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Power station Bowen in Cartersville, Georgia.<\/span>Hyosub Shin\/TNS\/ZUMA<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n This story was originally published b<\/em>y\u00a0WIRED<\/a>\u00a0and is reproduced here as part of the\u00a0<\/em>Climate Desk<\/a>\u00a0collaboration<\/em>.<\/p>\n Last Tuesday, President<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Donald Trump held a press conference to announce the signing of executive orders intended to shape American energy policy in favor of one particular source: coal, the most\u00a0carbon-intense<\/a>\u00a0fossil fuel.<\/p>\n \u201cI call it beautiful, clean coal,\u201d President Trump said while flanked by a crowd of miners at the White House. The crowd chuckled knowingly at the now-familiar phrase. \u201cI tell my people never use the word coal unless you put \u2018beautiful, clean\u2019 before it.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has talked about\u00a0saving coal,<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0coal jobs<\/a>, for as long as he\u2019s been in politics. This time, he\u2019s got a convenient vehicle for his policies: the growth of AI and data centers, which could potentially supercharge American energy demand over the coming years. One of the\u00a0executive orders<\/a>\u00a0signed Tuesday includes instructions to designate coal as a \u201ccritical mineral,\u201d expedite coal leasing on federal land, and identify opportunities for expanding coal-fired power to support data centers.<\/p>\n Using coal to drive AI \u201cwould be one of the great technology ironies of all time: Let\u2019s go to a 1700s technology in order to power 21st-century technology.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Using coal to drive AI \u201cwould be one of the great technology ironies of all time: Let\u2019s go to a 1700s technology in order to power 21st-century technology,\u201d says Seth Feaster, an energy data analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. \u201cIt really is a vast oversimplification of how power markets, power production, and the grid works in the US.\u201d<\/p>\n In Tuesday\u2019s presser, Trump, trodding familiar territory, targeted Democrats for the destruction of coal jobs as part of a \u201cGreen New Scam,\u201d laying the blame on both Joe Biden and Barack Obama. In truth, though, coal retirement isn\u2019t a function of who\u2019s in the White House. More coal-fired power\u00a0came offline<\/a>\u00a0under Trump\u2019s first presidency than under either of Obama\u2019s terms.<\/p>\n Unfortunately for Trump, the US coal industry suffers from some truly unavoidable economic realities. The last large coal-fired power plant built in the US came online in\u00a02013<\/a>; coal plants in the US are,\u00a0on average<\/a>, 45 years old. This aging fleet also has higher maintenance and upkeep costs for equipment than competing types of power. The fracking revolution in the 2010s\u2014as well as the increasing availability of cheap renewables\u2014has also made coal-fired power increasingly expensive. In 2023, just\u00a016 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the US\u2019s power generation was from coal, down from\u00a051 percent<\/a>\u00a0in 2001.<\/p>\n With the executive order, Trump is \u201cputting the thumb on one energy source in particular that happens to be one of the highest-cost energy sources,\u201d says John Moore, a director at the National Resource Defense Council. \u201cThere are much cheaper and cleaner options.\u201d<\/p>\n While coal\u2019s downward turn in the US has been predictable, something\u00a0has<\/em>\u00a0changed since the last time Trump was in office: AI. After remaining flat for several decades, various industry forecasts now predict skyrocketing demand for energy as companies talk a big game around plans for data centers. In September, Bloomberg Intelligence\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0that data center electricity use in the US could increase fourfold over the next five years, driven in large part by generative AI. Goldman Sachs, meanwhile,\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0in February that global energy demand from data centers could increase 165 percent by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n The promise of new demand is driving some utilities to reconsider scheduled coal plant retirements. In Virginia, where Amazon Web Services keeps\u00a096 data centers<\/a>\u00a0and is investing\u00a0$35 million<\/a>\u00a0to expand its campuses, the regional transmission organization, PJM Interconnection, requested a delayed retirement of two coal plants due to\u00a0increased demand from data centers<\/a>. Demand from Google and Meta data centers has also kept a coal-fired power plant in Nebraska online\u00a0past its retirement date<\/a>.<\/p>\n But keeping a patient on life support is substantially different than bringing a corpse back from the dead. A PJM executive\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0at a conference last month that he wasn\u2019t sure if the market was \u201csending the signal right now that coal should actually stick around.\u201d Building new, technologically up-to-date coal plants\u2014an idea Trump floated at Tuesday\u2019s presser\u2014would be a hard sell in an economy where investors are wary of big capital investments for outdated technology. Tech companies, meanwhile, are focusing long-term energy investments on\u00a0nuclear power<\/a>, as well as\u00a0renewables and battery technologies<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even in states where coal wields political power, data centers haven\u2019t proven to be a savior. In March, lawmakers in West Virginia\u00a0attached provisions<\/a>\u00a0to juice up coal use to a bill intended to jump-start the data center industry in the state. Despite cheerleading from the governor, the bill ultimately\u00a0passed<\/a>\u00a0without the coal provisions after Appalachian Power, West Virginia\u2019s largest utility, intervened, claiming that the coal requirements would raise bills for customers. An executive\u00a0told lawmakers<\/a>\u00a0that even a big new customer like a data center wouldn\u2019t spur the utility to buy more coal-fired power; the regulatory and financial reality, he said, favors natural gas.<\/p>\n Regulations on coal plant emissions are a clear target for this administration. Last month, the EPA rolled out a\u00a0suite of attacks<\/a>\u00a0on a wide swath of regulations, signaling its intent to reconsider everything from rules on power plant emissions to greenhouse gas reporting. The agency also\u00a0created an email address<\/a>\u00a0to allow polluters to petition for a temporary exemption from mercury and air toxics standards set out under the Clean Air Act\u2014known as the MATS rule\u2014as the agency reconsidered a host of pollution rules. Montana\u2019s Colstrip power plant\u2014one of the dirtiest coal plants in the country, which was\u00a0fighting<\/a>\u00a0upgrades mandated by an updated pollution rule\u2014has already\u00a0requested<\/a>\u00a0an exemption.<\/p>\n If the new executive orders are any suggestion, the Trump administration sees this deregulation, and the targeting of climate change policies, as a key element of propping up coal. A separate presidential proclamation released Tuesday\u00a0extends<\/a>\u00a0the MATS exemption for an unknown number of coal plants, while another executive order\u00a0tasks<\/a>\u00a0the attorney general with attacking state-level climate regulations, singling out Vermont, New York, and California.<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible that costs for coal could come down slightly with fewer climate regulations. \u201cYou can run all these coal plants without environmental regulations or reduced environmental regulations\u2014I\u2019m sure that will save industry money,\u201d Feaster says. \u201cWhether or not the communities around those places really want that is another issue. Those environmental regulations are there for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n Costs, after all, aren\u2019t just measured in dollars. Coal emissions include a mix of heavy metals and chemicals, including sulfur dioxide, that can be deadly to people living around power plants. A\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0published in 2023 in\u00a0Science<\/em>\u00a0estimated that between 1999 and 2020, coal-fired power plants were responsible for 460,000 excess deaths in the US alone. Coal waste, meanwhile, is stored in toxic ponds of ash; spills have cost\u00a0some utilities<\/a>\u00a0millions of dollars in settlements.<\/p>\n Utilities, Feaster says, have priced in the health risks of coal and the liabilities that come with coal into their decisions. But it\u2019s not clear if the Trump administration understands these risks. Cuts at Health and Human Services this month have\u00a0expelled<\/a>\u00a0workers involved in black lung research and other protections for coal miners at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, as international markets melted down, Donald Trump\u00a0posted<\/a>\u00a0an invite on TruthSocial to companies to move their business to the US. \u201cNo Environmental Delays,\u201d he wrote. \u201cDON\u2019T WAIT, DO IT NOW!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n