Wired

During the presidential campaign last fall, a single message was repeated endlessly in Appalachian coal country: President Barack Obama and his Environmental Protection Agency, critics said, had declared a “war on coal” that was shuttering U.S. coal-fired power plants and putting coal miners out of work. Not so, according to a detailed analysis of coal plant finances and economics presented Feb. 17 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Instead, coal is losing its battle with other power sources mostly on its merits.