Colorado has a lot to win and more to lose in a long-delayed analysis of the nation’s power grid. The likely conclusion of the 60-day study called for by Energy Secretary Rick Perry in April is that a steady supply of electricity depends on a reliable market for coal.

A draft copy leaked last month suggested coal and nuclear power need primacy over renewable energy and natural gas.

“Costly environmental regulations and subsidized renewable generation have exacerbated and accelerated baseload power plant retirements,” the draft stated. “However, those factors played minor roles compared to the long-standing drop in electricity demand relative to previous expectations and years of low electric prices driven by high natural gas availability.”

Colorado has no nuclear power, but, oh brother, the Trump administration is grabbing three live wires on coal, natural gas and renewables. Stabilizing the grid with coal could mean disrupting major investments and plans in Colorado for renewable energy and natural gas.

The state still gets 45 percent of its electricity generation from coal, but it gets more than 23 percent from natural gas. Moreover, Colorado ranks 6th nationally for natural gas production and sits on the third-largest reserves in the country, according to the state Energy Office.

The state gets about 24 percent of its power from renewable sources, about half of which is hydropower. And Republican congressman Scott Tipton of Colorado Springs is looking at amping up the state’s hydropower portfolio in the West.

A 2004 law requires Colorado to get 30 percent renewable energy from investor-owned utilities (namely Xcel and Black Hills),  20 percent for cooperatives and 10 percent for 10 municipal utilities by 2020. Democratic gubernatorial candidates Jared Polis and Mike Johnston are pledging to take the state 100 percent renewable by 2040.

“The leaked draft of Perry’s report was created by non-partisan experts and scientists at the Department of Energy and clearly shows clean energy improves the national grid’s resilience, lowers electricity costs for customers, and improves the efficiency of modern energy marketplaces,” Jim Alexee, the Sierra Club’s Colorado chapter director, tells Colorado Politics.

“This is in line with the experience here in Colorado where renewable energy now provides nearly 30 percent of our energy, creates twice as many jobs as coal, and is helping to lower electricity bills. If politics or corporate special interests make their way into the final report, energy customers here in Colorado may well be left on the hook to prop up expensive coal plants that cannot compete with cleaner, cheaper alternatives. We should listen to the scientists, not corporate special interests.”

The Sierra Club chapter in Colorado estimates more than 15,000 people are working in the renewable energy industry in the state.

But on the other hand, there’s Colorado coal.

The federal Energy Information Administration says that in 2015 there were 1,642 people working in surface and underground mining in the state, a nearly 10 percent decline from 2014. The decline of coal-fired power plants and steel production cut off the two main customers for Colorado mines.

Colorado Politics told you recently that Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Denver, is proposing a bill to provide economic incentives and training programs in six counties where coal used to be king.

In that story we told you about a report released in 2015 by Western State Colorado University in Gunnison said the state’s 12 mines in 2001 produced 33.4 million tons of coal, but the nine mines still operating in 2014 yielded 18.7 million tons. That’s a crippling 44 percent decline.

The tonnage that used to generate electricity declined from 90 percent in 1990 to 60 percent in 2014, the report found.

Clean air rules, natural gas and renewable sources will have shuttered 256 of the nation’s roughly 500 coal plants by 2021 and bankrupted 44 coal companies. Half or more of the country’s nuclear plants  are losing money, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said in an analysis last month.

Without a supply of coal, the nation’s grid could be at risk if it has to rely on other sources, Perry said in his April 14 memo calling for the study.

“We are blessed as a nation to have an abundance of domestic energy resources, such as coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydroelectric, all of which provide affordable baseload power and contribute to a stable, reliable and resilient grid,” he wrote in the memo addressed to his chief of staff.

While less coal might sound good for clean air and renewable energy advocates, it’s bad for miners who aren’t migrating into solar panels and windmills. On the campaign trail, including in Pueblo, where coal was turned into steel (and union votes for Democrats) for more than a century, Donald Trump promised a resurgence.

The president apparently aims to make the market great again.