Last week, Real Clear Energy published an op-ed by America’s Power President and CEO Michelle Bloodworth titled Trump’s Recent Actions Ensure Coal Can Help End America’s Energy Emergency.
You can read the full piece here and below:
Trump’s Recent Actions Ensure Coal Can Help End America’s Energy Emergency
President Trump’s recent executive orders are a critical step toward ending our national energy emergency by reinvigorating America’s fleet of coal power plants and the coal industry that fuels these power plants.
Coal power plants are a dependable, affordable, resilient, and fuel-secure source of electricity. They’re also a hedge against higher electricity prices when other fuels are expensive or in short supply. Dependable electricity is becoming increasingly important as the grid adds more wind and solar power. A coal power plant operates regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. In fact, a coal power plant is roughly six times more dependable than solar power and twice as dependable as wind when the grid is operating under challenging conditions like the winter storms we have faced during recent years.
Electricity officials have been warning us about the perilous state of our country’s electricity supply for the past several years. Last December, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) warned that almost two-thirds of the country risks electricity shortages over the next five years. Failed federal and state policies based on ideological preferences, rather than sound energy policy, will bear most of the blame if the lights go out. Some blame will also fall on electricity officials who understand the problem but have been too slow to do anything meaningful to solve it. That’s why President Trump and his administration are acting with a sense of urgency.
It’s no secret that the Biden Administration designed EPA regulations to force the closure of coal power plants. Some regulations imposed huge compliance costs that power plant owners cannot afford. Other regulations threatened coal power plants with overly stringent requirements unless they legally committed to shutting down as early as 2028. One of the most inexplicable things about these bad regulations is they were being written at the same time electricity officials were issuing clear warnings about the harm that would result from shutting down power plants, especially considering the skyrocketing demand for electricity caused by data centers, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing. This has created a widening gap between the electricity America will have if policies don’t change and the electricity it will need for economic and national security. Thankfully, EPA Administrator Zeldin has announced that his agency will reconsider and no doubt rewrite many of these regulations before they cause more harm.
Bad regulations and policies are a major cause for plans to close more than 130 coal power plants in 32 states within the next five years, the same time frame when most of the country is facing the prospect of electricity shortages. These coal retirements are helping to drive the energy emergency that President Trump and his administration are working to end. That’s why the President is directing the Department of Energy to examine emergency authorities to stop the shutdown of coal power plants.
On his first day in office, President Trump declared a national energy emergency in response to the perilous state of our grid. Now, the President is employing several other mechanisms to keep coal power plants operating. These include requiring federal agencies to rescind policies that were designed to force the country away from coal and renew a push for coal power plants to be used as an electricity source for the data centers that power artificial intelligence.
The country is fortunate to have an administration focused on ensuring reliable and affordable electricity, rather than eliminating coal power plants.
Michelle Bloodworth is President and CEO of America’s Power.