As Trump throws lifeline to coal plants, critics warn of higher costs and health risks

WASHINGTON (AP) — Before Donald Trump returned to the White House, the Biden administration and many electric utilities were building a future dominated by renewable energy. They aimed to replace coal, slashing greenhouse gases and reducing air pollution that kills more than a thousand people annually.

Dozens of coal plants — emitting as much planet-warming pollution as 27 million cars — were expected to be retired during Trump’s second term. Now there may not be any more coal plants closing until after Trump leaves office, according to officials and the energy analysis company Enverus.

The United States is undergoing a dramatic shift in energy policy as Trump wields government’s sweeping powers to benefit coal and suppress cleaner alternatives. It could lead to more expensive electricity and dirtier air and set back efforts to curb climate change, according to an Associated Press review of government data and interviews with experts.

Trump officials are using emergency powers to prevent five coal plants from closing. That’s raising ratepayer bills: Keeping one Michigan plant open for about seven months cost $135 million. They are using millions of dollars of taxpayer money to make repairs and extend the lives of other coal plants. They’re also slashing pollution limits to make it easier for plants to keep operating without costly upgrades.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said the goal for coal plants “is 100% stay open, no more retirements, no more shutting down.”

The actions far exceed Trump’s coal advocacy in his first term, when he relaxed some environmental regulations to give it a short-lived boost. The administration argues that coal produces badly needed power even during extreme weather, giving it an advantage over renewables that it says the Biden administration unwisely subsidized in the name of climate change.

“The Trump administration this time around is much more organized and strategic in trying to bring about a revival of coal,” said Robert Lifset, a University of Oklahoma professor of energy history. “You’re seeing almost like a whole-of-government approach.”

It’s happening as electricity demand surges due to the colossal growth of data centers. One Indiana community oversaw construction of vast solar fields on farmland ahead of an expected retirement of the Schahfer Generating Station, a coal plant in Wheatfield, Indiana. Now the Trump administration is keeping that plant open, saying its power is critical.

“I was really emotional about it because finally they weren’t going to be a threat to our air and to our water anymore,” said Barbara Deardorff, an activist who grew up about 2 miles from the plant. “Since then, everything’s gone upside down.”

This rare moment in time

After World War II, U.S. electricity use rose alongside economic growth. The two trends split after the 2008 recession: The economy grew again, but electricity demand stayed flat, thanks in part to improved efficiency, said Seth Feaster with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, which promotes renewable energy.

Utilities retired costly old plants in droves, replacing them with more efficient natural gas and renewables. Coal’s share of U.S. power generation dropped by more than half.

Schahfer’s smokestacks had been a familiar backdrop among northern Indiana’s fields since it was built in the 1970s. Then, in 2023, its operator foresaw a new future: the Northern Indiana Public Service Company said it would cut coal from 73% of its energy production to zero as it pursued renewables. Schahfer would be shut down.

As that date neared, the surrounding community was transforming. Solar panels were built on hundreds of acres of farmland nearby, a change in local character some regretted but others welcomed for the cleaner energy and new tax revenue.

A ‘180 degree’ turnaround

Then in December, the Trump administration issued an emergency order to keep Schahfer operational, saying it’s coal-generated power was essential to meet demand from extreme weather.

“Today, the policies that get in the way of a reasonable energy development and mess up the math are things focused around climate change,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in February during a news conference about electric grid reliability.

Not only is the coal plant remaining online, but Amazon has proposed a multibillion-dollar data center complex nearby powered by gas generators that would produce more than twice the power of the old coal facility. NIPSCO said an agreement with Amazon would protect customers.

“It’s been a complete 180,” said Deardorff, who said her family will no longer be able to farm on land it has long leased near the plant.

Stopping retirements completely, as Burgum has suggested, would keep online some 34 gigawatts of coal power that was set to retire before 2029. And that threatens to stall a decades-long decline in pollution from coal that had sharply reduced deaths as plants retired or installed new equipment. Coal plants scheduled to retire under Trump emitted more than 130 million tons of carbon dioxide last year, plus tens of thousands of tons of health-damaging sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

“If we retire all the coal plants we could avoid those 2,000 deaths per year from coal. And if we keep the plants online and they keep burning coal, then we’re going to get those emissions and see those same health impacts,” said Lucas Henneman, an environmental engineer from George Mason University who led a government study of deaths from coal pollution.

Beyond the five plants ordered to stay open, the administration spent $175 million of taxpayer money on upgrades to extend the lives of seven other plants. It’s considering applications for $350 million in similar spending.

Keeping the aging fleet of U.S. coal plants afloat ultimately could cost about $1 billion annually, said Michelle Bloodworth of the industry group America’s Power. She said in an interview that the spending is justified, considering that “billions and billions” went to renewables.

Broad authority over the grid

The administration has broad discretion in deciding whether an emergency exists and can “order almost any change in operation of the electricity system,” the Congressional Research Service said in February.

That hasn’t stopped legal challenges from five Democratic-led led states — Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan and Colorado.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the Trump administration orders burden consumers with higher prices and obstruct sustainable energy.

“We are going from a trajectory where we were going to lead the world on clean energy to one where we are becoming an isolated petrostate,” said Bob Keefe, with the renewable energy tracking group E2. “It’s costing jobs, it is costing investments, it is hurting us in the global marketplace and by the way it is resulting in higher electricity prices.”

Economists are skeptical coal’s revival will last. No large U.S. coal plant has been built since 2013, although one is planned in Alaska. And aging coal plants don’t make sense when solar is cheap, said Tufts University associate professor Steve Cicala.

Parts of Trump’s agenda already have faltered. The largest federal coal lease sale in more than a decade flopped, and courts have rejected some of Trump’s attempts to block wind power.

Yet industry executives remain bullish.

“It’s our time,” said CEO Jimmy Brock with Core Natural Resources, one of the nation’s largest coal mining companies.

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Associated Press journalists Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and M.K. Wildeman in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed.

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