The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States has a lot of implications for a lot of different segments of the economy – coal may not be one of them. The uphill battle for coal in the U.S. appears to be getting even steeper with Western States starting to increasingly look to natural gas and renewable energy for power consumption rather than coal. Moreover, the change is being driven by economics rather than regulatory requirements or concern over the environment. President Trump will have a lot of power – power to enact new rules, power to push new legislation, and power to remove old regulations. None of that will help to change the fundamental economics of coal which are increasingly pointing to more mine closures . Renewable power is consistently becoming cheaper, and the glut of natural gas continues to make it one of the most […]