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Without fire in the belly nor smoke in the chimneys, the rusty power station provides only one sign of its former inhabitants, scribbled on a whiteboard in a padlocked guard cabin.
"RIP Mitchell", handwriting reads. "You gave us a good few years."
The Mitchell power station, just south of Pittsburgh, turned Pennsylvania coal into energy for 65 good years before the discovery of cheaper and cleaner forms of energy.
As a fractured natural gas and renewable energy such as wind and solar power, the Mitchell and Hatfield & Ferry power plants were deactivated the same day in 2013.
Many people from that corner of coal blamed Obama-their era, a candidate named Donald Trump promised to end a so-called "war on coal" they were ready to believe.
"We are putting our great coal miners back to work," he repeated, summoning crowds and waving the "Trump Digs Coal" signs. "I'm the last shot of coal."
"He is trying to get their votes," he says, standing near the fenced entrance of a mine not far from Mitchell where he has previously served as a Face Boss, a term from the coal industry for managers. "He's lying to them."
In his "What Happened" book, Clinton devotes an entire chapter to the blunder, which overshadowed the promise of his initial campaign to provide $ 30 billion in aid to struggling coal communities.
Sullivan had his own thoughts. What you need to say to coal miners, is: "We will find a way to provide you with better, safer and healthier jobs." These guys and these few girls are just too good. They are too good at simply saying that we do not need you, "he said.
In Search of a Remedy
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"They wanted hope," says Blair Zimmerman about his fellow peers from Greene County, Pennsylvania, who trusted Trump. "If anyone who has a disease or cancer and that the doctor says "I can remedy that", they believe … I can not blame them or ask them to trust (Trump). "
"Nothing can stop" transition to renewable energy
"I think the (Earth) system is strong enough to support Donald Trump's four-year term," said Penn State climatologist Michael Mann. "I'm not sure we can support two."
Mann is part of the choir of climate scientists around the world who claim that to save life on Earth as we know it, rich countries like the United States would have to switch to carbon-free electricity by 2030. This would mean that 80% of current coal reserves would remain in the ground, he wrote.
"We have already experienced transitions like this before," Mann says on another unusually hot winter day at State College , Pennsylvania, with Mitchell Power Station.
"We extracted whale oil because something better happened, it was fossil fuels," he says. "Now, something better has happened and it's renewable energy and nothing can stop this transition."
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