Donald Trump has been a big supporter of the coal industry since entering American politics, donning a hard hat at his “Trump Digs Coal” rally in 2016. It was part of his attempt to portray himself as a populist, and he repeatedly said he would revive the industry and bring back coal jobs.
“I will sign an executive order directing the War Department to work directly with coal-fired power plants on new power purchase agreements to ensure we have more reliable energy and a stronger and more resilient electric grid, and we will now be purchasing a lot of coal through the military,” Trump said at a signing ceremony last Wednesday.
Expensive form of energy
The coal industry has been in decline for well over a decade, in part because natural gas displaced coal following the fracking boom. At the same time, the cost of renewable energy has fallen dramatically over the past 15 years, making it cheaper than coal-fired power. In short, coal has become one of the most expensive forms of energy in the United States.
Trump says he will bring back coal jobs, but that is unlikely. In addition to the fact that coal is not economically the right choice for new energy infrastructure, many of the jobs once done by humans are now being taken over by robots and machines. Automation has swept the industry and the jobs are not coming back.
Experts disagree
Costa Samaras, director of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University, tells Rolling Stone that Trump’s plan to require the Pentagon to buy coal makes little sense.
“At first glance, this does not seem to be a viable strategy for the energy resilience of military installations,” says Samaras. “It seems more like a strategy by which the state intervenes in energy markets to support a preferred fuel that is largely economically uncompetitive.”
Erin Sikorsky, director of the Center for Climate and Security, a climate change research institute, agrees, pointing out that the cost of bringing new coal power to military bases would be “enormous.”
Military and power grid
“There is nothing stopping the military from buying coal if it wanted to,” she says. “If it made economic or energetic sense, they could do it. The fact that they don’t suggests that the costs are too high.”
Military bases are usually connected to the same power grid as the surrounding communities. Aside from a few bases in Alaska, the military doesn’t get much energy directly from coal-fired power plants. Daniel Kammen, an energy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, says Trump’s plan to force them to do so would be “costly, backwards and probably harmful,” pointing out that the price of coal-fired power has remained relatively stable over the past few decades while natural gas and renewable energy have become cheaper.
Between 2010 and 2020, for example, the price of solar energy fell from around $378 per megawatt hour to around $68. Coal remained at around $100 over the same period.
Government defends decision
The Defense Department said in a statement to ROLLING STONE that it “fully supports” Trump’s executive order and will “pursue long-term power purchase agreements with coal-fired facilities where they increase grid reliability, prevent blackouts, and ensure the readiness of critical defense and intelligence operations.”
While Trump is trying to prop up the coal industry, he is also taking steps to slow down the renewable energy industry. Since returning to office last year, the Trump administration has cut funding for renewable energy projects and even tried to halt projects already underway.
The Environmental Protection Agency also recently repealed the Endangerment Finding, a landmark scientific finding that served as the basis for federal climate regulation.
Wrong course
Samaras says the government is going the wrong way.
“The bottom line is that the government is limiting the growth of new clean energy sources and canceling investments in grid resilience… at a time when artificial intelligence is driving up energy demand,” Samaras says. “We need a generational reinvestment in the resilience of the electric grid to ensure our communities and our military installations have reliable, affordable energy.”
Samaras says based on market conditions alone, it’s likely that solar, wind and battery storage will account for “90 percent or more” of newly added power capacity in the coming years. The Trump administration can try to stop renewable energy, but it can’t change the math.
International comparison
While Trump tries to keep coal alive, the rest of the industrialized world is gradually moving away from fossil fuels. Trump and his allies like to point out that China continues to build coal-fired power plants, but the country is also building numerous renewable energy plants and coal consumption there is declining. China sees coal power only as a viable reserve in the event of an energy emergency.
“Smarter national leaders elsewhere are investing in clean energy with more jobs, more flexibility and lower costs,” says Kammen. “It’s like having a president who plays checkers while everyone else plays chess.”
