I was afraid that the new administration would follow through on its promise to increase American coal use and extraction. Fortunately, it has not.

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/coal.php

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/westmoreland-chapter-11-mar...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mission-coal-bankruptcy-marks-5...

Wait, are you saying Trump lied to them?

It's not a lie if you believe your own bluster.

Pro-coal government action in other countries has managed to delay and diminish coal retirements there, so I wouldn't consider it impossible that it could happen in the USA too. I'm grateful that the economics are so steeply tilted against coal in the USA and that few politicians appear to have the stomach for large direct subsidies to keep coal plants profitable here.

I was under the impression that we've "done well" because natural gas generation has come online like crazy and proves more economical than coal and INCIDENTALLY cleaner to burn.

I'm not sure how long (absent intelligent policy) til we hit peak natural gas and the balance naturally shifts back towards dirty energy sources.

I.e. policy helps, but economics had as much to do with it

Solar power and large scale battery storage are still dropping in price though - I would assume that by the time we hit peak natural gas, the more dirty energy sources will not be economically attractive as solar will be simply cheaper even without any incentives.

Fracked gas is about as bad as or dirtier than coal.

Yeah - no.

Coal CO2 emissions are almost double natgas' [1]. While it is true that natgas is mainly CH4, a highly potent GG, its atmospheric lifetime is about 8 yrs. Further, the only way the methane would be getting into the air is via leaks in upstream/midstream processes. Today, hardly any of this leaks (EPA estimates leak rate of 1.4%).

Now addressing fracking, the drilling and fracturing process are the cause of little to no environmental impact/damage. The culprit is wastewater injection. This is the unknown, and while the EPA found no evidence of widespread or systemic pollution of water resources due to the fracking process (which includes WWI before the well is capped), it did highlight the potential in several stages of production for contamination to occur.

Now that said, the damage natgas causes, from E&P (especially) to burn, pales in comparison to coal's at any stage.

I think it would be beneficial for HN users to spend some time in the energy industry before making baseless claims.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=73&t=11

Baseless? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13053040

That study starts with the ridiculous assumption of a 3.6 -7.9% leak rate in fracked gas. By their own admission, the data they used was spotty for leak rates during drill completion, and transport. Study is also outdated (2011) with regards to technological improvements of frack wells.

A leak rate confirmed by NOAA and Lawrence Berkeley: https://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/01/natural-gas-production-...

There's also a defence of the original study https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0401-0#...

Source? That sound very unlikely, unless we are talking about CO2 only. But then keep in mind the total CO2 emissions. Coal needs more workers, more machines and more transportation.

Even with a lot of political will to increase coal, the economics won't permit it. Natural gas, and now renewables in many circumstances, are the clear economic winners.

And the reason it was falling is natural gas / hydraulic fracking, which emits far less carbon for the energy produced.

The EPA can lay claim to many environmental successes, but this isn't one of them.

The main reason it is falling is because of natural gas substituting for coal in the power sector and that will continue to happen due to the low prices for natural gas.

That's just angsting about short term partisan politics. The trends remain positive for the longer term. Don't let whatever Trump says this week blind you to the long term.

Trends are whatever people make them and many people don't appreciate both the fragility and reversibility of "progress".

Things don't just work out, they get worked out. Telling people to stop worrying, relax and become lazy and complacent is extremely counterproductive.

I'm not saying to "relax and become lazy and complacent". I'm saying that attitude that nothing can be done, because we happen to have a crap president at the moment, is far more counterproductive.

Yes, the EPA is taking a beating. But within my lifetime, the EPA didn't even exist. We did something about it. The EPA can and will be rebuilt. The benefits of solar/wind power are real market benefits, and will triumph, despite the desperate resistance of the coal industry. Etc.

Do you think the United States is capable of reliably thinking about the long term and electing a President that does the same? As long as the planet can be impacted in such a large way by myopic leaders, I don't see what can be done.

We don't need all of them to be sober, responsible thinkers. Just a majority of them.