People and businesses nationwide are reckoning with rapidly rising electricity costs. Last year, 80 million people struggled to afford their utility bills, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Julie McNamara
Electricity demand also is surging from the buildout of massive data centers for artificial intelligence. This is threatening even higher electricity costs to come.
The need for change is clear, and so is the solution: America must boost investment in a clean, reliable and affordable electricity system.
By repeatedly using taxpayer dollars to bail out the coal industry, the Trump administration is instead pursuing a reckless and costly gambit that fails on all three counts. This is not the path to a better future. It is a short-sighted attempt to yoke the nation to faltering relics of the past.
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For this failure in vision, we all will pay the price in higher costs, less reliable power and a worse climate and health.
The Trump administration’s embrace of coal power is a timely and essential response to a three-headed energy emergency. The U.S. 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.
The administration recently announced plans to sink another round of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into propping up more than a dozen expensive and unreliable coal plants. It also wants to support the speculative development of several more plans and facilitate the construction of a highly contested coal export terminal.
This comes on the heels of the Trump administration's attempt to force the nation’s military to run on coal-fired electricity. The administration previously spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on subsidies for coal plant repairs. It also is slashing safeguards against harmful coal plant pollution, including mercury, toxic wastewater, coal ash and carbon dioxide.
Given how much the Trump administration is asking “we the people” to bail out the coal industry, it’s worth asking what we are getting in return.
We are not getting a more affordable electricity system. Coal-fired power plants routinely cost more to run than building renewable alternatives, according to the Energy Innovation think tank. By forcing the perpetuation of coal-fired power plants, the Trump administration is driving electricity costs up, not down.
We are not getting a more reliable electricity system. Coal-fired power plants are now the least reliable resource in our electricity system, based on an analysis last year. Despite all the cost, the administration’s plant repairs will amount to little more than bubble gum and string. The nation’s coal plants are old, outdated and increasingly unsuited for a modern grid. They are doomed to obsolescence.
We are not getting a cleaner electricity system. Claiming coal is “beautiful" and "clean” won’t make it so. Coal-fired power plants emit heavy pollution and discharge toxic wastewater. The consequences of burning coal on public health and the environment are severe.
The Trump administration also is doing everything it can to block the construction of solar and wind projects nationwide. These resources are overwhelmingly the fastest and cheapest resources to bring online. When coupled with investments in energy efficiency and storage, the pieces are in place for an affordable, reliable and cleaner electricity system.
Coal workers and coal communities need help evolving to this energy future. Instead, the Trump administration is leaving them out in the cold. The administration is abandoning worker health protections and forward-looking investments in favor of cynical, empty promises of a future that will never come.
America needs leaders to provide real solutions to real challenges. The Trump administration's reckless, costly bailout of coal plants will enrich a handful of coal executives at the expense of everyone else.
ABOUT THE WRITER
McNamara is the federal energy policy director with the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.
