The massive Big John dragline works to reshape the rocky landscape in some of the last sections to be mined for coal at the Hobet site in Boone County, West Virginia, U.S. May 12, 2016. U.S. coal producers have been struck by a range of structural and cyclical factors that hit consumption hard and forced many of them to seek bankruptcy protection during 2015 and 2016. The problem of excess coal production and stocks built up gradually throughout 2014 and 2015 but the warm winter of 2015/16 pushed the industry into a crisis ( tmsnrt.rs/2eBuV6w ). Coal-fired power generation slumped by almost 23 percent during the winter of 2015/16 compared with winter 2014/15 while gas-fired generation fell only 12 percent. The backdrop to the industry’s problems is concern about climate change and toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants, which is producing a structural shift away from coal combustion. The […]