Economics
A Massive Coal Plant That Asked for Trump’s Help Has Gone Dark
- Navajo Generating Station powered Arizona’s growing population
- Gas, renewable energy proved too cheap for plant to compete
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In the end, the unraveling economics of coal proved too much for even a giant among power generators to handle.
At 12:09 p.m. local time on Monday -- after churning out electricity for almost five decades -- the largest coal-fired power plant in the western U.S. permanently closed, becoming the latest testament to the fossil fuel’s decline. Once a flash point in President Donald Trump’s campaign to save America’s coal industry, the Navajo complex in the Arizona desert will now spend the next three years being dismantled and decommissioned.