"The bankruptcy filing by Alpha Natural Resources comes on the same day that the Obama administration released its Clean Power Plan, which calls for more reliance on renewable energy sources."

"One of America’s largest coal companies filed for bankruptcy Monday, striking the latest blow to an industry that, by its own admission, is struggling to adapt to the ongoing global conversion to clean energy.

Alpha Natural Resources (ANR), based in Bristol, Va., is the country’s biggest miner of coal used in steelmaking. In a bankruptcy filing, Kevin Crutchfield, the company’s chairman and CEO, described 'unprecedented changes' for the coal industry.

'The US coal industry as currently structured is unsustainable,' he said. 'Multiple major producers ... have been, and will continue to be, driven to the brink of insolvency.'"
 
Henry Gass reports for the Christian Science Monitor August 3, 2015. [2]