to Invest in this Highly Polluting Energy Source
  
  

  Aug. 1, 2022, -To understand why it is proving so hard to break up with coal, we worked with an international team of around 35 researchers to investigate the political economy drivers of its continued use.

  We conducted 15 country case studies on what drives coal phaseouts – and what holds them back. Drivers include lobbying by powerful interest groups, public demand for what is perceived as a source of cheap energy, or the desire to create jobs and accelerate structural change.

• • Germany is Firing Up Old Coal Plants

  Sparking Fears Climate Goals
  Will Go Up in Smoke

  Washington Post, Aug. 1, 2022 -The last coal pits around Bexbach closed a decade ago, leaving the power plant puffing plumes of pollutants as a relic of a dying regional industry.

  But now plant equipment is being repaired, contractors have come out of retirement, and manager Michael Lux is faced with a novel prospect: expanding the head count.

• • 3 Reasons US Coal Power is Disappearing

  A Supreme Court Ruling Won’t Save It
  
  

  July 28, 2022 -The U.S. coal industry chalked up a rare win this summer when the Supreme Court issued a ruling limiting the government’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. But that doesn’t mean coal-fired power plants will make a comeback.

  An economist analyzed the coal industry, including power plant construction and retirement plans. He saw three main reasons U.S. coal plants will continue to close down.


• • For Residents of Jakarta’s Port District,
  Coal Is the Neighbor No One WantsResidents, Officials and Experts Blame Dust From A Coal Storage Facility in Jakarta’s Port District For a Spate of Health Problems
  
  

  July 27, 2022 - Marunda’s residents say they have been struggling with coal dust permeating the air since 2019, after PT Karya Citra Nusantara began to expand its operation, a key distribution point for coal headed to power plants in and around Jakarta.

• • New Life For Old Coal PlantsThey Can Help Deliver Renewable Power
  
  

  July 15, 2022 -Across the country, aging and defunct coal-burning power plants are getting new lives as solar, battery and other renewable energy projects, partly because they have a decades-old feature that has become increasingly valuable: They are already wired into the power grid.

• • Colorado Regulators Approve
  Plan That Phases Out Coal by 2031Major Environmental Groups
  are Hailing This Decision
  
  

  June 22, 2022, -With a unanimous decision, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has approved Xcel’s plan to accelerate the end of coal in the state. The updated settlement—which was supported by NRDC, Sierra Club, and other parties and approved by the PUC with some modifications—is a win for the climate, Xcel customers, and coal communities.

  The now-approved plan retires the Comanche 3 coal power plant in Pueblo, Colorado, no later than January 1, 2031, bringing an end to coal in the state.

• • Dutch Join Germany, Austria, in Reverting to Coal Blame the Russian Attack on Ukraine

  France24.com, June 20, 2022 -The Netherlands said it would lift all restrictions on power stations fired by the fossil fuel, which were previously limited to just over a third of output.

  Berlin and Vienna made similar announcements on Sunday as Moscow, facing biting sanctions over Ukraine, cuts gas supplies to energy-starved Europe.

• • She Spoke Out Against Vietnam’s Plans for Coal Then She Was Arrested
  
  

  June 17, 2022 -When the Vietnamese government decided in 2016 to cut the use of coal in its next energy plan, it followed the advice of an unusual source: one of the country’s most prominent environmentalists.

  Nguy Thi Khanh was vocal about what the government had to do: She said it had to cut coal-fired power by 30,000 megawatts — equivalent to the capacity of all the coal plants in Texas and Pennsylvania. The government met her more than halfway, agreeing to a reduction of 20,000 megawatts.

  But then...

• • One Site, 95 Tons of Methane an HourIn January, a Satellite Detected 13 Plumes of Methane Coming From the Largest Russian Coal Mine
  
  

  June 14, 2022 -A remote-sensing satellite has detected one of the largest releases of methane from a single industrial site, an underground coal mine in south-central Russia. The finding is another indication of the scope of the problem of curbing emissions of methane, a potent planet-warming gas.

  Thirteen plumes of the gas were observed at the Raspadskya mine, the largest coal mine in Russia, in late January during a single pass of a satellite operated by GHGSat, a commercial emissions-monitoring firm. The total flow rate from all the plumes was estimated at about 87 metric tons (about 95 U.S. tons) an hour.

• • Rich Nations May Fork Out
  Billions to Wean Indonesia Off Coal Indonesia Seeks Help to Undo Decades of Coal Dependence, Which Still Generates About 60% of Its Electricity
  
  

  June 7, 2022 -Ever since Indonesia accelerated plans last year to achieve carbon neutrality, a parade of climate envoys from developed nations has headed to the archipelago, offering assistance and financial aid in exchange for a commitment by the world’s biggest exporter of coal by weight to phase out coal power.