A scoop operator pushes a mammoth coal pile for PGE's Boardman plant shortly after it opened in 1980. (The Oregonian)

"It's finally happening for our great clean coal miners!" President Donald Trump tweeted in 2017, linking to a report that showed U.S. coal production had increased 7.8 percent from the previous year. He added a hashtag: #EndingWarOnCoal.

The potential problem for the miners: Coal is increasingly a money loser, according to a new study.

Carbon Tracker, an independent energy-market think tank, crunched the available numbers and used economic models to reach financial conclusions about more than 6,000 coal plants around the world.

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A power plant in Belchatow, Poland (AP)

The report found that a "death spiral" for coal as a business is well underway, with 42 percent of the world's coal operations likely operating at a loss in 2018. Looking at "revenues minus long-run operating costs," the study estimates that 72 percent of global coal production will be unprofitable by 2040 -- "independent of additional climate or air-pollution policy."

The study argues that, within 12 years, 100 percent of the U.S.'s coal capacity will have higher "long-run operating cost" than renewable energy options, thanks to anti-pollution rules and other economic factors.

"Over the long-term coal power will become a net liability," the study's authors state, "and those politicians in regulated markets who remain wedded to high-cost coal will be forced to choose between subsidizing coal generation and power prices (which will impact the fiscal health of the state) or increase power prices (which will hurt consumers and undermine competitiveness)."

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PGE's Boardman plant (The Oregonian)

In short, the coal business' survival in the coming decades is largely dependent on politics, Carbon Tracker analyst Matt Gray told The Independent.

"Lobbying and cronyism," he said, "that's the only thing that can save coal, and we are seeing that from Donald Trump and others throughout the world."

Carbon Tracker insists its study shows clearly that the conventional economic argument for coal -- that it's cheap -- is a "myth," and that this will become more obvious every year. Thirty-five percent of coal capacity, the report states, "costs more to run than building new renewables in 2018, increasing to 96 percent by 2030."

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The Associated Press

Carbon Tracker says the study's results come from a "two-year [economic] modelling effort. This is the first time anyone has attempted global coverage of coal power at asset-level."



The only coal-fired power plant in Oregon is a Portland General Electric facility in Boardman. PGE plans to close the plant by 2020.



Read the report.

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-- Douglas Perry

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