New Coal Mining Permit Approved in Tennessee to Boost America’s Energy Independence
The Department of the Interior has given the green light to Hurricane Creek Mining, LLC to mine coal on Bryson Mountain in Claiborne County, Tennessee. This project will produce up to 1.8 million tons of coal over the next 10 years, helping to strengthen America’s energy independence and create local jobs. The coal from this mine will support important industries like steelmaking and power generation.
“This project reflects a broader shift, one where American resources are being put to work for American strength,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Adam Suess. “We’re not just issuing permits—we’re supporting communities, securing supply chains for critical industries, and making sure the U.S. stays competitive in a changing global energy landscape.”
The permit was approved through expedited environmental review under newly established procedures designed to speed up reviews of energy projects in response to the national energy emergency declared by President Trump earlier this year. This approval is a key step in the government’s plan to support reliable coal production and grow the nation’s energy resources and in alignment with Executive Order 14261, “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry.” This mine approval complements the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s support for the coal industry in the United States, including by reducing royalty rates for mining federal coal and opening millions of acres for federal coal leasing.
As approved, Hurricane Creek Mining, LLC is authorized to surface mine several coal seams on about 635 acres by auger, highwall, and contour methods. Coals seams from the mining area typically contain both specialty market and thermal use coal. The primary uses of the specialty coal are steel making and special industrial use, including the potential for extraction of rare earth metals or trace minerals. Occasionally, this coal is blended with low grade coal for electricity generation.
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A Novel Idea: Fact-Based Energy Policy
The Department of Energy (DOE) is finally doing something almost unheard of in government in recent years: policymaking based on reality and facts.
This week, DOE released a new “Resource Adequacy Report,” evaluating the reliability and security of the U.S. grid. The report is a direct response to President Trump’s Executive Order, “Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid,” which mandates the development of a uniform methodology to analyze current and future electricity capacity and identify at-risk regions.
As hard as it is to believe, instead of setting energy policy based on quota systems, pledges and artificial deadlines, we have an administration that is actually taking a hard look at the data on what it takes to keep the lights on.
The report’s findings are clear and demand immediate action:
The path we’re on simply won’t work. Continuing to retire well-operating coal power plants, replacing them with less reliable generation, will not allow the U.S. to keep up with the power demands of the global AI race and keep energy prices affordable, much less keep the lights on.
We’re not growing our grid in the right ways. Given how quickly electricity demand is increasing, we need what the report calls “radical change” in how we are approaching capacity growth and grid management.
Retirements are digging the hole deeper. The fossil fuel power plants currently set to retire are not being replaced with comparable generation, increasing the risk of outages by 100x in 2030.
We need every megawatt of energy we have, and more. Even if all of the planned retirements stopped, given expected increases in demand, the risk of outages is still up 34x by 2030. We must grow reliable capacity.
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Trump Administration Weighs New Coal Sales From Public Lands in Montana and Wyoming
Federal officials on Monday took a first step toward reopening vast areas of public lands in two Western states to new coal sales as part of President Donald Trump's push to expand U.S. fossil fuel production.
The Interior Department proposal comes after the Biden administration, citing climate change, tried to end sales of the fuel from the nation's most productive coal fields — the Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana.
The Trump administration is instead considering selling leases for coal mining on more than 2,600 square miles (6,800 kilometers) of federal lands in that region, according to documents released by officials. That's an area larger than Delaware.
The unfolding course reversal on using public lands to boost the struggling U.S. coal industry stems from an executive order signed by Trump on his first day in office. It's part of Trump's broad push to increase oil, gas and coal extraction from publicly owned lands and waters in the U.S., even as Republicans pull back support for renewable energy projects.
The tax bill that Trump signed last week lowered royalty payments from 12.5% to 7% for companies that mine coal on public lands. The bill also has a mandate to make available for leasing 6,250 square miles (16,200 square kilometers) — an area greater in size than Connecticut.
A spokesperson for the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management said Monday’s announcement about Powder River Basin leasing was preliminary and could change after a public comment period. The agency declined to say how much interest it expects from mining companies or how quickly new mines could open.
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US Warns of Blackout Risk From Killing Coal as Trump Snubs Renewables
Blackouts in the US could double by 2030 amid an expected increase in power demand brought on by AI, according to a Trump administration report seen as a precursor to a broader intervention to help keep coal-fired power plants from closing early.
The Energy Department report blames the expected shortfall on the closures of coal and natural gas power plants and the overreliance on renewable energy. The analysis, which comes in response to an executive order from the White House on strengthening grid reliability and security, provides a methodology to identify areas vulnerable to outages to allow for “Federal reliability interventions.”
A 100% “surge in power outages” is expected within five years if planned power plant closures remain on schedule without new units to replace them, the Energy Department said in ahead of the report. “Staying on the present course would undermine U.S. economic growth, national security, and leadership in emerging technologies,” it said.
The report backs President Donald Trump’s pro-coal and anti-renewable approach to energy generation, painting wind and solar as unreliable and part of a “radical green agenda of past administrations.” It also comes as the Energy Department has been using emergency authority to extend the life of coal and other plants, citing concerns about shortages of electricity as data centers, which power artificial intelligence models, require more supply.
“If we are going to keep the lights on, win the AI race, and keep electricity prices from skyrocketing, the United States must unleash American energy,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement.
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Wake Up Please! Stop Closing Coal Plants!
By Frank Clemente and Fred Palmer; Coal is the Cornerstone LLC
China will soon have over 1,500 Gigawatts (GW) of dispatchable coal generating capacity to meet the 24/7 reliability demands of AI, its associated data centers and societal electrification in general. In sharp contrast, based on the latest DOE projection, by 2035, the US will have only 3 GW of coal capacity. Further, as US coal is wiped from the scene, nuclear is projected to remain flat and natural gas generation to decline. Intermittent wind and solar capacity will increase from the current 32% to 46% while baseload capacity drops from 58% to 39% in just 10 years. The track records of neither wind nor solar, especially in winter, do not merit this gamble.
China is playing the long game in making reliable and affordable baseload coal the foundation of their electrification plans. The US has no energy plan and is steadily developing an electric power system that will be increasingly expensive, less reliable and a risk to national security.
Fred Palmer
Germany is the prime example of missing the forest for the trees. Since 2015, the percentage of electricity generated from coal has fallen significantly and a complete phase out is planned in the next decade. Meanwhile, about 55% of Germany's electricity is generated by non-dispatchable renewables with these results: (1) Germany’s electricity rates are among the highest in the World as the cost to families is over 40 cents per kWh compared to 18 cents in America; (2) In December, only 18% of electricity was produced by renewables, coal stepped up to meet demand and imports dramatically increased. If coal is gone, where would the US get imported power?
Some in the industry may scoff at the EIA projections because President Trump’s recent legislation has taken several first steps to support coal and constrain dependence on intermittents. But such complacency is dangerous indeed. The President’s term ends in 43 months. Will it be back to Business as Usual? Don’t forget, coal generating capacity has declined from almost 300 GW to 170 GW in the past decade. It is not much of a reach to see how 170 GW can turn into 3 GW in another 10 years.
America has 25% of the world’s coal. This resource is time-tested, secure, reliable, accessible, affordable, and distributed across more than 20 states. The infrastructure to produce, transport and convert coal to electricity is already in place. Clean coal technology is real. Coal’s capacity can be significantly increased with a few strokes of a pen. Yet, we continue to close coal plants - Why?
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