Everybody Hates Coal! National Petroleum Council Member Weighs In The other shoe has just dropped on the US coal industry. The latest blow came out of Texas, home state of an environmental fund called the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation. The Foundation is also known for its work in reducing the impacts of shale drilling operations, and its vice president, Marilu Hastings, is a member of the National Petroleum Council for 2016-2017. Citing a recent report by The Brattle Group, Hastings emphasizes a point on which industry analysts concur: on a national basis, cheap natural gas has been pushing coal out of the power generating market. They also concur that renewables have so far played a much softer role, though they are beginning to gather steam as technology improves and costs drop. Based on the Brattle analysis, Hastings assigns a much stronger role for renewable energy in her argument because she is using Texas as a model. In that state wind power — and to a growing extent, solar — are already forces to be reckoned with. Here’s a snippet from the Texas Clean Energy Coalition, which commissioned the report. TEC is organized in support of the state’s natural gas industry as well as wind and solar: As Texas expands its historic energy leadership into clean energy, blazing new trails in natural gas extraction methods, utility-scale solar PV and boasting the nation’s largest fleet of wind turbines, the new paper finds that market forces are largely driving Texas toward a cleaner electric grid. See http://ift.tt/2gIel0B
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