Among all the tests President Obama faced in his first term, his biggest failure was climate change.

Coal boosters like to tout coal as cheap and plentiful - well, not anymore. At least not in China.

When it comes to energy, cost isn't everything - but it's a lot. Everybody wants cheap power.

In the world of energy politics, the sudden vanishing of the word 'coal' is a remarkable and unprecedented event.

Bloomberg's $50 million is not going to revolutionize the electric power industry. But his willingness to fight is already inspiring others to see Big Coal differently.

Americans don't pay much attention to environmental issues, because they aren't sexy. I mean, cleaning up coal plants and reining in outlaw frackers is hugely important work, but it doesn't get anybody's pulse racing.

Bloomberg is famously impatient with beltway politics and believes that to get anything done you need to work from the ground up.