"Coal Industry Fighting for Survival on 7 Fronts"

"The 'war on coal' started long before Obama took office to control the costly and deadly health impacts of an otherwise cheap and abundant fuel."

"When Duke Energy announced a billion-dollar plan to shut down a 50-year-old coal power plant, switching the 376-megawatt site over to cheap natural gas and clean solar, the company proclaimed the 'end of the coal era in Asheville, N.C.'

The largest electricity plant in western North Carolina—where Duke has closed half its coal-fired plants in the past five years—burns 700,000 tons of coal each year, some 6,300 rail cars full. Anti-coal campaigners have sought its closure for years.

Across the industry, old plants like this one are closing under the weight of a broad range of federal regulations, and under competitive pressure from natural gas and renewables. Nearly 200 have closed in the last five years. Dozens more are nearing the brink.

This closure illustrates just how many forces have been assembled on one side of the so-called war on coal. For decades, coal has been fighting for its survival on many different regulatory fronts at once, from limiting climate-warming carbon to lung-scarring pollutants to water-soiling waste. The regulations are often looked at and judged in isolation, but they work in concert, and their combined power has gathered so much force that even Duke, which had resisted ending the use of coal in Asheville, now calls it a "win-win-win" for the company, the community, and the environment."

John H. Cushman Jr. reports for InsideClimate News June 1, 2015, as part of the series "Coal's Long Goodbye: Dispatches From the War on Carbon."