Case Study 1: Reclaiming Mine Land for Solar — Promise and Reality

The Idea

The idea has an elegance that borders on poetry. The mountaintop removal sites that scar the Appalachian landscape — the flat, treeless plateaus where mountains once stood, described in Chapter 24 — could be transformed from symbols of environmental destruction into engines of clean energy. Solar panels on reclaimed mine land. The land that was sacrificed for coal reborn as the foundation of the post-coal economy. The extraction pattern, reversed.

The physics supports the idea. Reclaimed mine sites are flat (the mountaintops were removed to expose coal seams, leaving level terrain). They are cleared (no trees to cut, no structures to demolish). Many are connected to the electrical grid through the transmission lines and substations built to serve the mines. They are often located in areas with adequate solar resources — the southern Appalachian states receive enough sunlight to make utility-scale solar economically viable. And they are, in many cases, unused — the land sits idle because the reclamation that followed mining left soil too compacted and infertile for agriculture or forestry.

The economics, increasingly, support the idea as well. The cost of solar photovoltaic panels has plummeted — dropping by more than 90 percent between 2010 and 2023. Utility-scale solar is now the cheapest source of new electricity generation in most of the United States, cheaper than natural gas and far cheaper than coal. The Inflation Reduction Act's bonus tax credits for projects in "energy communities" — which include former coalfield areas — further improve the economics by providing additional financial incentives for solar development on mine land.

The Pioneers

Several projects have demonstrated that the concept works in practice, not just in theory.

In Martin County, Kentucky — the county where Lyndon Johnson stood on a porch in 1964 and launched the War on Poverty (see Chapter 23) — a solar project on former mine land began generating power in 2022. The project, developed by a partnership between a national solar company and a local economic development organization, installed panels on approximately 150 acres of reclaimed mine land and connected them to the local utility grid. It was modest in scale but enormous in symbolism: Martin County, which had been defined by coal poverty for a century, was now generating clean energy.

In Boone County, West Virginia — one of the epicenters of the mountaintop removal era — a much larger project came online in 2023. The Boone County solar installation, built on approximately 400 acres of reclaimed mine land, was the largest solar farm in West Virginia at the time of its completion. The project created construction jobs during its two-year build-out and permanent operations and maintenance jobs once completed. It generated tax revenue for a county that had lost most of its coal tax base.

In southwestern Virginia, several smaller projects have been developed on former mine sites, often with support from the ARC's POWER Initiative and state economic development programs. These projects have demonstrated that solar on mine land is feasible across a range of site conditions and scales.

The Obstacles

Despite the successful pilots, solar development on reclaimed mine land remains far below its potential. The obstacles are not primarily technical. They are legal, political, bureaucratic, and structural.

Land ownership complexity. Reclaimed mine land often has complicated ownership histories. The surface rights may belong to one entity, the mineral rights to another (the legacy of the broad form deed described in Chapter 15), and the reclamation bonds to a third. Determining who has the legal authority to lease the land for solar development can take years of legal work. In some cases, the coal companies that originally owned the land have gone through bankruptcy, and the ownership of their assets is tied up in legal proceedings that may never be fully resolved.

Permitting complexity. Developing a solar project on reclaimed mine land requires permits from multiple agencies — the state environmental agency (for surface disturbance), the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (for any modification of the mining reclamation plan), the state public utility commission (for grid connection and power purchase agreements), and local zoning authorities (for land use approval). The permitting process is slow, expensive, and poorly coordinated. A solar developer described it as "trying to build a house while five different people are each reading a different set of blueprints."

Grid connection. Reclaimed mine sites are often in remote locations, and the transmission lines built to serve the mines may not be adequate for solar generation. Upgrading transmission infrastructure — building new lines, increasing substation capacity — requires investment that neither the solar developer nor the local utility may be willing to make. The interconnection queue (the waiting list for new generation projects to connect to the grid) can be years long, and the costs of grid upgrades are often assigned to the developer, making projects financially unviable.

Utility resistance. In several Appalachian states, the incumbent electric utilities have been reluctant to purchase power from solar projects on mine land — preferring to continue purchasing power from gas-fired plants or to develop their own solar projects on more convenient sites. The regulatory frameworks in some states give utilities significant control over which generation projects are approved, creating a barrier for independent solar developers.

Political resistance. The state legislatures in major coal states — West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia — have been slow to create the policy frameworks needed to support solar development on mine land. Fossil fuel interests retain significant political influence, and legislation that would streamline permitting, create renewable portfolio standards, or mandate utility purchases from community solar projects has faced opposition.

The Community Ownership Question

The most consequential question about solar on reclaimed mine land is not whether it will happen — it will, because the economics are increasingly irresistible — but who will own it.

If the solar farms are owned by the same kinds of large, outside corporations that owned the coal mines — if the electricity is generated in Appalachia but the profits flow to shareholders in New York and San Francisco — then the energy transition will have replicated the extraction pattern in new form. The resource changes from coal to sunlight. The power dynamics stay the same.

The alternative is community ownership. Community solar programs allow local residents and businesses to subscribe to a share of a solar project's output, receiving credits on their electricity bills. Cooperative ownership structures allow community members to own shares in the solar project itself, receiving dividends from the electricity sales. Community benefit agreements require developers to share a portion of project revenue with the host community, funding local priorities like schools, healthcare, and infrastructure.

These models exist. They have been implemented in communities across the country. But they require policy support — enabling legislation, favorable regulatory treatment, access to capital — that has been inconsistent in Appalachian states. The default trajectory, absent deliberate intervention, is corporate ownership — because corporations have the capital, the expertise, and the political access to navigate the permitting and development process, while communities do not.

The Promise

Despite the obstacles, solar on reclaimed mine land represents one of the most hopeful possibilities in the Appalachian energy transition. It offers the prospect of economic activity on land that would otherwise sit idle. It creates jobs — in construction, operations, and maintenance — that can be filled by workers from the community. It generates tax revenue for counties that have lost their coal tax base. And it carries a symbolic power that transcends its economic impact: the transformation of the most visible scar of the fossil fuel era into the foundation of the clean energy future.

The promise will only be realized if the development is done right — if community voices shape the projects, if ownership stays local, if the benefits are broadly distributed, and if the lessons of the coal era are heeded. The lesson of the coal era is simple: when an outside force controls the resource, the community pays the price. Solar on mine land offers the chance to write a different ending. Whether that ending is written depends on choices that are being made right now.

Discussion Questions

1. The symbolism question. The chapter describes solar on reclaimed mine land as having "symbolic power" — the transformation of destruction into creation. How important is symbolism in the energy transition? Does the symbolic value of mine-land solar add anything beyond the economic value? Or is the symbolism a distraction from the harder questions of ownership and power?

2. The ownership question. If a national solar company builds a large solar farm on reclaimed mine land in McDowell County, West Virginia, and the electricity powers data centers in Northern Virginia, and the profits go to shareholders in California — is that progress? How does this scenario differ from the coal economy it replaces? What specific mechanisms could ensure that the community benefits more directly?

3. The obstacle question. The case study identifies five categories of obstacles to solar development on mine land: land ownership, permitting, grid connection, utility resistance, and political resistance. Which obstacle do you consider most significant? Which is most addressable? What would it take to remove or reduce each obstacle?

4. The scale question. The pilot projects described in this case study are modest in scale — hundreds of acres, not thousands. What would it take to scale solar on mine land to a level that could meaningfully contribute to the energy transition and the economic recovery of coalfield communities? What are the barriers to scale, and how could they be overcome?