"CLAWSON, UTAH — Chris Riley comes from a coal town and a coal family, but he founded a company that could hasten coal’s decline. Lee Van Horn, whose father worked underground in the mines, spends some days more than 300 feet in the air atop a wind turbine. They, and the other people in this story, represent a shift, not just in power generation but in generations of workers as well.
They come from places where fossil fuels like coal provided lifelong employment for their parents, grandparents and neighbors. They found a different path, but not necessarily out of a deep environmental commitment. In America today there is more employment in wind and solar power than in mining and burning coal. And a job’s a job.
Chris Riley grew up in the tiny mining town of Clawson in Utah’s coal country, population 163, “and half of them named Riley,” he said. He grew up poor, raised by a single mother with help from food stamps and the local church."
John Schwartz reports for the New York Times March 26, 2019, with photographs by Brandon Thibodeaux.
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