Apr 11, 2017 2 min read

Solar power is cheap and will likely become cheaper as it gains more of a foothold around the world. Within a little more than 20 years, solar energy will account for 15 percent of the world’s electricity, Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported in 2016, and it’s expected $135 billion is going to be invested in solar energy annually over the next several years.

And it’s because of the cost-savings that solar panels are going up on the roof of an off-the-beaten-path museum in Benham, Ky. Turns out, ironically enough, that it’s the Kentucky Coal Museum.

The new solar panels on the museum, which houses such artifacts as mining equipment, a two-ton block of coal and an exhibit on country singer Loretta Lynn, are expected to realize a cost savings between $8,000 and $10,000 per year, according to a spokesman for the Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, which owns the museum.

Roger Noe, a former state representative from that area, told the Associated Press, “It’s a little ironic or coincidental that you are putting solar green energy on a coal museum.” However, he observed that “coal comes from nature, the sun’s rays come from nature so it all works out to be a positive thing.”

Despite all the promises that coal is going to stage a comeback, and that workers will be once again flooding into the mines, that is profoundly unlikely to happen. Mining jobs have been vanishing for years thanks to automation, cheaper and cleaner-burning natural gas and greater reliance on renewables. As The Washington Post recently pointed out, close to 1 million Americans worked in the mines in 1923. Now, that number stands at 77,000 – fewer than the Arby’s restaurant chain.

The proprietors of the Kentucky Coal Museum appear to realize where the future of energy lies. The days when coal was king are not coming back.