President Donald Trump came into office promising to reverse the long decline of coal. Now he’s taking action with a plan to pour money into coal-burning plants and open federal lands to mining. But can coal compete with the ascendancy of clean energy technologies?
Coal use has been “displaced in many cases by cheaper and cleaner natural gas, wind and solar power” over the last two decades, said The New York Times. But “growing interest in artificial intelligence and data centers” has spurred a new surge in electricity demand that is keeping coal-burning plants open past their scheduled closure dates. The Trump administration is augmenting that by designating $625 million in funding to keep plants in operation, opening 13 million acres of land to mining and repealing “dozens of regulations” designed to curb coal pollution. If America does not “lead in electrical production, we’re going to lose the AI arms race,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. The new policies merely “prop up the aging and outdated coal industry,” said the Sierra Club’s Holly Bender.
Propping up fossil fuels?
The U.S. needs more coal-burning power plants “or the future will be dark,” Terry L. Headley, a former coal industry spokesperson, said at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. America’s power grid still relies largely on fossil fuels, and without them “we’re headed for blackouts.” The retirement of coal-fired plants means a loss of the “only thing that stands between Americans and the dark.” At the same time coal has declined, electrical demand has surged. That makes it clear “we must preserve, reinvest in and expand our coal-fired baseload fleet.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Latest Videos From
“Propping up fossil fuels will cost taxpayers dearly,” Bloomberg said in an editorial. Even as it pushes coal, the Trump administration is moving to block offshore wind and other renewable-energy projects nationwide. Analysts say that keeping old plants online past their retirement dates “could raise costs for consumers nationwide” — as much as $3 billion by 2028. Instead of trying to keep “uncompetitive old coal plants” alive, the federal government should “focus on converting them to clean energy.”
Trump’s love for coal is “irrational,” Paul Krugman said on his Substack. Administration officials say coal mining is an “economically viable industry that has been sabotaged by liberals.” But the industry is dying “for very good reasons, and anti-wokeism is unlikely to revive it.” Mining jobs underwent an “epic decline” after 1950 thanks to technological advances, and coal use started declining in 1980. That will continue to be the case because “coal is no longer cost-competitive, while wind and solar are.”
Can the decline be reversed?
The government’s decision to auction mining leases for federal land is a “key test of mining industry interest” in reversing coal’s decline, said Reuters. The auctions will kick off Tuesday with the auction of leases in Alabama. The industry is “well-positioned to make the most of new leasing opportunities to answer the call for increased domestic coal,” said Ashley Burke of the National Mining Association.
