The U.S. coal industry needs to develop a collaborative approach with government to reinvent itself, write Drs. Robert Hebner, director of UT Austin’s Center for Electromechanics, and David Tuttle, research fellow with the university’s Energy Institute, in a new op-ed. While the use of coal to generate electricity has declined, the cost of replacing coal-fired power plants and the infrastructure that supports them will limit the rate at which coal will be replaced by alternative sources, such as wind and solar. What is needed, the authors argue, is a coordinated effort between industry and government to develop technological innovations not unlike what occurred in the 1980s and 1990s in the semiconductor industry. For more, read the op-ed, which was published in the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, and the East Bay (CA) Times.
