Gov. John Hickenlooper has pledged that Colorado will comply with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, but this effort to cut so-called “CO2 pollution” could come at a dear price to the state’s coal industry.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave states some latitude in creating their own rules to meet the goal of decreasing carbon dioxide production by 30 percent from 2005 levels by the year 2030. Despite the timeline, such severe rules threaten the ongoing operation of Colorado’s coal-powered electricity plants.
According to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) website, Colorado is among the top states in coal production and consumption. In the year 2013, 64 percent of energy produced in Colorado came from coal, 20 percent from natural gas, and around 15 percent from various renewables including hydroelectric, biomass, solar and wind.
The history of Colorado’s coal mining industry stretches over the past two centuries. Not to mention, coal jobs have a multiplier effect of about 1:4–for every coal job created, four other jobs are created to support it. In a 2012 report by the National Mining Association, it was indicated that over 17,000 actual coal jobs in Colorado have resulted in an overall contribution of around 74,000 total jobs.
Colorado, like other states complying with the EPA clean power plan, has formulated government mandates for renewable power, which is a less direct but equally deadly assault on coal.
...Without an expansion of coal exports to other nations, Colorado’s long-standing mines also face a bleak future. A 2014 USA Today article reported that U.S. exports of coal are plunging while imports from countries, such as Indonesia and Columbia, are rising dramatically. This trend seems to go against the grain of EPA clean power goals since the domestic coal industry has invested billions of dollars into the production and marketing of clean coal and clean coal technologies.
The Colowyo mine saga in Northwestern Colorado may be the best example of the government’s two-pronged assault on both coal production and coal-generated electricity...
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