More US coal plants are shutting down, switching to renewable

Massive numbers of coal plants are shutting down around the United States, as new laws and consumer advocacy have ushered in an era of clean power sources.  In 2015, 4% of the coal plants in the United States will shut down and 12.3 gigawatts of power will be gathered from cleaner sources.

Similar to Beijing shutting down all of its major coal plants, the cleanup of the American ecosystem is front and center.  Huge swaths of coal plants are shutting down across the United States, while another 14.3 gigawatts of power will be brought in from newer, cleaner sources over the next six years.

Here is a diagram of what's to come

Resulting, largely, from the Clean Air Act, put forth by the US government, the landscape is shifting rapidly.  CEOs from coal companies know the game has changed.  Nick Akins sees his coal enterprise, American Electric Power Co. Inc., as bearing the brunt of these shutdowns.  He thinks of his company as something that has served as a backbone of the industry for decades and is sad to see it go, but he is also now investing in renewable energy.

Image Credit: http://inhabitat.com/peak-number-of-coal-plants-are-shutting-down-in-2015-ushering-in-a-greener-era/

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Coal_and_jobs_in_the_United_States#Coal_mining_jobs