One promise Obama's keeping: Bankrupting coal

Every issue of TheBlaze Magazine includes a regular feature called "Worth 1,000 Words," which contains charts and graphs that layout stories in a unique way. Below is one of the "1,000 Words" items from the September 2012 issue.

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During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama made his war on coal clear, saying that "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket" and that coal-fired power plants would go "bankrupt."

According to Obama's own Energy Information Administration (EIA), the president is actually keeping that campaign promise: "Plant owners and operators report to EIA that they expect to retire almost 27 gigawatts (GW) of capacity from 175 coal-fired generators between 2012 and 2016. … The 27 GW of retiring capacity amounts to 8.5% of total 2011 coal-fired capacity. The coal-fired capacity expected to be retired over the next five years is more than four times greater than retirements performed during the preceding five-year period (6.5 GW)."

Here's where the coal-capacity losses are scheduled to occur:

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