Coal Nostalgia by the Trump Administration is Likely to Be Short-Lived Due to Future Political Control and Regulatory Uncertainty

     By short-lived, I mean when the administration encounters loss of political control from Congress and eventually the presidency, which I believe will happen. The current administration is enacting policies and executive orders as if those will never be rolled back. By the time some of the policies are enacted, such as producing more coal, they may be facing rollbacks. While there is certainly some concern about future power reliability due to the loss of baseload power generation sources, including coal, especially in light of increasing projected power demand, it is unlikely to mean a revival in coal production and coal-fired plant upgrading. There will, however, likely be more coal plant retirement delays. I don’t think the power industry believes a coal revival in power production is likely.

     The Trump administration announced recently that it will open 13 million acres of federal lands for coal mining and provide $625 million to recommission or modernize coal-fired power plants. The plan for the spending is shown below.

     The call to ‘mine, baby, mine’ echoes the call to drill, baby, drill, which has not resulted in any drilling growth over the last eight and a half months. The so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ lowered federal royalty rates for coal mining from 12.5% to 7%, a significant decrease that officials said will help ensure U.S. coal producers can compete in global markets. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum noted:

“By reducing the royalty rate for coal, increasing coal acres available for leasing and unlocking critical minerals from mine waste, we are strengthening our economy, protecting national security and ensuring that communities from Montana to Alabama benefit from good-paying jobs."

     The DOE also listed all the actions they have initiated to support America's coal industry:

     EPA administrator Lee Zeldin suggested it was heavy-handed regulations from the Biden administration that hurt coal, but that argument has been debunked, including by centrist conservatives such as Benji Backer, who wrote an op-ed to argue that it was market forces that caused coal use to drop.

     The EPA also announced that it will delay seven deadlines related to wastewater pollution from coal-fired power plants. The rule on coal residuals (CR), or coal ash left over from burning the coal, which sits in giant piles of sludge in unlined ponds, will be delayed. Coal ash has been found to pollute local groundwater with toxic heavy metals wherever it is stored in such a way.

     Two coal plants in Ohio, near where I live and likely where my power comes from, have some of the biggest unlined coal ash piles. These are very old plants; one was built in 1954 and one in 1974-75. While they have been modernized to some extent with pollution control equipment, they are surely getting close to the end of their lifetimes. I actually interviewed for a job at the older of the two plants a few years ago, but was not selected. One plant has been associated with several events where black soot was spread all over the immediate region. Local people were very concerned. Eventually, the power company bought out many of the local houses in the town of Cheshire, which is much diminished now. 

     When the second Trump administration began, those plant owners were given new hope for continued operations.

“We just feel like the last administration, all of these regulations were really designed to force the closure of coal plants,” said Michelle Bloodworth, president and CEO of industry group America’s Power.

     According to an April 2025 AP article by Michael Phillis:

“Environmentalists worry about coal ash and its heavy metals in part because there’s so much of it – more than 100 million tons is produced each year, much of which sits near lakes and rivers in sprawling disposal sites. Some is reused, but a lot is stored near coal plants in coal ash ponds that may not have a lining to keep it from leaching into groundwater.”

“It can be disastrous when companies fail to keep that waste in place. In 2008, a huge dike burst at a Tennessee coal plant. That released more than a billion gallons of coal ash, polluting rivers, toppling homes and shortening the lives of many cleanup workers who spent months exposed to its toxicity.”

“That disaster helped lead to the first federal standards for coal ash disposal in 2015. Those included requirements for companies to line new storage sites, conduct water monitoring and ensure many leaky ponds closed safely, often requiring the material to be moved elsewhere.”

“It contains a lot of important protections, but it didn’t apply to all the coal ash that utilities were managing,” said Nick Torrey, an attorney with the nonprofit Southern Environmental Law Center.

     The 2600 MW Gavin power plant was sold in late 2024, from one private equity owner to another, which I posted about. It became operational in 1974-1975. According to the Sierra Club, it is the plant they associate with the most deaths from pollution in the country, as well as fifth in CO2 emissions among power plants. It is the largest emitter of PM 2.5 particulate matter from a single source in the U.S. Lucky for me, the air blows the other way. Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently echoed Trump in referring to coal as “beautiful, clean coal.” While its beauty is debatable, it is not clean.

“The EPA estimated Biden’s rules would cost the industry as much as $240 million annually. America’s Power says forcing plants like Gavin to remove coal ash that sits below the water table that they don’t believe is a significant threat to the area’s groundwater and drinking water is extremely costly and can force shutdowns.”

     Matthew Daly of AP writes:

“Coal once provided more than half of U.S. electricity production, but its share dropped to about 15% in 2024, down from about 45% as recently as 2010. Natural gas provides about 43% of U.S. electricity, with the remainder from nuclear energy and renewables such as wind, solar and hydropower.”

“Energy experts say any bump for coal under Trump is likely to be temporary because natural gas is cheaper, and there’s a durable market for renewable energy such as wind and solar power no matter who holds the White House.”

     The notion of using coal to power AI is both nostalgic and dangerous. Projected data center load growth is not just from AI, but nearly one third of it (about 30%) is projected to be to power cryptocurrency. The notion of polluting people to provide transaction security that benefits criminals (crypto is a favorite of money launderers) and stock speculators seems beyond nostalgic to me. It seems almost diabolical in the sense that there are better ways to provide transaction security and better ways to expend energy. We have plenty of natural gas, especially here in the Midwest/Northeast, that can be used for power plants and AI that is cheaper than coal, except during cold snaps when inadequate pipeline capacity and other infrastructure like gas storage fields become temporarily unavailable. We really don’t need coal for power and AI. Meanwhile, environmentalists continue to pursue the denigration of natural gas, which is much cleaner and more often cheaper than coal.  

 

 

    

References:

 

Trump administration opens more land for coal mining, offers $625M to boost coal-fired power plants. Matthew Daly. Associated Press. September 29, 2025. Trump administration opens more land for coal mining, offers $625M to boost coal-fired power plants

Energy Department Announces $625 Million Investment to Reinvigorate and Expand America’s Coal Industry. U.S. Dept, of Energy. September 29, 2025. Energy Department Announces $625 Million Investment to Reinvigorate and Expand America’s Coal Industry | Department of Energy

Burning coal leaves dangerous waste. Trump’s EPA eyes looser rules for handling it. Michael Phillis. Associated Press. April 16, 2025. Burning coal leaves dangerous waste. Trump's EPA eyes looser rules for handling it | AP News