Economics
Fracking Jobs Prove Elusive for Coal Miners Looking to Switch
- While Trump vows to save coal, many miners look elsewhere
- Natural gas jobs don’t offer the same stability as coal did
A Royal Dutch Shell Plc hydraulic fracking site near Mentone, Texas.
Photographer: Matthew Busch/Bloomberg
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Robert Dennis has mined coal in West Virginia for 10 years but a recent evening found him in a classroom at his local community college. He came to learn about opportunities in fracking, a drilling technique used to produce natural gas — the very fuel that is threatening coal’s future.
“I know mining inside and out,” said Dennis, a 41-year-old shift foreman from Wetzel County, adjusting the black Adidas cap on his head. But now, “I just want more doors to be open.”