America’s coal policy has been an abysmal failure. Government policy has made it increasingly difficult and costly to produce and use coal for nearly two decades. The Biden administration went so far as to craft an entire package of rules to wipe out the nation’s coal power plant fleet.
This amounted to a bruising war on mining states and communities and was supposed to chart a course for the world to follow under the banner of environmental progress. However, a report by the International Energy Agency illuminates just how much of a mistake we made.
Rather than pivoting away from coal and following our lead, global coal consumption has grown, reaching a high in 2024. Global coal demand is now expected to continue to grow.
Coal remains the world’s leading fuel for electricity production. Irreplaceable for industrial development, energy security and the workhorse for pulling countless millions out of energy poverty, the age of coal appears to be going nowhere. While coal use has fallen in some nations, including the United States, and was eliminated in Britain, soaring coal demand in Asia has more than swallowed those reductions.
Despite being lauded as the world’s leader in deploying wind and solar power and adopting electric vehicles, China’s economic engine continues to run firmly on coal. China now consumes 30% more coal than the rest of the world combined. That’s not a typo.
Facing surging electricity demand and wary of the variability of weather-dependent renewable energy, China is only adding to its already enormous coal fleet. India, too, now the world’s most populous nation, is building its future on a foundation provided by coal. India will soon consume twice as much coal as the United States and Europe combined.
It’s past time to acknowledge the obvious: The world will not turn its back on its most abundant fuel. America’s coal leadership has been precisely backward.
With the world’s largest coal reserves and an incredible capacity for innovation, the United States should have led the moonshot effort to develop a new generation of advanced coal power plant technologies to reduce emissions and increase the efficiency of coal use. That would have been global leadership that recognized the world as it is, not what some hope it to be.
Despite our missteps, the Trump administration will have a golden opportunity to refocus and reinvigorate U.S. coal policy.
Despite efforts to kill American coal, surging electricity demand — fueled by the reshoring of industry, electric vehicles and, notably, the rapid deployment of massive data centers — is giving American coal another life.
With U.S. power demand now expected to jump by as much as 130 gigawatts in just the next five years — the power demand for 80 million homes — we need every coal plant available. An alarming report by the nation’s electricity grid monitor warns that more than half of the country faces risking blackouts over the next decade as power demand eclipses supply.
Instead of closing coal plants, we can’t possibly afford to lose this essential capacity already connected to the grid.
It’s time to stop fighting American coal and recognize its critical importance to our energy security and electricity affordability. The United States should champion advanced coal technology and make it a pragmatic, balanced energy strategy. That would be coal policy and global energy leadership the world might actually follow.
Syd S. Peng is the Charles E. Lawall chair of mining engineering emeritus at West Virginia University. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
