Appalachian-Area Candidates Are Campaigning To Create Clean Energy Jobs For Struggling Families

Despite Donald Trump’s promise to bring back coal, the Appalachian people are losing hope. But there’s a new promise — and it’s coming from some unexpected corners: coal country, which has office-seekers campaigning to create green energy jobs by attracting investment and retraining workers. 

The conventional wisdom is that the federal officeholders have to say coal’s comeback is just around the corner — to elect us for one more term. But it is less a regulatory issue than it is an economic one. That is, the cost of clean energies and new technologies is creating a different economic engine. And if it can happen in California, it can happen in the heart of Appalachia too. But will the entrenched incumbents ever get on board?

“The national economy is changing,” says Cathy Kunkel, who is seeking a congressional seat in West Virginia’s Second District. “From a West Virginia perspective, we can’t change that. That train has left the station. We need to manage the transition that is now underway. I certainly understand the frustrations — that livelihoods are vanishing. But if we refuse to change and keep saying no, no, no, we will get run over by this train.” 

Kunkel, a Democrat and a former energy analyst for the Institute for Energy Economics and Analysis, is not bad-mouthing coal. She wants her state to acclimate to the 21st economy — to train the workforce to build broadband and clean drinking water facilities, for starters. Rep. David McKinley, a Republican congressman from West Virginia, has a similar message. He has teamed up with a West Coast Democrat to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% by mid-century, saying climate change is the nation’s biggest challenge.

The incumbents are mostly beating the same ole drum — unable to think beyond coal. Consider Kunkel’s opponent — Rep. Alex Mooney — who took an all-expenses paid trip to Egypt when historic floods hit the state and who is now under scrutiny for allegedly misusing campaign monies for other exotic trips: Kunkel is accusing him of voting to weaken mine safety laws. Senator Shelly Moore Capito is also captive to coal — and running against a “coal miner’s daughter,” Paula Jean Swearengin. The public is clamoring for debates. While the world turns, Capito and Mooney have become too cozy and too content to bother.

Just this week, a Texas-based company called Vistra Energy said it would close its remaining coal plants in Illinois and Ohio. The people of Appalachian are tired of bad news. Since 2011, 60% of domestic coal-fired power plants – 318 out of 530 plants — have closed, says the Sierra Club. About 66 of those have been shuttered since Trump took the oath of office. 

“Vistra’s commitment to our transformation to a low-to-no-carbon future is unequivocal and offers unique opportunities for growth and innovation,” says Chief Executive Curt Morgan, said in a statement.

Markets Will Decide

The most glaring metaphor for coal’s ill-health is Robert Murray, whose company Murray Energy is emerging from bankruptcy. But Mr. Murray is now 80 and his health is failing: he uses an oxygen tank and has filed for black lung benefits, saying that his years spent underground have led to his labored breathing.

Murray also counseled Trump before he got elected to the nation’s highest office. His pitch, generally: ditch the climate change crap and allow natural gas producers to export their fuel, both of which will enliven coal again. The former takes away the incentive to retire coal plants while the latter raises natural gas prices, which makes coal more competitive. The president obliged on both accounts.

Moreover, “Carbon sequestration is a pseudonym for no coal,” Murray told this writer earlier. “It will never happen in any great quantities in the United States. Supercritical or ultra-critical will be the savior for America.” 

That’s not likely either: it cost about $1 billion to build an 800-megawatt combined-cycle natural gas plant. That’s compared to $1.4 billion for an advanced coal plant — the kind for which Murray advocates. While they are cleaner than using today’s pulverized coal plants, they are still too expensive — and would be hard-pressed to meet West Virginia Rep. McKinley’s goal of getting to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Carbon capture and sequestration is the immediate challenge and where forward-thinking leaders have set their sights.

The market will have the final say. And major coal-burning utilities have said they support clean energies such as wind and solar and they are working to reduce their CO2 levels. Among the movers: Alliant Energy LNT , American Electric Power AEP , Duke Energ DUK y, PPL Corp. PPL , Southern Compan SCCO y and Xcel Energ XEL y. 

Voters get it. That’s why they are not pouncing on Joe Biden for acknowledging reality — that new coal plants are not getting built. Nothing in his proposed policies prevent such construction. But utilities are making economic decisions and building plants that customers want at energy prices they can afford.  

"During our administration in the recovery act, I was...able to bring down the cost of renewable energy to cheaper than or as cheap as coal, and gas, and oil,” Biden said during the presidential debate. “Nobody’s going to build another coal-fired power plant in America. No one’s going to build another oil-fired plant in America. They’re going to move to renewable energy.”

In Pennsylvania, this is a hot issue. It is a state that had been reliant on old industry but it has become one that is setting the pace in the New Energy Economy. Biden is up by 9% in that state. West Virginians and Kentuckians are also starting to buy in — as evidenced by the new face of political leadership that is steering in that direction.