Why is it so hard to save US coal? A brief exercise I’ll call: I’ve Got Control of a Few Million Dollars and Might Invest in Coal Because Trump is President Right Now. /1 
First things first. What’s general public sentiment around coal and coal investments right now? Bad. Only some niche investment in metallurgical coal producers among pro and pro-am investors. That’s not a good sign, but hey, maybe I’m smarter than the market... /2
Let’s start w/ new coal plants using existing technology. US hasn’t done such a thing in about a decade. Last success, Longview, focused on efficiency and went into bankruptcy in construction. Later attempt, Kemper, focused on CO2 capture, but vastly over budget and cancelled. /3
But DOE is working on new coal plant tech! However, their recent RFI just wrapped, we’ve seen no proposals and any actual budget solicitation hasn’t happened yet. Unfortunately, any actual pilot plant, let alone commercial project, is certainly years away. /4
OK. That’s a lot of risk that’d we’d have to dump into new technology in a sector that is vastly less favored to developing tech in renewable fields. Let’s think about maybe how we can invest in existing infrastructure… /5
Anything old is too close to retiring for serious investment. Middle age/new plants may have room to improve, but any money I dump into these projects face huge downside if new admin wants to regulate CO2. This is nearly certain unless GOP holds control of US politics. /6
That is, unless, natural gas prices rise sharply. Unlikely because in US, gas is everywhere. Or we could gamble technology innovation in renewables and/or battery storage goes nowhere. Betting against academic/entrepreneurial ingenuity seems a bad bet. What’s left? /7
Some scattered opportunity in domestic/seaborne metallurgical coal and exports of thermal coal or coal generation tech to countries that lack access to cheap coal gen. The opportunities are narrow and still dependent on risks of a pretty volatile commodity. /8
Where does that leave us? With very small, low-upside risks in contrarian investments that bets coal comes roaring back or holds onto share in relatively niche markets. Will people put dollars there? Probably. Will they get them back? … Eh, maybe? /9
Investing in renewables happens b/c people love them and they don’t have ongoing fuel costs, it’s green, etc.,so money will keep pouring in. Those concerned renewables aren’t enough or want to invest in solutions to intermittency back batteries or natural gas. /10
Momentum of past investments in coal kept it going and will for a bit, but it’s losing steam. So many arguments against hail mary resiliency and indestructible talking points, only way it’s reversed is if people see a grid disaster obviously connected to lack of coal power. 11/
Actually, here's a good illustration of why investing in new tech for old plants is probably not going to accomplish anything big at all: 12/
