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The Delta-Montrose Electric Association in western Colorado is seeking to buy out its contract with Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, a regional supplier heavily dependent on coal-fired generation. The move follows a decision by Kit Carson Electric Cooperative to pay $37 million to break its contract with Tri-State, a Denver-based company that sells electricity in Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska and Wyoming. “I think it’s fair to say it’s economics, but also for diversification, a more diverse power supply,” said Virginia Harman, Delta-Montrose’s chief operating officer.

A $4 million grant from the federal Abandoned Mine Lands Pilot Program will go toward reclaiming a former mine site so that an aluminum-production plant can be built there. The $1.5 project is expected to create 500 new jobs by 2020 “for our highly skilled, readily available workforce,” Rep. Hal Rogers said in announcing the grant. “It also paves the way for future economic development opportunities and helps us reimagine Kentucky’s Appalachian region as a major manufacturing hub.”

The trade dispute between the U.S. and China is hurting American coal exporters, who have seen Chinese demand for U.S. coal fizzle after two years of strong gains. The recent trend may be difficult to reverse, in part because China has so many other options: “The risk for U.S. energy exporters is that markets, once lost, are difficult to recover, especially if your customer has readily available alternative sources of supply.”

Lincoln County, Wyo., is at risk of losing millions of dollars in taxes that are due from Westmoreland Coal, which filed for bankruptcy last week. State legislators are considering reforms that would keep such companies from defaulting on their annual obligations to county governments. The situation “highlights a weakness in the laws that leave county governments vulnerable when trying to collect ad valorem taxes from busted energy companies.”

Opposition across much of the competitive energy industry to a Trump administration initiative to subsidize coal-fired electricity plants appears to have effectively killed the plan. “The problem they’ve got is every option they might consider raises the costs for somebody at a time when nobody has an appetite for increased costs anywhere,” one analyst said. “The political will to pay for it is not broadly there enough yet for them.”

Tazewell, Ky., has hit on a post-coal tourism-development niche by promoting a scenic highway that draws a growing number of visitors. An estimated 60,000 “motorcycle and sports car enthusiasts” came through the town last year, an almost fourfold increase since 2013. The traffic has allowed new retail businesses to open along a main street that was all but abandoned a generation ago.

Echoing previous assertions that a federal bailout of failing coal and nuclear power will undermine electricity markets, the CEO of grid operator PJM urged the Trump administration to leave such policy decisions to experts. PJM officials, who manage a grid that covers 13 states and has 65 million cusomters, have said previously the grid is "more reliable than ever" and that any federal intervention “would be damaging to the markets and therefore costly to consumers”

In a small but landmark deal, 10 communities in Wisconsin will buy solar-powered electricity under a long-term deal from 10 solar farms – seven in Wisconsin, two in Minnesota and one in Iowa. The arrangement increases the state’s solar consumption by 33 percent almost overnight and will help rural providers “flatten out the ups and downs of the market,” said one of the private-sector participants in the project. “That's a big attraction to us and we know what the price is for the entire life of the contract.”

News this week that Westmoreland Coal had declared bankruptcy sent shudders through the industry and was seen as a likely indicator of consolidations to come. “The companies themselves are not making much money, and so they're in financially precarious positions,” one analyst said. “Somebody at some point in time has to blink and mines will have to close.”

A coal-fired power plant that has historically been a key part of Nebraska’s electricity network is being used less and less as grid operators turn increasingly to cheaper wind- and solar-generation power. Analysts say the Gentleman coal plant, which is almost 40 years old, is like many in states like Iowa, Nebraska, and North Dakota that are no longer cost-competitive. “These plants were designed to run at, or near, full capacity,” said a plant manager for the Nebraska Public Power District. “We aren’t doing that much anymore.”