“You have a whole culture, a whole community that is also going through the same crisis”: Colorado coal town looks to the future with concern
The Cooper family knows how to operate heavy machinery. The children knew how to use a hay baler by their early teens, and two of the three operated monster-sized drills in the coal mines with their fathers.
But learning to operate the shiny red drill they use to harness underground heat is different. It’s a key part of his family’s new business, High Altitude Geothermal, which installs geothermal heat pumps that use the Earth’s constant temperature to heat and cool buildings. At stake is not just their livelihood, but also a century-old family legacy of energy production in Moffat County.
Like many families here, the Coopers have been in coal for generations – and oil before that. It ends for Matt Cooper and his son Matthew as one of the region’s three coal mines closes as part of a statewide transition to cleaner energy.
“People need to start looking beyond coal,” Matt Cooper said. “And it can be a multitude of things. Our economy has been so focused on coal and coal-fired power plants. And we need diversity.”
Many countries and about half of U.S. states are abandoning coal, citing environmental impacts and high costs. Burning coal emits carbon dioxide which traps heat in the atmosphere, warming the planet.
President Donald Trump has favored coal as part of his fossil fuel agenda. He is trying to save a declining industry with executive orders, massive sales of coal from public lands, regulatory relief and offers of hundreds of millions of dollars to restore coal plants.
This has created uncertainty in places like Craig. As some families, like the Coopers, plan the next step in their careers, others hope Trump will save their factories, mines and good-paying jobs.
Matt and Matthew Cooper work at the Colowyo mine near Meeker, although active mining has ended and site cleanup begins in January.
The mine employs about 130 workers and supplies the Craig Power Station, a 1,400-megawatt coal-fired plant. The Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association plans to close Craig Unit 1 by the end of the year for economic reasons and to meet legal requirements to reduce emissions. The other two units will close in 2028.
Xcel Energy owns the coal-fired Hayden Generating Station, about 30 minutes away. The company said it does not plan to change Hayden’s retirement dates even as it expands another coal unit in Pueblo, in part due to increased demand for electricity.
The Craig and Hayden factories together employ around 200 people.
Craig residents have always demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit and that spirit will help them through this transition, said Kirstie McPherson, chair of the Craig Chamber of Commerce board of directors. Still, she says, almost everyone here is connected to coal.
“You have a whole community that has always been told that you are an energy town, a coal town,” she said. “When that starts to disappear, beyond individuals who are going through an identity crisis, you have an entire culture, an entire community that is also going through that same crisis.”
Gradually eliminate charcoal
Coal has played a central role in Colorado’s economy even before statehood, but it is typically the most expensive energy on the grid today, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said.
“We are not going to let this administration lead us into overreliance on expensive fossil fuels,” Polis said in a statement.
Nationally, coal power was 28% more expensive in 2024 than it was in 2021, costing consumers $6.2 billion more, according to a June analysis from Energy Innovation. The nonpartisan think tank cited significant increases to keep aging factories running as well as inflation.
Colorado’s six remaining coal-fired power plants are expected to close or convert to natural gas, which emits about half as much carbon dioxide as coal, by 2031. The state is rapidly adding solar and wind plants, which are cheaper and cleaner than existing coal plants. Renewable energy currently provides more than 40% of Colorado’s electricity and will exceed 70% by the end of the decade, according to statewide utility plans.
Nationally, growth in wind and solar power has remained strong, producing more electricity than coal in 2025, according to the latest data from October, according to energy think tank Ember.
But some states want to increase or at least maintain coal production. That includes the major coal state of Wyoming, where the Wyoming Energy Authority said Trump was breathing welcome new life into its coal and mining industry.
Plan for the future
The Coopers are all about geothermal energy.
“Maybe we’ll never go back to coal,” Matt Cooper said. “We haven’t gone back to oil and gas, so we might be geothermal specialists for a while, maybe generations, and then eventually something else will come along.”
While the Coopers were learning how to use their drill in October, Wade Gerber was in downtown Craig distilling neutral grain alcohol – used to make gin and vodka – on a day off from the Craig Station power plant. Gerber stepped over his corgis, Ali and Boss, and stood on a stepladder to look into a huge stainless steel pot where he was heating wheat and barley.
Gerber spent three decades in coal. When plans to close were announced four years ago, he, his wife Tenniel and their friend McPherson brainstormed business ideas.
“With my plumbing and electrical background coming from the plant, it’s like, oh yeah, I can handle that part,” Gerber said of distilling. “That’s the easy part.”
He used Tri-State’s education grants to take distilling classes, while other colleagues learned vehicle repair or gun repair to find new careers. While some were considering leaving the city, Gerber opened the Bad Alibi distillery. McPherson and Tenniel Gerber opened a cocktail bar next door.
Everyone in town is hoping Trump will step in to extend the plant’s life, Gerber said. Meanwhile, they try to define a new future for Craig during a distressing time.
“For me, my products can go elsewhere. I don’t necessarily have to sell them to Craig, there is that possibility. For someone who relies on Craig, it’s even scarier,” he said.
Questioning the decline of coal
Tammy Villard owns a gift shop, Moffat Mercantile, with her husband. After the coal closures were announced, they also opened a commercial printing shop, seeing it as a practical choice when so many good-paying jobs disappear.
Villard, who spent a decade in Colowyo as an administrative staffer, said she doesn’t understand how the state can turn off coal while still maintaining reliable electricity. She wants the state to slow down.
Villard describes herself as a moderate Republican. She said policy changes at the federal level — from pushing green energy in the last administration to doubling down on fossil fuels in this one — are not helpful.
“The pendulum has to swing back to the middle,” she said, “and we’re so far to one side or the other that I don’t know how to get back to that middle.”
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