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“The underlying thrust is to put something back into a community that can return the site to a job-creating place,” said the state’s lead energy official.

“The problem in the PRB is there’s too much capacity,” one market expert said. “If we don’t reduce it, we’re bound to see more bankruptcies.”

“There have been ongoing discussions of how the community will reinvent itself. It’s just a matter of time, one business proprietor told me.”

A survey of 1,500 consumers and 102 executives finds a majority expecting clean energy to become increasingly affordable over the next 10 years and old business models to lose market share.

The chaotic bankruptcy of Blackjewel “roiled Harlan with unusual intensity, eliminating the jobs of 225 of the county’s 850 workers and sending financial turmoil rippling through the area.”

A European Commission report concludes that utility-scale solar can ‘fully replace’ coal-fired electricity generation and create tens of thousands of construction jobs over the next decade and a half.

Abandoned plants are seen now as assets. “We started with the automobile sector because cars were hurting, and then steel mills because steel was hurting. Now it’s the coal sector.”

The union helped enact a law requiring a state “wage-differential benefit” to supplement income for coal workers who pursue other occupations. The law also establishes an official Just Transition office.

“A low-down shame,” one miner said after a meeting with Mitch McConnell in which the state’s senior senator declined to restore funding for the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund.

Coal workers are calling for congressional passage of the Miners Pension Protection Act. Various retirement-benefits programs across the board are vulnerable to company bankruptcy filings that favor owners and investors.