"Donald Trump's promise to open shuttered coal mines in Appalachia might be as hard to fulfill as getting Mexico to pay for a new wall, analysts suggested.

The vow by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee would likely mean turning back regulations on greenhouse gases and perhaps toxic air pollutants, experts said. Even then, it's unlikely that the cost of extracting coal from eastern mines would be cheaper than using natural gas in power plants, they said, making a widespread mining revival improbable.

"It's very, very, very unlikely he could do something to get coal back to where it was seven years ago," said John Deskins, director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at West Virginia University."

Evan Lehmann reports for ClimateWire May 10, 2016. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"Coal's Stranded Assets" (Bloomberg) [3]

"Illinois Coal Plants: Victims Of Obama Policies Or Something Else?" (McClatchy) [4]