Coal Gets a Boost From Executive Orders

A recent set of executive orders from the Trump administration is aimed at supporting the declining U.S. coal industry.

One of the executive orders would keep in use coal-fired power plants that had planned to shut down in order to maintain the reliability of the electric grid system in the face of rapidly rising demand for power from AI data centers, if deemed essential.

They also order the Secretary of Energy to determine whether coal used in steel production is a "critical mineral." Allowing that classification for metallurgical coal could allow emergency powers to be used to raise production and open up funding for research. Another order would identify state climate laws that are an obstacle to developing energy resources like coal, and try to stop them from being enforced.

The orders represent an about-face from the policies of the previous administration, which had sought to transition the country to clean, emission-free sources of energy in order to meet climate goals. If put into effect, the executive orders could reverse the recent trend of steadily lower carbon dioxide and other emissions from power generation, as cleaner-burning natural gas and zero-emissions renewables are now producing larger shares of the nation’s energy.

Coal accounted for 51% of the nation’s power generation in 2001, but has steadily fallen and is now at just 16% of the generation mix. At the same time, the rise of unconventional gas well development, or hydraulic fracturing, opened up vast new supplies of natural gas in the U.S. That cheaper, cleaner source now accounts for 43% of power generation, which increasing use of renewable energy has risen to supply about 21%. Nuclear power provides about 18% of the country’s power generation.

“Rising mining costs, increasingly stringent environmental regulations, and competition from other sources of electric power generation have contributed to coal production declines,” the U.S. Energy Information Administration noted in a recent analysis.

That report found that production of bituminous coal, which is used for power generation, fell from 693 million short tons in 1990 to 263 million short tons in 2023. Much of that production has come from the Appalachian region, including Southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization that manages to the electric grid for 13 Mid-Atlantic states including Pennsylvania, is facing the potential of power shortfalls in the future as coal-fired power plants have been retiring, and new generation sources are not coming online quickly enough to replace that capacity.

At the same time, the demand for power is increasing after years of relative stability due to the rapid rise of energy-hungry data centers, as well as continued electrification of industry and vehicles. PJM estimates that 40 gigawatts of capacity from aging, fossil-fuel fired power plants is expected to retire in the next five years, and is working on policy shifts to more rapidly expand capacity.

Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, were critical of the orders, noting that they will increase emissions and lead to more health and respiratory problems for those living near coal-fired plants.