Keep coal, can't carry on
Last week, President Trump signed four executive orders aiming to revive the beleaguered US coal industry, putting the full weight of the federal government behind more coal production, exports, and infrastructure. But underneath the hood, it looks a lot less like “energy dominance” and a lot more like nostalgia for the US’ energy system of yester-year. 2000s fashion may be back, but there’s no reason for the energy system to follow suit.
What happened
The orders take a few different tacks to attempt to rebuild the case for coal:
- EO 14241 looks to boost “beautiful clean coal” for data centers on federal lands, and in steelmaking. It directs various federal agencies to identify regions where coal-fired infrastructure is available to support AI data centers, as well as to review and revise policies that limit coal investment or production. It also designates coal as a “mineral,” while expediting coal leasing and lifting environmental review barriers on federal lands.
- Another targets state-level climate policies, directing the Department of Justice to challenge states like California and New York that have imposed stricter fossil fuel restrictions it calls “unconstitutional.”
- Yet another aims to get more coal on the grid and keep it there: It invokes emergency powers and directs the DOE to develop a reserve margin methodology to expedite the approval of new electric generation resources (aka coal plants) in regions with grid instability and ensure that they stay online in these regions, effectively delaying coal plant retirement.
- The final EO slashes more red tape at the EPA, DOE, FERC, and NRC, among other agencies. It directs them to regularly reassess and set sunset dates for energy-related regulations, or else they will now automatically expire unless extended.
Simultaneously, DOE chief Chris Wright announced that he was reinstating the National Coal Council, earmarking $200bn in loan authority for financing energy infrastructure projects to include coal, designating metallurgical coal (for steelmaking) as a critical material and mineral, and deploying new mineral extraction technologies from coal ash to recover valuable materials. Meanwhile, the EPA recently offered coal-fired power plants and other industrial polluters the chance to request exemptions from regulations aimed at reducing toxic chemical emissions.
But what this flurry of announcements don’t do is address the underlying economic realities that have already moved the US energy system away from high-polluting coal.
Why it matters
Coal has been on the decline in the US for years — a trend that’s unlikely to reverse. In 2023, coal accounted for just 15% of the nation's electricity generation, a dramatic drop from 45% in 2010. Meanwhile, natural gas, which is cheaper and cleaner (it releases ~50% less CO2 than coal, although high-emitting methane leaks persist), took the lead, supplying about 43% of US power, while wind and solar became more cost-competitive.
Coal costs have risen not just because of stricter regulations, but because its economics have been eroded by competing energy sources. Unlike natural gas, which benefited from the fracking revolution, or renewables like wind, solar, and batteries, which have seen steep cost declines from innovation and scale, coal remains stuck in a slow-moving, high-cost cycle. About 80% of US coal plants cost more to run than it would cost to build new wind or solar, per Energy Innovation — costs that are passed on to ratepayers. Trump’s push to roll back regulations can’t reverse the economic fundamentals that are steadily phasing coal out of the energy mix.
Still, coal’s not dead yet. Energy demand is rising — not to sound like a broken record, but due to data centers, manufacturing, and the electrification of everything — and some utilities are extending the life of aging coal plants. Southern Company, for example, announced plans to keep three coal plants running longer in Georgia and Mississippi to meet the growing demand for electricity earlier this year.
But the bump for coal is likely to be short-lived. It’s been tried before — the FutureGen 2.0 project aimed to retrofit an Illinois coal plant with a carbon capture system, backed by $1bn in the 2009 federal stimulus. Yet, it struggled to secure the additional $650m required from the private sector, and failed to meet its 2015 funding deadline. Today, unless the US government pays for these plants outright, it’s hard to see who would make the investment, especially with neither sufficient tax incentives nor favorable market forces, much less any policy certainty.
Meanwhile, in March 2025, clean energy sources like solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear surpassed fossil fuels in monthly US power generation for the first time. Despite political support for coal, its environmental toll — on the climate and on miners (many of whom have seen jobs automated) — represent a risk for major players, and they don’t want to be liable for that risk premium down the line.
What’s next
- Federal vs. local. Ultimately, utilities are the ones building power plants, and most must get approval from their Public Utility Commissions (PUCs). RMI’s reviews of recent IRPs show utilities planning significant wind and solar additions by 2035, alongside substantial gas capacity increases. Coal retirements are projected, although utilities have delayed fossil retirements or scaled back renewable additions due to interconnection challenges and reliability concerns. Western utility PacifiCorp, for example, has plans for 2,400 MW of solar, 2,270 MW of wind, and 1,680 MW of storage by 2030, plus a 500-MW deal with TerraPower’s nuclear project by 2031. While it will likely extend some coal operations, it will convert 562 MW to gas and add carbon capture at one coal plant.
- Emerging tech could give retiring coal plants new life. Developers can skip the interconnection queue and avoid permitting delays by building new tech at old power plants. For example, Indiana Michigan Power is developing a project using GE Hitachi’s small light water reactor at Rockport Generating Station (to retire in 2028) and Energy Dome’s second-of-a-kind is at the Columbia Energy Center (to retire in 2029). Longer term, thermal energy storage systems could even reuse the steam generators at coal plants, if their upfront costs come down and they can charge cheaply enough. [Currence (formerly Sightline Climate) clients can explore profiles of these emerging technologies here, and dive into projects like these here.]
- Globally, the push for energy security can accelerate the deployment of clean energy. Domestic renewables are less vulnerable to tariffs compared to energy imports. While coal consumption is rising in countries like China and India, driven by growing energy demand from industrialization and urbanization, these nations are also rapidly expanding their solar capacity: India’s solar capacity doubled between 2023 and 2024, and China added a record 277 GW of solar to its grid in 2024. Notably, the world installed a total of 500 GW of solar, so China accounted for more than half — and while it did bring on 95 GW of coal, its solar capacity was nearly three times that.
.png)
