This article is part of ourseries on coal phase out and the G7 in 2021.You can find a full list of articles, along with the backstory of our analysis of G7 coal trends since 2015, here.
On his first day in office, President Biden signed an Executive Order to rejoin the Paris Agreement. By the end of his first week, the new Administration had issued a comprehensive plan on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, committing to cooperation with the G7 and other partners.
This was a full 180-degree turn from the actions of the Trump Presidency. It marked the start of an effort to rectify damage done to America’s international standing and reboot its domestic policies on climate and the USA’s coal transition. It was also a necessary response to the realities of the coal sector.
Despite proclaiming that ‘Trump digs coal’ and promising to put miners back to work, the reality of the previous four years was the continued structural decline of coal power generation in the US. As Figure 6 shows below, coal plant retirements accelerated in comparison to both of President Obama’s terms in office. In parallel, electricity generation from coal fell from 30% in 2016 to 19% in 2020. Meanwhile, coal miners were left without healthcare and pensions as mining companies misspent funds and entered bankruptcy proceedings. Communities continued to suffer the health impacts of air pollution and environmental injustice. All while environmental protections were removed and the Clean Power Plan abandoned.
For all the noise and political rhetoric, coal is still on its way down and out. There are zero new coal power plants under development in the USA. By our calculations, 53% of US coal capacity has either closed already since 2010 or is scheduled to close by 2030. This includes at least 63GW of capacity that already has a closure date.
A further 170GW of currently operating capacity is yet to confirm when it will retire. A continuation of recent closure rates and market trends would make a 2030 coal exit an achievable goal. Recent analysis from RMI finds that 79% of the US coal fleet is currently uneconomic compared to new renewables and storage, meaning the entire coal fleet could be replaced at a net savings of $9 billion. Similarly, multiple modelling exercises find that unabated coal power generation would indeed be offline around the end of this decade, aligned with the Biden Administration’s goal of a carbon pollution-free electricity sector no later than 2035.
