Trump wants to reverse the long decline of coal. It will not be easy.

President Trump issued executive orders designed to revive the use of coal in power plants last week, a practice that has been continuously decreasing for more than a decade.

But the effort is likely to fail, the energy experts said, as the fossil fuel faces some important obstacles. The power producing coal plants cannot usually compete with cheap, cleaner options. And many plants that burn coal are very old and will require extensive and expensive upgrades to continue them.

“This trend will be very difficult to reverse, an assistant Energy Secretary in Clinton Administration and a former Climate and Energy Director, Dan Richar, and a Assistant Energy Secretary in Clinton Administration and a former climate and energy director in Google.” There are many forces at work that do not paint very bright future for coal. “

Why is the use of coal declined?

Once the primary source of electricity in the United States, coal plants now produce only 17 percent of the country’s power. The main reason is that natural gas, another fossil fuel, became abundant and cheaper due to the shell fracting boom starting in the early 2000s. The use of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, has also increased greatly.

According to the Energy Information Administration, natural gas now provides about 38 percent of US power. Renewable energy technologies such as solar, wind and hydroelectric power produce about 25 percent, and atomic energy generates about 20 percent.

Some areas such as New England have soon been scheduled to close their final coal power plants. California, the most populous state in the country, is not virtually any coal for power generation.

Coal has also been under pressure because burning of greenhouse gases responsible for climate change and pollutants who damage people and nature are issued. To get around those concerns, Mr. Trump said, He will forgive some air pollution restrictions For dozens of coal plants.

Where is coal still used?

In the south -east and midwests, many utilities continue to generate electricity from coal plants. Companies such as Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Duke Energy and Tennessi Valley Authority-are among the largest users of the power provider-coal-operated power provider-coal.

States which have a long history of coal mining are still very dependent on fuel. These include West Virginia, which according to the Energy Information Administration, last year got 85 percent of its electricity and Kentki, which 67 percent.

Mr. Trump has directed the Department of Energy To use emergency powers To keep the unprofitable coal plants operated. The President said that it was necessary to prevent electrical outage. He tried a similar strategy during his first term.

He has also issued orders to open new federal land for coal mining and to find out whether to cancel any rules that “discriminate” against coal production may serve data centers used for artificial intelligence services such as coal -burning power plant chatbott.

The largest coal producer pubody in the United States said that the world used more coal in 2024 than any other year in history, a fact that it highlighted the need for resources to support the expansion of energy demands.

Vik SVEC, a spokesman at a pubody, said, “To support our country’s growing needs for cheap, reliable energy, we believe that the US should prevent retirement, use existing plants on high use and resume closed coal plants.”

Can Trump administration revive coal?

While federal policies can play a role, utilities and state MPs and regulators who oversee them, eventually determine how much coal is burnt in power plants.

Edison Electric Institute, or EEI, a Utility Trade Association said in a statement that it agrees with the administration that the United States requires more sources of electricity, but refused to speak for or against coal use.

The institute said, “The demand for electricity is increasing at the fastest speed in decades, and EEI members are using a diverse, domestic and balanced energy mixture to meet this demand to keep the customer bills as low as possible,” the institute said.

Some major utilities such as XCEL Energy, to take advantage of federal incentives created during biden administration, are converting coal plants into solar fields. For example, Baker, Min. In, Xcel is building a large solar and battery installation to replace its lion coal power plant. The company is changing another Coal plant, in Colorado, For natural gas.

A spokesman for an excel, Theo Keith stated that the utility was reviewing Mr. Trump’s orders “to understand if they could influence our operation,” but in the meantime, it would work to provide clean energy to its consumers at low cost.

In some states such as Texas, conservative MPs have proposed law to ensure adequate power supply and require more use of fossil fuels to meet the growing demand from data centers, electric cars and heat pumps. But energy analysts hope that if passed, such measures will mainly benefit natural gas, not coal.

Environmental activists said efforts to revive coal were misled. They explain that people using more coal are at risk of power plant failures due to more electricity bills, more health problems and aging equipment.

Holi Bender, Chief Program Officer of Sierra Club, said, “We are really reversing decades of work.” “It is clear that Trump is trying to put his finger on a scale to keep coal open. But these are pieces of infrastructure that are at the end of their useful life.”