In the United States at least, coal is a terminal case.

While it once dominated the nation’s power grid, hundreds of units have shuttered over the last two decades and have been largely replaced by natural gas and renewables like solar and wind. More than half of the remaining coal units in the United States are slated for retirement.

But as Mira Rojanasakul and I reported today, since 2017, utilities have extended the life of nearly a third of coal units with planned retirement dates, either through delays or by reversing course and removing retirement goals entirely.

So why has coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, hung on so long in the United States? Though coal provides only about 16 percent of U.S. electricity, it still wields tremendous economic power in several states that isn’t easy to replace.

Wyoming’s coal economy

Take Wyoming, for example. The largest coal-producing state, it mines two-fifths of the nation’s coal. In 2023, 71 percent of its electricity came from coal, down from a whopping 97 percent two decades ago. As a result, the state is highly dependent on fossil revenue to fund infrastructure, schools and local government.

“Coal declines have really significant impacts on the entire Wyoming economy, not just coal-producing regions,” said Robert Godby, an economics professor at the University of Wyoming.

But what happens in Wyoming coal country can have ripple effects across the nation. In recent years, Wyoming has led efforts to keep coal relevant. In 2019, it was the first state to pass a law that made it more difficult to close coal plants; other coal states like North Dakota, Kentucky and West Virginia followed suit.