Even the Los Angeles Times is asking that question: "For more than 200 years, coal has been king in Ohio, occupying a privileged position in state politics and as the fuel of choice for local power plants. Now its supremacy is being challenged. A natural gas rush that has hurtled through the country over the last five years has pushed its way into the coal fields of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Entire villages in eastern Ohio are leasing their land for gas drilling, and huge energy companies that relied on coal to generate electricity are turning to natural gas." More? "The energy boom is also transforming the American economic landscape. The United States now imports less crude oil than it has since 1987, thanks in large part to an oil rush in North Dakota and a rise in vehicle fuel economy. More electricity now comes from renewable sources as the prices of wind and solar fall and states put in place clean energy mandates. Among the biggest shifts, however, has been the rise of natural gas, and with it the increasingly fragile position of coal."
Read the whole thing.