Natural gas to unseat coal as generation king by 2035 thumbnail Information Administration predicts that natural gas will dethrone King Coal by 2035, and a number of market forces are at work that may assure that ascension. Coal through the first three quarters of 2014 provided roughly 51 percent of the nation’s electricity, and Wyoming supplies about 40 percent of that coal. Comparatively, natural gas through the period fueled about 20 percent of utility generation. In other words, the transition hasn’t happened just yet. However, 45 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity is set to retire in the next two years, and most of it will likely be replaced by natural gas generation. In Wyoming, the 132-megawatt Cheyenne Prairie Generating Station recently went online, replacing 82 megawatts of “older, coal-fired generation that cannot be economically retrofitted to meet new EPA air emissions regulations and must be retired,” according to a company […]