Another factor is that basins mature and shale plays “cannot increase in resources forever,” said Alexei Milkov, also a professor of geology and geological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines.

"Demand's up a little, supply is down a little, and supply is not coming back online as quickly as we'd initially thought," said Ian Lange, an associate professor of economics at the Colorado School of Mines.

The permitting process could help track down sources of pollution or former sources and make the public more aware of them, said Chris Higgins, a Colorado School of Mines professor focused on the lasting chemical compounds

Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines, wrote this opinion piece about the upcoming Conference of the Parties.

Energy specialist, Dr Morgan D Bazilian is a director of the Payne Institute and a professor of public policy at Colorado School of Mines in the US.

“Pueblo is an important story of the energy transition,” said Morgan Bazilian, a former climate negotiator for the EU who is now director of the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines.

“Inevitably, it wasn’t going to be a transition without tension,” said Morgan Bazilian, an energy expert and professor of public policy at the Colorado School of Mines. “The balancing act politically is becoming a lot harder.”

There are many low-carbon approaches that will ultimately be adopted, said Manika Prasad, director of the Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Innovation Center at the Colorado School of Mines.

"Quite frankly, the presence of the radioactive material probably makes the resale value a lot less. If you put it up on eBay, someone's going to notice," said Jeffrey King, Director of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines.

Coal producers in the U.S. would like to take advantage of these high prices, but the infrastructure is just not there, according to Ian Lange, an economist at the Colorado School of Mines.