Coal power vital during energy supply crisis

The Trump administration’s embrace of coal power is a timely and essential response to a three-headed energy emergency. The United States is facing an electricity supply crisis shaped by rapidly eroding grid reliability, soaring power demand and ballooning prices. The coal fleet is critical to tackling all three, according to the Tribune News Service.

The North American Electric Reliability Corp., the nation’s grid watchdog, has warned that approaching power supply shortfalls are a “five-alarm fire,” with more than half the country facing significant blackout risks over the next decade.

While most Americans are blissfully unaware of how bad things have gotten, this is an emergency by any reasonable measure. Driving the crisis has been the rapid loss of existing on-demand power plants — casualties of broken power markets, renewable energy mandates and punishing regulations — and the sudden arrival of exploding electricity demand.

New manufacturing facilities, millions of electric vehicles and the overnight emergence of data centers with the power needs of entire cities have overwhelmed power supplies. US power demand is expected to nearly double by 2050. The nation needs far more electricity, and it needs it immediately.

Skyrocketing utility bills, up 40 percent since 2020, also reflect the crisis as markets try to incentivize new supply. Massive utility spending on new power capacity and energy infrastructure is slamming ratepayers.

The administration, much to its credit, is confronting the crisis with the urgency it demands. It has embraced the coal fleet as a key piece of the answer.

The administration has rightly recognized that the first step in addressing the supply crisis is to stop the loss of essential generating capacity. A regulatory reset is allowing the coal fleet to compete again. Now, the administration is making targeted investments to upgrade existing plants, enabling them to achieve greater efficiency, extend their operating lives, and produce even more power when it’s needed most. This strategy accomplishes three important goals.

First, it helps stabilize power supply in markets where the loss of further coal capacity could turn a deeply difficult situation into an untenable one. The White House says it has supported and saved more than 40 gigawatts of coal power, enough to power 25 million homes.

Second, it immediately puts more reliable, on-demand power onto the grid. That’s important because, as power demand surges, there’s a global logjam for new natural gas turbines, and new nuclear power plants remain years away. Other new generating capacity additions are dominated by renewable energy sources that supply power when conditions are favorable, but often not when grid operators need it most.

Third, small investments in existing coal capacity cost a fraction of alternatives and preserve essential fuel optionality. Why is optionality so important? Consider the role coal played in holding down energy costs last year.

In 2025, wholesale US natural gas prices jumped 56%, adding billions of dollars in costs to U.S. consumers. The effect was significant but would have been larger if not for the U.S. coal fleet. Utilities were able to ramp up coal generation in response, providing a shock absorber to rising natural gas prices. That optionality saved US consumers $30 billion to $40 billion in otherwise higher energy costs.

Preserving — and even enhancing — this optionality is a very well-made investment.

Fuel optionality and fuel security are now driving energy policy as the world faces another energy crisis, the second in four years. Nations across Asia and Europe are leaning on coal to shore up energy supplies and reduce costs. Annual global coal demand is once again expected to set a record. The administration isn’t bucking a global trend; its embrace of coal is right in line with it.

The United States has the world’s largest coal reserves and a dynamic coal industry. Investing in US coal capacity is not merely sound energy policy, it’s recognition of alarming realities. With electricity demand soaring, prices climbing and reliability deteriorating, not embracing US coal would amount to energy policy malpractice.