Donald Trump wants to save the coal industry. He is too late

The promise of a new demand is to lead to some utilities for reviewing the planned pensions of coal plants. In Virginia where Amazon Web Services keeps 96 data centers and invests $ 35 million In order to expand its campuses, the regional transmission organization, PJM Interconnection, has requested a delayed retirement of two coal plants due to Increased search centersS Data Centers in Google and Meta also saved a coal power plant in Nebraska online past the retirement dateS

But maintaining a patient in support of life is significantly different from the return of a corpse from the dead. PJM CEO said At a conference last month, he was not sure if the market was “sending the signal the moment the coal was actually needed to stick.” The construction of new, technologically up-to-date coal plants, which Trump was sailing to the Tuesday-B-Bus, was difficult to sell in an economy, where investors are cautious of major capital investment for outdated technology. Meanwhile, technology companies are focusing long -term energy investment nuclearand Renewable sources and batteriesS

Even in countries where coal has political power, data centers have not proven as a savior. In March legislators in West Virginia Enclosed provisions To use the use of coal to a bill designed to launch the data center industry in the state. Despite cheerleaders from the governor, the bill eventually passed Without coal provisions after the Appalachian power, the most usefulness of Western Virginia intervened, claiming that coal requirements would raise the clients accounts. CEO before legislators that even a large new client as a data center would not encourage the usefulness of buying more energy than coal; Regulatory and financial reality, he said, favors natural gas.

Regulations on coal plants are a clear purpose for this administration. Last month EPA unfolded a Packet of attacks In a wide range of regulations, signaling its intention to review everything from the rules for the emissions of power plants to the reporting of greenhouse gases. Agency too created an email address To allow pollutants to submit a petition for the temporary release of mercury and air standards toxicity set out in accordance with the Clean Air Act – known as the MATS rule – as the agency reviewed multiple pollution rules. Montana’s Colstrip power plant – one of the most frozen coal plants in the country that was struggle superstructures appointed by an updated pollution rule – already has requested release.

If the new enforcement orders are any proposal, the Trump administration sees this deregulation and directing climate change policies as a key element in enhancing coal. A separate presidential proclamation published on Tuesday lengthens The exception of mats to an unknown number of coal plants while another enforcement order Tasks The Prosecutor General with the attack of climate regulations at the state level, the separation of Vermont, New York and California.

Coal costs may drop slightly by less climatic regulations. “You can manage all these coal plants without environmental regulations or reduced environmental regulations – I am sure that this will save money from the industry,” says Fester. “Whether the communities around these places really want, this is another problem. These environmental provisions are there for a reason.”

After all, costs are not measured in dollars alone. Coal emissions include a mixture of heavy metals and chemicals, including sulfur dioxide, which can be deadly to people living around the power plants. A exploration Published in 2023 in Science Calculated that between 1999 and 2020 coal power plants were responsible for 460,000 unnecessary deaths in the United States alone. Meanwhile, coal waste is stored in toxic lakes of ash; The spills have costs some utilities Millions of dollars in settlements.

Communal services, says Fester, prices in the risks to the health of coal and obligations that come with coal in their decisions. But it is unclear whether the Trump administration understands these risks. Substrictions of Health and Human Services this month have expelled Workers involved in black lung research and other protection for coal miners at the National Institute for Safety and Health of Labor.

On Wednesday, while international markets melted, Donald Trump published An invitation to the truth of companies to move their business to the United States. “There is no environmental delay,” he writes. “Don’t wait, do it now!”