Power utilities American Electric Power Co. and Southern Co. say the U.S. needs to keep coal in the mix for electricity generation because it’s cheap and plentiful. “Coal has to be part of the puzzle,” Nick Akins, chairman and chief executive of power giant AEP said Thursday at The Wall Street Journal’s ECOnomics conference in Santa Barbara, Calif. The dirtiest of the fossil fuels, coal has lost major market-share to natural gas in recent years as power generators switching to burning gas to create electricity. Columbus, Ohio-based AEP plans to shut down up to 6,000 megawatts of coal-fired power plants by 2016 – enough to light between 3 million and 6 million homes – mostly so it can comply with tighter federal pollution limits. By 2020, the company will generate about 46% of its electricity from coal, down from 60% today. But Mr. Akins argued the U.S. has so […]