Shitstain Wants To Stop Any And All Coal Plant Shutdowns, Even If They're Falling Apart, Would Cost Billions To Fix [View all]

[hatrack]

Over the past eight months, the Energy Department has taken the extraordinary step of ordering that generators at five coal-burning power plants that had been headed for retirement stay open and keep running. That’s just the beginning, officials say. At a White House event on Thursday, Trump administration officials said they planned to keep open as many coal plants as they could and prevent any further retirements over the next three years.

“The goal is to stop the political closure of coal plants,” Chris Wright, the energy secretary, said during the first meeting of the National Coal Council, which had lapsed under the Biden administration but which President Trump has revived. Dozens of representatives from the coal industry were present.

The moves are part of a sweeping plan by Mr. Trump to revive America’s coal industry, which has been declining for years. Mr. Trump has expressed a certain affection for the fuel, calling it “beautiful clean coal” to goad environmentalists, who note that coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels and a major driver of global warming.

Administration officials say that keeping coal plants open is necessary to avoid blackouts and meet rising energy needs. On the ground, however, efforts to halt coal retirements are already causing complications. Two of the coal units that the Energy Department ordered to stay online in December are broken, and it’s unclear when they might be repaired.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/climate/trump-coal-plants.html