In Colorado town built on coal, some families are moving on, even as Trump tries to boost industry

CRAIG, Colo. (AP) — The Cooper family knows how to work heavy machinery. The kids could run a hay baler by their early teens, and two of the three ran monster-sized drills at the coal mines along with their dad.

But learning to maneuver the shiny red drill they use to tap into underground heat feels different. It's a critical part of the new family business, High Altitude Geothermal, which installs geothermal heat pumps that use the Earth’s constant temperature to heat and cool buildings. At stake is not just their livelihood but a century-long family legacy of producing energy in Moffat County.

Like many families here, the Coopers have worked in coal for generations — and in oil before that. That's ending for Matt Cooper and his son Matthew as one of three coal mines in the area closes in a statewide shift to cleaner energy.

“People have to start looking beyond coal," said Matt Cooper. "And that can be a multitude of things. Our economy has been so focused on coal and coal-fired power plants. And we need the diversity.”

Many countries and about half of U.S. states are moving away from coal, citing environmental impacts and high costs. Burning coal emits carbon dioxide that traps heat in the atmosphere, warming the planet.

President Donald Trump has boosted coal as part of his agenda to promote fossil fuels. He's trying to save a declining industry with executive orders, large sales of coal from public lands, regulatory relief and offers of hundreds of millions of dollars to restore coal plants.

That's created uncertainty in places like Craig. As some families like the Coopers plan for the next stage of their careers, others hold out hope Trump will save their plants, mines and high-paying jobs.

Matt and Matthew Cooper work at the Colowyo Mine near Meeker, though active mining has ended and site cleanup begins in January.

The mine employs about 130 workers and supplies Craig Generating Station, a 1,400-megawatt coal-fired plant. Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association is planning to close Craig's Unit 1 by year's end for economic reasons and to meet legal requirements for reducing emissions. The other two units will close in 2028.

Xcel Energy owns coal-fired Hayden Station, about 30 minutes away. It said it doesn't plan to change retirement dates for Hayden, though it's extending another coal unit in Pueblo in part due to increased demand for electricity.

The Craig and Hayden plants together employ about 200 people.

Craig residents have always been entrepreneurial and that spirit will get them through this transition, said Kirstie McPherson, board president for the Craig Chamber of Commerce. Still, she said, just about everybody here is connected to coal.

“You have a whole community who has always been told you are an energy town, you’re a coal town," she said. “When that starts going away, beyond just the individuals that are having the identity crisis, you have an entire culture, an entire community that is also having that same crisis.”

Coal has been central to Colorado’s economy since before statehood, but it's generally the most expensive energy on today's grid, said Democratic Gov. Jared Polis.

“We are not going to let this administration drag us backwards into an overreliance on expensive fossil fuels,” Polis said in a statement.

Nationwide, coal power was 28% more expensive in 2024 than it was in 2021, costing consumers $6.2 billion more, according to a June analysis from Energy Innovation. The nonpartisan think tank cited significant increases to run aging plants as well as inflation.

Colorado’s six remaining coal-fired power plants are scheduled to close or convert to natural gas, which emits about half the carbon dioxide as coal, by 2031. The state is rapidly adding solar and wind that's cheaper and cleaner than legacy coal plants. Renewable energy provides more than 40% of Colorado’s power now and will pass 70% by the end of the decade, according to statewide utility plans.

Nationwide, wind and solar growth has remained strong, producing more electricity than coal in 2025, as of the latest data in October, according to energy think tank Ember.

But some states want to increase or at least maintain coal production. That includes top coal state Wyoming, where the Wyoming Energy Authority said Trump is breathing welcome new life into its coal and mining industry.

The Coopers have gone all-in on geothermal.

“Maybe we’ll never go back to coal," Matt Cooper said. "We haven’t (gone) back to oil and gas, so we might just be geothermal people for quite some time, maybe generations, and then eventually something else will come along.”

While the Coopers were learning to use their drill in October, Wade Gerber was in downtown Craig distilling grain neutral spirits — used to make gin and vodka — on a day off from the Craig Station power plant. Gerber stepped over his corgis, Ali and Boss, and onto a stepladder to peer into a massive stainless steel pot where he was heating wheat and barley.

Gerber's spent three decades in coal. When closure plans were announced four years ago, he, his wife Tenniel and their friend McPherson brainstormed business ideas.

“With my background in plumbing and electrical from the plant it’s like, oh yeah, I can handle that part of it,” Gerber said about distilling. “This is the easy part.”

He used Tri-State's education subsidies for classes in distilling, while other co-workers learned to fix vehicles or repair guns to find new careers. While some plan to leave town, Gerber is opening Bad Alibi Distillery. McPherson and Tenniel Gerber are opening a cocktail bar next door.

Everyone in town hopes Trump will step in to extend the plant's life, Gerber said. Meanwhile, they're trying to define a new future for Craig in a nerve-wracking time.

“For me, my products can go elsewhere. I don’t necessarily have to sell it in Craig, there’s that avenue. For someone relying on Craig, it's even scarier,” he said.

Tammy Villard owns a gift shop, Moffat Mercantile, with her husband. After the coal closures were announced, they opened a commercial print shop too, seeing it as a practical choice for when so many high-paying jobs go away.

Villard, who spent a decade at Colowyo as administrative staff, said she doesn't understand how the state can throw the switch to turn off coal and still have reliable electricity. She wants the state to slow down.

Villard describes herself as a moderate Republican. She said political swings at the federal level — from the green energy push in the last administration to doubling down on fossil fuels in this one — aren't helpful.

“The pendulum has to come back to the middle," she said, “and we are so far out to either side that I don’t know how we get back to that middle.”

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The Cooper family prepares to drill a hole for a geothermal heat pump installation Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Hamilton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

A drill bit spins into the earth during a geothermal heat pump installation Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Hamilton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Matthew, Anna, Nathan and Matt Cooper prepare to drill a hole for a geothermal heat pump installation Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Hamilton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

FILE - Craig Power Plant, a coal-fired power plant, operates Nov. 18, 2021, in Craig, Colo. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

A drill sits outside the Cooper family ranch as they work to install a geothermal heat pump Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Hamilton, Colo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Matt Cooper and his kids Anna, Nathan and Matthew prepare to drill a hole for a geothermal heat pump installation Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Hamilton, Colo. (AP PhotoBrittany Peterson)

WASHINGTON (AP) — FIFA has invited more teams than ever for a World Cup priced largely for fans in the 1%. The process of figuring out which teams in the expanded 48-nation field will play where begins with Friday's draw at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan will appear in soccer’s premier event for the first time when next year’s tournament is played from June 11 to July 19 at 16 sites in the United States, Mexico and Canada.

“I’m quite optimistic because to qualify you need to beat the other teams of your confederations, and that’s a sign of quality,” former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said Thursday as red carpets were installed at the Kennedy Center. “The teams are not there by coincidence.”

President Donald Trump of the U.S. and Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico are expected along with Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney. Instead of soccer gear, the Kennedy Center gift shop still was filled with socks of Shakespeare, Beethoven and Verdi along with shelves of red and white holiday nutcrackers.

The world’s top 11-ranked teams have all qualified, with No. 12 Italy among 22 nations competing in playoffs for the final six berths to be decided March 31.

Led by captain Lionel Messi, who turns 39 during the tournament, Argentina seeks to become the first nation to win consecutive World Cups since Brazil in 1958 and 1962. Messi will look to extend his record of 26 games played and enters with 13 career goals, three shy of Miroslav Klose's record.

Games will be played at 11 NFL stadiums along with three in Mexico and two in Canada, where construction is underway to add 17,000 temporary seats to BMO Field, raising capacity to around 45,000. Attendance will top the record 3.59 million in 1994.

“We basically set the new tone in terms of attendance, in terms of surrounding the tournament with a lot of entertainment and glamor,” said Alan Rothenberg, head organizer of the 1994 World Cup in the U.S. “We did a lot of things that kind of broke the ice with respect to how you present the tournament as something other than just a soccer tournament.”

FIFA announced initial ticket prices of $60-$6,730, saying they would be dynamic, up from $25-$475 for the 1994 tournament in the United States. It has refused to release a complete list of prices, as it had for every other World Cup since at least 1990. The governing body also is selling parking passes for up to $175 for a single match, a semifinal in Arlington, Texas.

FIFA spokesman Bryan Swanson did not respond to a request for FIFA President Gianni Infantino to discuss ticket prices.

Sixty-four nations will participate in the draw, 30% of FIFA’s members, but just 42 countries are assured of spots. Among the playoff teams, Albania, Kosovo, New Caledonia and Suriname are trying to reach the World Cup for the first time.

With the expansion, the top two teams in each of 12 groups advance along with the eight best third-place teams. Some nations could reach the new round of 32 with three points.

“I think we’re going to be in pretty good shape,” said former U.S. midfielder Tab Ramos, who during his playing days mapped out permutations for advancement. “We have a good team, so I’m not worried as much as I’ve been in the past about about this draw.”

Opta Analyst's computer projects the U.S. has a 0.9% chance of winning — the Americans haven't reached the semifinals since the first World Cup in 1930. Spain tops the forecast at 17%, followed by France (14.1%), England (11.8%), Argentina (8.7%), Germany (7.1.%), Portugal (6.6%), Brazil (5.6%) and the Netherlands (5.2%).

In a new twist, FIFA said the top four teams in the rankings — Spain, Argentina, France and England — will avoid each other until the semifinals if they finish first in their first-round groups.

Specific sites for most matchups and kickoff times won't be announced until Saturday. In 1994, there were just seven night games.

A team's group play sites will be restricted to an Eastern, Central and Western regional

The 1994 World Cup draw in Las Vegas was apolitical, featuring performances by Stevie Wonder, Barry Manilow, James Brown and Vanessa Williams plus comedian Robin Williams, who called the draw screen “the world’s largest keno board,” yelled “Bingo!” when Greece was selected.

This draw figures to be more akin to the ceremony for 2018 tournament in Moscow, opened by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump, who has campaigned for a Nobel Peace Prize, is expected to be awarded FIFA's own peace prize that Infantino established after traveling to several events with Trump.

But the main event is the pulling of balls from bowls to create groups. Retired tars Tom Brady of the NFL, Shaquille O’Neal of the NBA and Wayne Gretzky of the NHL along with three-time AL MVP Aaron Judge will assist in a ceremony to be run by former England captain Rio Ferdinand.

“There is the angst and the looks of sheer terror and disappointment and/or joy and elation from the coaches and from the staffs,” said former U.S. defender Alexi Lalas, now Fox's lead soccer analyst. “It really gets kind of real for people.”

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

The red carpet is delivered prior to the final draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

The red carpet is delivered prior to the final draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

A member of the media works prior to the final draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

The red carpet is delivered prior to the final draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)