This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to reverse the Obama administration's regulations on coal, including the moratorium on federal leases and the Clean Power Plan.

That is bringing cheers from coal country in Utah and elsewhere, but the enthusiasm should be tempered by the reality that the coal industry's biggest challenge is not regulation. It's the cleaner alternatives — from natural gas to the sun — which have been beating coal on cleanliness while matching it on price.

At best, the change in administration may buy a little time for coal, but a turnaround still appears unlikely.

Two counties in southern Utah this week filed a lawsuit against the moratorium on federal coal leases, arguing that the Obama Interior Department was arbitrary and capricious when it froze coal leases to determine if lease rates were high enough.

But it looks like the counties could have just waited a couple of months. As part of a package of promises to coal states, Trump pledged to end the moratorium anyway.

Same for Obama's Clean Power Plan — a key part of the framework for reducing U.S. fossil fuels' contribution to climate change. The plan's 2030 deadline for a 32 percent reduction in carbon pollution from power plants could be a challenge for Utah's coal-heavy power grid, but it is a target that the new president doesn't intend to hit.

The two coal-fired power plants in Emery County that supply most of Utah's electricity were already under pressure from another Obama Administration decision. The EPA this fall required expensive new pollution controls on the plants in five years to limit haze in national parks and wilderness areas, as required under the Clean Air Act. Rocky Mountain Power has sued the administration over that decision, but it may find the new EPA administration is willing to negotiate a more favorable deal.

While those forces line up in favor of more coal production, the alternatives will continue to hold their own or gain. Both natural gas and coal prices have risen in recent weeks, but both still hover around the same price in terms of their heat output (about $3 per million British Thermal Units). And natural gas-powered electrical generation is more efficient than coal-fired steam boilers.

Meanwhile, Rocky Mountain Power is now buying solar power produced in Utah at the same cost as coal. Large-scale solar is still a small part of the whole energy picture in Utah, but it's a fast-growing part.

All of this says that, if coal has a resurgence, it won't be a long one. In that scenario, the focus should be on extending the life of coal where the environmental impact is smallest. Those two southern Utah counties are looking to expand a coal strip mine that is 10 miles from Bryce Canyon National Park. Moratorium or not, that decision should be based on more than a short-term economic gain and the promises of a new president.

If we take the long view, whoever is around in 100 years will be thankful.