For every encouraging news snippet like Lester Brown’s Grist piece called ‘Coal-fired power on the way out?‘, there’s one like this Bloomberg piece: ‘Coal beats solar as analysts favor Peabody while subsidies drop.’
No surprise really. As long as carbon incurs no price impact, the market will seek the cheapest right now. Moralists concerned about the future will need to offer moral arguments for paying more to forego coal.