The use of Coal cooling.

While Murray Energy blames Obama for the coal industries problems, laying off 165 workers in protest, surely he must be aware of the real problem. I think the buggy industry went through something like this once…

Reuters: A new report on the economic viability of U.S. coal-fired power plants shows as much as 59,000 megawatts may be ripe to retire in the next few years, the Union of Concerned Scientists said on Tuesday. UCS said between 153 coal units, and 353 coal units in 31 states, would no longer be economical and therefore, candidates to be shut.

"Our analysis shows that many of these ripe-for-retirement units may already be uneconomic even before considering the cost of pollution controls," UCS said, estimating that even without new pollution controls, "23,400 MW are already more expensive to operate than existing natural gas plants."

Coal-plant output has been declining for several years as new pollution standards were formulated and gas prices plunged to the lowest level in a decade with expanded production from new fields.

And look at the conservative states that want to retire coal:

Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and Michigan may see the most coal-plant retirements, the study said. Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio also have uneconomic coal generation, UCS said.