Audrey Streb
DCNF Energy Reporter
The United States is projected to generate more power from coal in 2025 than in 2024, though the resource has endured an assault from the executive branch, green groups and Congress in recent years.
America generated about 13 percent more energy from coal between January and October 2025 than it did during the same period in 2024, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Though the Biden administration, prominent green groups like the Sierra Club and Congressional Democrats have worked to block coal projects and smother the industry in regulations, the energy resource continues to help meet America’s power needs.
Climate activists and some high-profile Democrats argue that coal pollutes the environment and should therefore be phased out of the U.S. energy profile. However, critics of this view contend that coal remains a reliable and affordable source of electricity that is impossible to replace on the accelerated timelines often mandated by blue states, forcing a trade-off between an expedited energy transition and maintaining sufficient power supply.
“If Santa leaves you coal this year, you’re obviously on the nice list,” Amy Cooke, co-founder and president of Always on Energy Research and the director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Center told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In a winter of surging demand and cold temperatures, it’s coal plants … that are the workhorses of the electric grid, delivering round-the-clock, reliable, and affordable power to keep your Christmas lights burning bright.” (RELATED: Here’s Why Your Electricity Bill May Skyrocket This Holiday Season)
The Trump administration’s Department of Energy (DOE) has warned that continuing to retire reliable power without replacements could trigger 100-fold more blackouts in the U.S. by 2030. Meanwhile, the agency has issued multiple emergency orders aimed at keeping coal plants online amid power shortage concerns, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday extending that authority to two coal plants in Indiana.
“Keeping these coal plants online has the potential to save lives and is just common sense,” Wright said in a statement Wednesday. “Americans deserve reliable power regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining during extreme winter conditions.”
Notably, blackouts that coincided with winter storms led to loss of life in Texas and New York in recent years. A recent North American Reliability Report (NERC) warned that “much of North America” is at risk of failing to meet demand in “extreme operating conditions,” with conditions mirroring that of 2021 before winter storm Uri devastated Texas.
NERC’s Reliability Assessments and Performance Analysis director, John Moura, said that “electricity demand continues to grow faster than the resources being added to the grid,” with the report noting that artificial intelligence (AI) data centers are increasing periods of high energy demand.
Now that data centers are increasingly driving up American electricity demand, about 60% of plans to retire oil, gas and coal plants along America’s largest power grid, PJM, have been postponed or cancelled this year, Reuters reported Tuesday.
Cooke told the DCNF that a Colorado utility’s extension of one coal plant past December helps secure more reliable power for her state, arguing that “without it, Colorado would face a darker, colder new year.”
“Coloradans are especially grateful for the early gift of sparing Comanche 2 from an arbitrary, politically driven retirement date of December 31,” Cooke said. “Extending this proven plant’s operation through 2026 isn’t nostalgia — it’s common sense at a time when reliability and affordability matter.”
Colorado is far from the only state that has aggressive mandates to support an energy transition that could result in high energy costs and a destabilized power grid, as most states with the top electricity costs are blue states with stringent profile goals, according to one recent analysis from Always on Energy Research and the Institute for Energy Research. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Democrats Are Behind Your Crippling Electricity Bills, Report Confirms)
“Our grid should not be held hostage to one fuel for baseload power,” Energy and Environment Legal Institute Senior Fellow Steve Milloy told the DCNF, arguing that coal is a vital source of electricity for multiple reasons. “First, we have an abundance of it — hundreds of years’ worth of readily accessible reserves. Although the misguided climate and energy policies of the Obama and Biden administrations destroyed much of our coal infrastructure, much remains, and much can be rebuilt.”
Milloy also reasoned that coal is inexpensive to burn and that it powers America’s grid during periods of high demand more reliably than natural gas as “a coal plant with a pile of coal outside can more readily meet peak demand than a gas plant supplied by a pipeline with gas flowing in at 20 miles per hour.”
“There are communities all over America that thrived when coal was king, a scant 15 or so years ago,” Milloy told the DCNF. “They have suffered as a result of the Obama-Biden war on coal. These communities and their states could benefit greatly from a revived coal industry.”
Former President Joe Biden said he would shut coal “plants down all across America,” and adopted aggressive green energy policies that some top grid officials and watchdogs warned could weaken America’s power supply. In contrast, President Donald Trump has moved to bolster coal through a multi-agency agenda pushing for deregulation and projects to boost the sector.
CEO of the American Energy Institute Jason Isaac argued before Christmas in 2024 that “750 million people will wake up wishing for coal in their stockings.”
“That’s how many people around the world live without electricity, and billions more endure woefully sporadic access,” he continued, noting that affordable, reliable energy saves lives.
Isaac told the DCNF that “coal remains one of the world’s most relied upon sources of electricity, with global demand hitting record highs as countries like China and India prioritize reliable power.”
Though China and India have recently embraced more green energy technology like wind and solar, the nations have also constructed new coal plants and expanded capacity.
“In the United States, elitist politicians and utility executives dismantled our beautiful, clean coal fleet to satisfy Paris style virtue signaling, replacing it with taxpayer subsidized, China dependent, weather driven generation that sent electricity prices soaring,” Isaac told the DCNF. “The Green New Scam is the real Grinch, stealing billions from American families. This Christmas and for years to come, policies championed by President Donald Trump offer the best gift under the tree: affordable and reliable energy.”
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“artificial intelligence (AI) data centers are increasing periods of high energy demand”
I bet there aren’t many such centers planned for CA and NY. Or are there?
If one trusts Google AI, there are many planned.
They’ll have to run their own power companies in those states.
THIS is good news, dig, burn, dig more, burn, dig more,,,,renewable energy at it’s second best. Only thing more renewable is hydro, gas and nuclear.
T-shirt possibilities:
“Got coal?”
“Coal. Can you dig it?”
“Coal. It’s what’s for power.”
“Coal. It’s baaaaack.!”
“If you hate coal, then don’t burn it”.
Coal – Black IS Beautiful
“Coal. It’s
what’sWatts for power.”Good one!
There is one consideration above all else concerning energy generation. Does it work? Fossil fuel and nuclear work? Wind, solar and storage don’t work, they need 24/7 back, they can’t back themselves up. They require fossil fuel, nuclear or hydro available for backup. Fossil fuel, nuclear and hydro don’t need wind, solar or storage for backup. Fire up all gas, coal and nuclear power plants, build new gas, coal and nuclear power plants, remove all wind and solar from the grid, they don’t work.
When are the many good folk in the US of A finally going to recognize and dismiss the sad, uneducated folk who have become known as environmental NGOs?
Examples are Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, but there are many more.
They mostly profess to be non-profit, but they seem to find enough funds to live well. They claim to aim to protect the world, but they have shown little idea about how big and complex the world is and what its problems might be. So, they resort to self-congratulation for whatever they select to achieve, which is usually next to nothing. The world is a big place using large amounts of energy every millisecond on a scale large enough to make puny the efforts of humans.
OTOH, they have done substantial damage to the national economy. Their methods are not often to spend money on a positive new action, but to spend money to stop others from doing their choice of work. A compelling example is the propaganda that many NGOs have used against the peaceful use of nuclear energy to produce electricity. They resort to simple dogma when they do not have the intelligence to understand the complexity of what they have chosen to oppose. Dogma is cheap.
How about starting the second quarter of this century in 2026 with some coordinated planning and action to confine these NGOs to activities that cause no harm, as befits a true non-profit enjoying big tax breaks?
When the health of society is threatened by a medical harm like a pandemic, society moves to try to combat it. Surely, similar thinking applies to the social harm caused by these NGOs. Gather up your metaphorical scalpels and cut out the rot. Time is past due already. Geoff S
Relying on gas and coal for power is a no brainer. When the wind doesn’t blow and when the sun doesn’t shine, the ideology and the fake science isn’t going to keep one warm or cool one down.