Coal on track to make a return, help America’s energy needs under Trump
Under Joe Biden’s failed green ideology, America was supposed to be getting its electricity from wind and solar power.
Billions of taxpayer dollars went for grants to solar, wind and other politically correct agendas.
Never mind that the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, the Democrat’s agenda was to impose strict global warming rules that would force coal power plants, which once provided half of America’s power, to close.
Under President Donald Trump, that campaign has reversed.
A report from the Cowboy State Daily confirmed that, as federal regulators have approved expansion of the Spring Creek Mine in Montana.
The report said that’s “on-the-ground evidence of the President Donald Trump administration’s push to ramp up the mining and burning of coal.”
Trump himself said on social media he wants to open, or reopen, “hundreds of all Coal Fire Power Plants” and get the United States “producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL.”
The Montana project being expanded is by Navajo Transitional Energy Co. and the company said the expansion means the project will serve energy needs for an additional 16 years.
Coal production, in recent years under Biden, had dropped.
PRB mines in Wyoming produced 185 million tons of coal in 2024, the report said, citing the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. That was the first time that production was below 200 million tons.
The White House also is reviewing “soot standards” and “greenhouse gas limits” in its efforts to make energy available again.
“Trump already signed an executive order declaring a national energy emergency and directed the Environmental Protection Agency to boost fossil fuel production and distribution,” Bloomberg said.
The report noted Barack Obama also had a hand in attacks on coal power production, which despite those assaults still recently was providing 15% of Americans power.
The report said nearly 300 coal-fired power plans shut down from 2010 to 2019.
That’s changing.
“It’s really nice to have a presidential administration that recognizes the value of Wyoming’s coal resources and is looking to work with us to keep developing and using our coal, rather than to actively try to shut us down,” Travis Deti, head of the Wyoming Mining Association, told the Cowboy State Daily. “I think what we’re going to see is a real shift in the direction of the policy coming out of Washington, D.C.”
Andy Buntrock, of Basin Electric Power Cooperative, said coal is very much one component of the industry’s “all-of-the-above” energy buildout.
It runs coal-fired Dry Fork Station near Gillette and Laramie River by Wheatland.
“Those coal units are very vital components to that mix of providing energy. And those units are driven by what the market price (of coal) is,” Buntrock told Cowboy State Daily.