It’s Friday, it’s hot, the world seems to be collapsing in multiple ways, so I thought I’d bring you a bit of good news for a change: Coal’s big breakdown is back. Okay, so it’s not great news for coal-company CEOs, or for the industry workers who will lose their jobs. But for the planet and all the folks who have had to live with coal mining and coal burning and all of its deleterious effects, it’s got to be a relief.
In his excellent book, Fire on the Plateau, the late, great scholar Charles Wilkinson coined the term “Big Buildup” to describe the flurry of postwar development of coal plants (and dams, uranium mining, oil and gas, etc.) on the Colorado Plateau. The Big Breakdown refers to the decline of the coal industry in the West, as big coal plants are mothballed and the mines shut down and, hopefully, reclaimed, and the air cleans itself up as a result.
The Breakdown began back in 2008, during the global financial crisis, when power consumption plummeted. The economy recovered. Coal did not — it had become more expensive than other energy alternatives and is dirtier, besides, so utilities rushed to rid themselves of the old smoke-spewing behemoths. But then, in the wake of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, coal bounced back, sparking a bit of panic among clean air lovers everywhere. And lawmakers in Utah, Wyoming, and other fossil-fuel-fetishizing states rushed to pass laws to interfere in the free market and prop up the dying industry.
Alas, it isn’t working, as today’s chart — showing both electricity consumption and coal consumption — reveals. I’ve run this chart here before, but I wanted to update y’all because I really like it. Not only does it show how the grid is getting cleaner, but also provides a nice graphic look at U.S. energy history over the last 75 years.
Credit: Jonathan P. Thompson/The Land Desk
A. Coal was the king of the Industrial Age, of course, providing power to run mines and mills and factories and trains, while also heating homes. But by the 1950s the industry was struggling somewhat, as diesel locomotives supplanted the steam ones, natural gas gained ground for heating and cooking, and huge hydroelectric dams blocked rivers across the West to generate power. As of 1955, only 10% of the Western Grid’s power was generated from coal; nearly all the rest was from hydropower.
B. Congress established the Office of Coal Research in 1960 “to encourage and stimulate the production … of coal (and to) maximize the contribution of coal to the overall energy market.”
C. The Big Buildup began in the 1960s with the construction of Four Corners Power Plant on the Navajo Nation in northwestern New Mexico. The construction and operation of the plant and adjacent mine were rife with environmental injustice.
D. The Clean Air Act passed in 1970. You might think that would be the death knell for coal, pretty much the dirtiest fuel out there. But no, it did little to slow coal-burning and it actually boosted relatively low-sulfur coal from Western mines which emits less sulfur dioxide when burned.
E. In 1973 OPEC stopped sending oil and natural gas to the U.S. and its allies to retaliate for U.S. support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Further unrest in the Middle East continued to drive up oil and natural gas prices, motivating utilities to burn more coal to generate power.
F. President Jimmy Carter took office during these crises in 1977, the same year Atlantic Richfield Company opened its Black Thunder Mine in the Powder River Basin, which would go on to become the world’s largest coal mine. Carter was a walking contradiction, boosting solar and other clean energy and public lands protections on the one hand, and going all in on coal mining and burning on the other. He pushed domestic coal to displace oil or natural gas (much of which was imported) then used to generate power. Carter also hoped to make synthetic transportation fuels from coal and oil shale and he and Congress put billions toward synfuel subsidies.
G. In 1978 Congress passed the Industrial Fuels Power Act, which basically banned the construction of any new natural gas power plants (another reaction to the energy crises). Coal was the big winner of that one.
H. Carter was also a big pusher of conservation, in rhetoric and policy, and high energy prices bolstered his cause. Electricity consumption flattened and even dropped in the 1980s for the first time in three decades. Yet coal use shot up tremendously at the same time. Under Reagan, electricity use climbed again, but coal consumption dropped. Why? Because OPEC decided to flood the market with oil, lowering oil and gas prices to make them the cheapest fossil fuels for generating electricity.
I. Congress amends the Clean Air Act to tackle the acid rain problem, especially in the East and Midwest. Instead of hurting the coal industry, however, it again gave an even bigger boost to the Western mines. The Powder River Basin solidified its status as the nation’s coal bin.
J. Peak Coal occurred in 2007. There is virtually no chance U.S. mines will ever produce or plants burn as much coal as they did that year.
K. Electricity use plummeted during the 2008 Financial Crisis and coal use dropped with it. As the economy recovered, something strange happened: Electricity use stayed fairly flat, thanks to efficiency and other measures. Coal burning started to recover, but …
L. In 2009 natural gas prices crashed after the combination of horizontal drilling and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing opened up vast stores of methane previously believed to be unrecoverable. That glutted the market with gas, making it cost-competitive with coal. Meanwhile, Democrats and even some national environmental groups were pushing natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to get from dirty coal to renewables. At the same time, oodles of solar and wind generating capacity were being brought online, in part thanks to federal incentives. All of this combined to knock King Coal off its throne. It’s been in freefall (with a blip or two) ever since due mostly to fluctuations in natural gas prices.
M. The first wave of the pandemic and measures taken to slow its spread helped Americans reduce their electricity use considerably. Because coal was one of the most expensive sources of power on the grid, utilities ditched it first, so the dirty fuel took an even bigger blow. Coal plant retirement plans accelerated and it seemed as if coal could be in its final throes.
N. But then the economy recovered along with power use. At the same time, extreme heat drove up demand for more power, hydropower waned, and utilities needed to fill the gap between supply and demand. They turned first to natural gas, which caused prices of that fuel to increase, and then to coal. Thus the Big Breakdown’s dramatic pause in 2021.
But the Big Breakdown is back on. In 2023, coal use plummeted once again. And judging by the first quarter of 2024, there will be even less use this year, even as power demand creeps higher.
“Power Madness” in America, the Big Buildup of coal, and a Senate hearing from five decades ago — JONATHAN P. THOMPSON OCTOBER 1, 2020
There’s a lot of big fires burning out there, with dozens of new starts daily across the West. The McDonald Fire in Alaska was first noticed on July 9; it’s now up to about 150,000 acres. The Cow Valley Fire in Malheur County, Oregon, has grown to 20,000 acres; it was ignited just yesterday. The Silver King Fire in Utah’s Tushar Mountains has charred through about 14,000 acres and forced the cancellation of a major gravel bike race there. There’s also the Babylon Fire south of Dark Canyon within the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument. It’s grown to about 200 acres in a remote location that, frankly, could use a little bit of therapeutic burning (thanks to our favorite fire lookout readers for tipping us off to it.) Be careful out there, folks!
📸 Parting Shot 🎞️
A datura flower in southern Utah: shy by day; flirtatious and lascivious by night. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.
