Commentary
CHESWICK, Pennsylvania—Up until two years ago, it would only take 12 hours for coal mined deep in a labyrinth operation 60 miles from here to go from that underground mine, through a high-tech cleaning procedure, and be loaded on a barge or rail car and brought to the Cheswick Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant, to light communities along the Allegheny River for generations.
That efficient process came to an end in September 2021 when owner GenOn Holdings announced the then-51-year-old facility, one that environmental groups had in their sights for years, decided to retire the plant. The company cited “unfavorable economic conditions, higher costs including those associated with environmental compliance, an inability to compete with other generation types, and evolving market rules that promote subsidized resources.”…