As the Environmental Protection Agency moves ahead with limits on carbon pollution from the nation’s coal plants, you’ll hear a lot of industry outrage about Obama’s “war on coal.” Don’t believe it.

The truth is, the U.S. coal industry is already in dire straits, including here in Colorado — and it is due primarily to geology, not politics.

Coal is undeniably a non-renewable substance. We have been mining the easily accessible deposits for the last 150 years, and the planet isn’t making any more on a time scale that matters to humans.

As a result, the U.S. coal industry is in serious financial distress — right now — months, and likely years, before any EPA carbon regulations actually go into effect.

Even if the EPA were to be eliminated tomorrow (not something we advocate), the U.S. coal industry would still likely be largely winding down in the next decade or so.

As the remaining coal has become more difficult and expensive to mine, coal prices to electric utilities have increased significantly over the last decade, but these price increases have not been enough to keep coal company profit margins healthy.

In Colorado, the cost of delivered coal has almost doubled in the last decade, going from an average of 97 cents per million BTU in 2004 to over $1.90 per million BTU in 2013.

During the same 2004-2013 period, Colorado coal production has dropped about 40 percent from a peak of almost 40 million tons in 2004 to fewer than 24 million tons in 2013.

The bottom line is that Colorado coal is becoming increasingly expensive to mine, and it is largely pricing itself out of the market.

As Bill Koch said recently about the closing of Oxbow’s Elk Creek mine near Paonia, “The coal business in the United States has kind of died, so we are out of it now.” It is possible that the Elk Creek mine will reopen, but it isn’t looking like it will happen anytime soon.

A recent Market Watch story noted that of the 13 coal company bonds rated by Moody’s, all 13 were below investment grade. Here are three facts about the U.S. coal industry:

Fact No. 1: The top three U.S. coal companies are currently running in the red and reporting large losses: For 2013, the No. 1 U.S. coal producer, Peabody, reported a loss from continuing operations of $286 million, No. 2 U.S. coal producer Arch Coal reported a loss of $641 million, and No. 3 U.S. coal producer, Alpha Natural Resources, reported over $1 billion in losses.

Fact No. 2: Coal company stock prices have plummeted in recent years, and the top three U.S. coal companies had already lost 80 percent to 97 percent of their stock value compared to their highs in 2008 — before the EPA announced regulations on carbon pollution from existing coal plants.

Fact No. 3: U.S. coal production is at its lowest in 20 years. It is entirely possible the U.S. is past its peak coal production with 1.171 billion tons of coal in 2008. In 2013, U.S. production fell below 1 billion tons for the first time since 1993. Moreover, the largest U.S. coal mines are expected to begin playing out in the next decade or two.

The good news is that the U.S. is blessed with abundant, low-carbon, low-risk renewable resources and the costs of harvesting these wind, solar and other renewable resources are falling dramatically. Our country’s energy future is bright — but if and only if we look to the future and not the past to keep us strong.

Leslie Glustrom is a long-time coal industry watcher. Zane Selvans is director of research and policy at Clean Energy Action.