Thursday’s flurry of coal news from energy officials included $425 million to extend the life of 12 coal plants in several states, such as $50 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the Wheeling Power Company’s plans to “modernize” the Mitchell Plant in Moundsville, West Virginia.
“This was not necessarily a surprise. But also the rhetoric is frustrating, because coal is not dead in West Virginia,” said an exasperated Quenton King, government affairs specialist for the advocacy group Appalachian Voices, upon hearing the news. “We’re not building giant new solar panels in West Virginia, we’re just maintaining the coal systems.”
The latest coal projects are located in a different part of West Virginia to where legacy health issues have long been linked to coal, King noted. Still, he said the significant reinvestment in coal is all part of the same statewide trend in which energy alternatives are not receiving funding, more-expensive-to-build coal plants are, and people’s health and strapped pockets are bound to suffer.
Outside of West Virginia, Thursday’s announcement of $425 million from the DOE included funding to extend the life of coal plants in Arkansas, Arizona, Kentucky, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
