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Even West Virginia Bows to Solar The epicenter of coal country belatedly begins to acknowledge the realities of renewables. BY G A BR I E L L E G U R L E Y IN THE SPRING OF 2020, West Virginia’s Republican legislature voted decisively to allow the state’s two major electric utilities to develop 400 megawatts of solar power resources on abandoned mine lands. The legis-
increasingly did not fly with prospective employers seeking renewableenergy resources that the state just did not have. Why tarry in coal country, they likely reasoned, when North Carolina, the number two solar pro-
West Virginia will allow solar arrays on abandoned mine lands.
lation reflects a grudging acceptance of the decisive shift in electricity generation economics from coal to solar and other renewables in a state that ranks second in coal production and where coal mining still exerts a powerful pull on the state’s psyche and politics. Those economics have made West Virginia’s fierce attachment to coal increasingly untenable, especially when yoked to the climate change– driven episodes of severe drought and increased flash flooding that the state has experienced. Worse still, the state’s coal protectionism
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ducer in the United States, is right next door? General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Target, Walmart, and other firms that employ significant numbers of West Virginians and have adopted clean-energy goals all wanted those options. State lawmakers ultimately had to bow to renewables realities and these impeccably capitalist demands. Today, more than 90 percent of the state’s current power needs are still met by coal-fired plants. A December report published by the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development of West Virginia University’s
College of Law estimated that the state could generate more than 70 percent of its power from wind and solar by 2035. For more than a century, coal mining has obliterated huge swaths of forests and mountain hillsides. Those abandoned mining sites—well, some of them—now could become home to solar facilities, though the process is strewn with obstacles. Potential solar operators must reckon with the scarred, polluted landscapes that coal mining operations left behind and the burgeoning costs to remediate them that are likely to prove too daunting for West Virginia or other coal-producing states. Abandoned mine lands are regulated under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, the first federal industry-specific environmental cleanup mandate, which requires states and tribal governments to remediate and restore mining lands and water sources with no identifiable owners. To help pay for those projects, the act established a federal abandoned mine land trust fund. Administered by the Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the trust fund initially amassed about $12 billion through fees collected from coal operators to fund cleanups and reclamation for industrial, recreational, or wildlife habitat uses. Not surprisingly, however, those fees have been reduced since the fund’s inception, which has compromised its ability to backstop the states’ efforts. Indeed, after decades in which the funds have been disbursed to states and tribal authorities for reclamation projects and United Mine Workers health and retirement funds, only a little more than $2 billion remains in the trust. Addressing the accelerating pace of bankruptcies in the coal sector will only further erode the trust fund’s staying power, tossing the bills for cleanup and reclamation costs to states and localities, costs that they may not be able to meet. In West Virginia, abandoned mine lands comprise some 100,000 acres out of the 400,000 acres throughout Appalachia. At the end of April, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) introduced a bill
