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 US 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.