For the next few weeks, you can make your voice heard as LG&E and Kentucky Utilities look for approval to retire some coal-fired and natural gas units.
[cheers and applause] even with scrapping the obama-era clean power plan and $30 million to make coal plans cleaner since president trump took office, u.s. coal consumption has hit 41-year low and coal plant closures have accelerated with the next to fall in december coal units 1 and 2 which have run since 1975. there s nothing he can do about it. the market economics are so compelling that needs massive federal subsidies, you couldn t do it economically. along with lower prices with wind and solar. coal is on its way out. it s just going to become more and more expensive to run a coal fire power plant. climate politics are also killing coal, washington state passed law that utilities must be coal-free by 2025, so loan coal plant will begin fazing out
jenna: plus a new idea for energy in america and once again the government is spending your tax money. this time sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into a plan to build small sized nuclear power plants in a factory and ship them off to other location. we need to hear more about this. senior national correspondent john roberts is live in atlanta. nuclear energy, that is nothing new. what is the deal with the new reactors? are they really a game changer? reporter: that remains to be scene seen, jenna. this could be, depending who you talk to a boon or a boondoggle. they re talking about small modular reactors. the company building them, babcocks and wilcox is in the testing phase. i guess you call them mini nukes. they re 1/6 of the power after other nuclear power plants. they hope they will replace aging coal units shut down in years to come. they combine several systems