Last night, I filled the tank of my Zipcar with gas that was almost $4.00 per gallon. It was quite a pricey reminder of the volatility of fossil fuel markets. While coal prices have traditionally been less linked to global events, U.S. coal prices are becoming increasingly set by worldwide demand. That’s just one of the reasons that the Union of Concerned Scientists named the building of new coal-fired power plants “an extremely risky long-term investment” in a new report released last week.

“A Risky Proposition: The Financial Hazards of New Investments in Coal Plants” lays out the multitude of reasons that it’s bad for business for electric utilities to make new investments in coal-burning power plants, such as Old Dominion Electric Cooperative’s proposed power plant in Surry County, VA.

While CCAN opposes this plant because it would spew out about 15 million tons of global warming pollution