This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated.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.

Humans hate change. It is for that reason that my nearly deaf grandmother grumbles to my single sister about her marital status at every family gathering. It is for that same reason that coal plants in Emery County still pump out Salt Lake City's power.

Coal plants are of a dying breed. Even those within the industry recognize this. Lower costs of natural gas and renewable energies outweigh the need to dredge up our love for this heavy polluter.

Clean coal is not necessarily a single technological development in particular, but rather a range of last-ditch efforts to hold onto coal. Even the University of Utah has joined in the effort for environmentally minded coal through their Clean and Secure Energy Program (CASE), with research spanning from carbon containment through chemical looping combustion to a new carbon composite derived from coal. Everyone should be pleased, right? After all, it's energy production and job creation with our air and economy in mind.

Not so fast ...

Coal always seems to be about jobs. President-elect Donald Trump loves this argument. If we get rid of coal plants, workers will lose jobs and our economy will suffer. It makes sense. Coal workers do need jobs, but why do they have to be coal jobs?

Across human history, thousands of jobs have become obsolete. We don't need carriage drivers. We need cab drivers. We don't need cab drivers. We need Uber drivers. And maybe one day we won't need any drivers. We'll need more engineers to build self-driving cars. Let's not linger on the past. Things do change, and change is good. If humans remained in a perpetual state of fear of change, we would still be hunter-gatherers, fearful of shifting into stability through agriculture. Coal is one of those things in our past.

As much as we hate to admit it, coal is a limited resource. We may develop enticing new ways to extract the same dirty energy, but at some point there will be an end. Instead of prolonging the inevitable and waiting for skyrocketing energy prices and economic scrambling, renewable energy offers a promising path. Not for the future when we squeeze out every last drop of energy from coal, but now when we can make the transition much more smoothly.

The technology for renewable energy is expanding rapidly. Rocky Mountain Power has even boarded on the renewable energy boat with their Subscriber Solar program. This allows Utah residents to fuel their homes with sunshine from Millard County rather than rooftop panels. Obviously, there is a lot more change that needs to happen. The U.S. is very far from solely relying on renewable energy, only amounting to 13 percent of our energy in 2015. However, the dropping prices (solar module cost is down by 75 percent from 2009) and rising support for these technologies indicate it is where our future should be headed.

Before we get too excited about kicking coal out of our town and dumping it in Donald Trump's Christmas stocking, we still have to keep the coal workers in mind. Choosing between jobs and the environment is simply a false choice. In a single year, 8.5 million new jobs were created by the renewable energy industry. Renewable energy still requires a great deal of manual labor: manufacturing, transporting, assembling, and maintaining.

Our breakup with coal will need to involve job training specifically for coal workers. If this can be accomplished, we can move onto the true cleaner energies that are already a reality, without sacrificing the livelihoods of thousands of individuals throughout the nation.

Brianna Milot is a University of Utah student and environmentalist who advocates for sustainability.