Cloud Peak Energy, the third largest coal producer in the U.S., is expected to go public this week.

Reuters reports: “analysts cautioned that demand for the offering could be tepid. The IPO is priced at a premium compared with competitors.”

Formed in 1993, Cloud Peak Energy operates three coal mines located in Montana and Wyoming. Cloud Peak coal is sold primarily to utilities and accounts for 6% of the electricity generated in the US.

Cloud Peak is subsidiary of Rio Tinto, which produces about 100 million tons of coal annually and controls 1 billion tons in proved and probable reserves. Cloud Peak is set to start trading this week under the ticker symbol “CLD.”

Madd Money‘s Jim Cramer said, “Cloud Peak Energy could quickly become the premium coal company in this country.”

At a public hearing in Atlantic City last Monday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar stated that he believed that most, and possibly all, coal power plants in the United States could be replaced by wind turbines along the East Coast.

“The idea that wind energy has the potential to replace most of our coal-burning power today is a very real possibility,” he said. “It is not technology that is pie-in-the sky; it is here and now.”

Salazar estimated that East Coast ocean winds could produce one million megawatts of power, which would account for almost five times the amount of power produced by all coal plants currently operating in the United States.

Not surprisingly, a spokesman for the American Coal Council, Jason Hayes, was more than a little sceptical about this possibility and pointed to roadblocks of wind power including wildlife impact and efficiency issues with transferring power back to shore.

The Atlantic City hearing was the first of four that will be held throughout the US which will examine how energy resources should be utilized with respect to the Obama administration’s energy policy. The Atlantic City Convention Center, where it took place, has the largest roof-mounted solar energy panels in the United States.

Here is a video of Ashley Judd speaking at an “I Love Mountains” rally, which opposes a form of coal mining in which entire mountains are literally blown up.

Judd said: “Let me be clear. Mountaintop removal mining is a tragedy. Mountaintop removal mining is a scourge on our land and our people. It’s killing our mountains – the very thing that produced us.”

Judd is supporting a bill sponsored by Rep. Don Pasley, that’s been held up in the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee, that restricts waste rock blasted from the sides and tops of mountains from being placed in the upper reaches of hollows, where natural streams are being buried.

The recent ruling by the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board could result in hard times for coal power and an easier future for renewable energy. The board blocked the EPA from issuing a permit to a coal plant addition in Utah and ruled that the agency needs to develop a nationwide standard for dealing with CO2.

This ruling is extremely important because it puts over a hundred proposed coal plants on hold while the EPA comes up with new CO2 guidelines. Coal plants will be considered risky by investors because their future is uncertain. This might hopefully persuade investors to put their money behind clean energy initiatives instead.

If the EPA comes up with more strict CO2 limits, coal companies will be forced to spend more on tech that reduces their emissions, making coal power more expensive and renewables like solar, wind and geothermal more competitive.