Trump Boosts Coal Industry to Feed Energy-Hungry Data Centers
After six decades, the coal-fired JH Campbell power plant on the shores of Lake Michigan was set to close in May, after years of moving workers into other jobs and letting local communities decide what to do with the land.
Then came an order from President Donald Trump’s administration to keep the plant running, citing an energy emergency in the region brought about, in part, by the retirement of coal and gas power plants.
JH Campbell Power Plant
Trump has issued executive orders aimed at shoring up the coal industry, particularly to address fast-rising electricity needs for new data centers that power artificial intelligence tools.
For the JH Campbell plant in West Olive, Michigan, the rebound means resupplying its coal pile that once stretched the length of three football fields.
“It was down to just a little dollop,” said Jan O’Connell, a senior energy issues organizer with the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, an advocacy group.
“Now it’s all back up and running,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The move reflects Trump’s intention to end decades-long efforts to wean the United States off coal. Other moves include halting programs designed to help coal-producing communities transition to other industries.
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Energy Secretary Wright Says Wyoming Coal Is Still America’s Energy Future
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright arrived at Wyoming's newest rare earth mine Friday carrying more than ceremonial shovels. The Denver-based Liberty Energy CEO turned Trump cabinet member brought a comprehensive worldview that challenges much of the Biden administration’s energy policies.
He’s been on the forefront of Trump’s push for fossil fuels, and a target for climate change advocates who disagree.
In Wyoming, surrounded by a friendly audience of coal industry supporters — including most of the state’s top elected officials — Wright took on what he described as politically motivated energy policies that ignore economic realities.
Chris Wright
Projecting a dynamic personality and energetically speaking to the crowd gathered for a ribbon cutting ceremony, and then later for a mine tour, Wright showed off political skills and his command of the technical details when it comes to everything from mining rare earth minerals to the politics of climate change.
Opening the first new rare earth mine in the United States in 70 years had all eyes on Ranchester in northern Wyoming and Ramaco’s Brook Mine.
Cowboy State Daily covered Wright’s rise into the public eye in 2022, when he launched a viral campaign against The North Face for refusing to provide co-branded gear to oil and gas workers.
Wright called the policy "ridiculously hypocritical" since North Face products are partly petroleum-based, and he took out billboards in Denver thanking the company for being "such a great customer of the oil and gas industry."
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It Won't Be Easy But Save US Coal
By Frank Clemente and Fred Palmer; Coal is the Cornerstone LLC.
Fred Palmer
The “War Against Coal” has been markedly successful. Led by the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign and funded by elite billionaires like Michael Bloomberg, who has donated over $500 million to “close every coal plant”, this relentless attack on coal has put both the affordability and reliability of America’s electricity supply at risk. Thousands of lawyers, community activists and professional protesters have been deployed to confront regulators, badger utilities, file briefs, regularly attend hearings, do interviews, write editorials, march and demonstrate against coal. And it works. Many decisions on power plants are made at the utility or state level and the squeaky wheel gets the grease. A hostile press and anti-coal Administrations haven’t helped.
Since 2010, coal production has dropped from 1,085 million tons to less than 500 million tons as hundreds of mines closed. Over 300 coal power plants have been retired, most prematurely. Electricity from coal has declined from 45% of power to 16% as coal plants have been required to reduce their production. Ironically, when push comes to shove during a polar vortex, these same regulators routinely beg coal plants to increase generation because solar, wind and natural gas all underperform.
But if you thought the past decade was bad for the coal industry, the worst may be yet to come. Written under the Biden administration, but published just this past April, the US Energy Administration’s 2025 Annual Energy Outlook projects that by 2035, coal generating capacity will drop from 170 GW to only 3 GW -a decline of 98%. Coal generation will drop from 650 billion kWh to 44 billion - less than one percent of US electricity. Coal production will decline from 500 million tons to 167 million and only 27 million tons will be used by coal power plants.
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Energy Department Report Raises Blackout Risks from AI and Increased Electrification if Current Utility Plans Continue
According to the DOE, the massive deployment of wind and solar energy expected over the next five years will not be enough to support the growing power demand brought on by AI data centers and increased electrification.
While the U.S. electric grid is expected to see more than 200 gigawatts of new power generation by the start of the next decade, planned retirements of firm generation, such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear, will continue to threaten reliability.
The DOE estimates that 104 gigawatts of firm plant retirements are scheduled over the next five years.
If the retirements and the current pace of new additions of firm generation remain unchanged, the DOE believes blackouts could increase across the country by 100-fold.
The DOE report justifies President Trump’s belief that electricity demand growth from AI and increased electrification puts the U.S. electric power grid in jeopardy of blackouts, and creates the need for his national emergency declaration to ward off the threat by increasing firm power on the grid.
A Department of Energy (DOE) report indicates that the United States could face significant power shortages by 2030 if the closure of existing coal and natural gas-fired generation facilities continues amid huge growth in electricity demand from artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. The report identifies 104 gigawatts of existing capacity that is slated for closure in the next five years, while 210 gigawatts of new capacity is expected to come online in that time. Despite that large number, the new capacity is mostly wind and solar power, whose generation levels are a fourth or a third of what traditional sources produce, and must be backed up by duplicative power when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. If existing power plants are not kept operational, potential outages could occur in the mid-Atlantic and Great Plains regions. This finding is also supported by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), which is responsible for the reliable operation of the power grid.
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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:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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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