Experts agree coal is not coming back, but Perry repeated the claim nonetheless.
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry toured the Longview coal plant in West Virginia on Thursday with the state’s congressional delegation.
Given a generous reading, Perry is referring here to Say’s law, also known as the law of markets, which has been rephrased as “supply creates its own demand.” In fact, the classical economic theory could be more accurately rephrased as “the total demand of an economy will meet the amount of supply,” although Keynes and the Depression called Say’s law into rather dramatic question.
The report predicts that demand will remain in the 80-million-ton range through the first part of the next decade and will fall below 80 million tons by 2030 — and it’s not expected to rebound from there.
The report attributed the long-term outlook for coal production to low demand overseas, declining productivity in West Virginia’s mines, and a decrease in U.S. coal-fired power plants — which, again, is tied to low-cost natural gas prices as well as increased emissions standards and more economical clean energy.
(West Virginia’s biggest utility even announced this week it would invest in two more wind farms.)
The WVU report came out in conjunction with the West Virginia Coal Forum, a state-sponsored event that brings together coal producers, politicians, and researchers to discuss the industry’s future.
“There’s been a lot of interest in looking at coal-fired power plants like Longview as a future for clean coal, and I think that’s his focus.” As a newer coal plant, Longview is much less carbon-intensive and more efficient than some of its decades-old brethren.
Clean coal is “just a marketing phrase,” Price told ThinkProgress.
“I think Secretary Perry’s visit certainly misleads the people of West Virginia — and some policy makers — that coal is clean and that coal is coming back,” Price said.