Why a town on the front line of America's energy transition isn't letting go of coal
Kemmerer, Wyo., is on the front line of America's energy transition, with its coal plant slated to close and a nuclear plant in the works. But some think the rush to quit fossil fuels is impractical.
KEMMERER, Wyo. — A few weeks before Christmas last year, Cliff Green, a mechanic at the Black Butte Coal mine in southern Wyoming, received the dreaded pink slip, after four years of steady work.
Green is 47 with a dry sense of humor. In a black Carhartt hoodie, his big hands are swollen from years of hard work.
"They laid us off the Monday morning after they let us work our night shift, so... that was fun," he says.
Those layoffs got a lot of attention. Especially from the outside, it looked like just the latest signal that Wyoming is ill-prepared for the reality that coal is going away. Eleven coal power plants in the state are set to be decommissioned or in the next 15 years.
