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"Working to ameliorate these impacts in affected communities is likely to be a much more effective strategy than attempting to revive the coal industry with policy,” writes the author.

Google and the Tennessee Valley Authority are building utility-scale solar farms in Alabama and Tennessee. "It should bring significant economic benefits to the region,” said a spokeswoman for the initiative.

The stock valuation of the 12 biggest publicly traded American coal companies continues to deteriorate; the group’s collective market capitalization has dropped more than 16 percent since September.

Appalachian Power, which has about a million customers in Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, is embracing renewable energy production. “That means a continued shift from coal,” says the company’s president.

Governors of German coal-producing states are lobbying a federal commission for policies that would create thousands of new jobs to replace those lost in a national shift from coal.

Mission Coal Co. of Tennessee will pursue "good-faith compromise and settlement" on $175 million in debts ahead of a pending bankruptcy that will dissolve its board and liquidated the company.

According to government data, more than 10 gigawatts of coal-fired power generation have shut down over the past two years in a trend that has accelerated since the Obama years.

Cost and consumer preferences are driving growth of a nontraditional power-generation enterprise in Minnesota, increasing its payroll from four employees to 82. "The customer wants clean energy," the company CEO said.

Virginia port officials are moving toward supply-chain development around offshore wind rather than banking on a fading coal-export industry. The trend is setting in up and down the East Coast.

The utility behemoth Xcel Energy, among several power generators adopting a similar strategy, is accelerating its shift away from coal-fired generation in the eight states in which it does business.