How Trump's executive order on coal could impact energy use in the US
President Donald Trump's quest to conduct a resurgence of coal production and utilization in the U.S. is farfetched and unlikely, according to energy experts.
On Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order to expand the mining and use of coal in the U.S. The action directs the Interior Department to facilitate coal leases for millions of acres of public lands and instructs the Energy Department and other agencies to research whether coal can be used to supply electricity for artificial intelligence data centers.
But the likelihood that the U.S. will return to a heavy reliance on coal is improbable, given the current energy infrastructure, emerging technologies and global trends, energy experts told ABC News.
In the U.S., coal is used primarily for the generation of electricity, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
However, coal power capacity has been declining in the U.S. in recent decades, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. In 2011, coal accounted for more than 40% of total electricity generation in the U.S. By 2016, that percentage had dropped to about 16%.
The major driver for the decline in coal use is the economic competition with cheaper and cleaner fuels, such as natural gas and renewables, Ryna Cui, research director for the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland, told ABC News.
"Coal plants are no longer economically viable, and these executive orders will do nothing to change the basic underlying market dynamics," said Sanya Carley, presidential distinguished professor at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, told ABC News.
Natural gas and renewable energy sources have become more cost-effective than coal, said Akshaya Jha, associate professor of economics and public policy at Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University.
The majority of the U.S. coal plants are at the end of their lifetime, so it makes little economic sense to continue operating them, Cui said. Building new coal facilities presents high economic and financial risks and would need to be in operation for multiple decades, "which the market has been avoiding," Cui said.
"The typical lifespan of a coal-fired power plant is around 40 to 60 years, and there is little certainty over how long these executive orders will remain in place," Jha told ABC News.
Trump's executive order may slightly extend the lifetime of existing coal plants -- as well as ramp up production over the next several years -- but it is implausible that new ones will be built, Carley said.
Absent new investments in coal-fired power plants in the U.S., domestic demand for coal will likely continue to decline, given that many existing U.S. coal-fired power plants are aging and require substantial investment to remain operational, Jha said.
"Why would the U.S. want to invest in a 19th-century fuel source in the 21st century?" Cui said. "It doesn't make good sense on so many levels."
Coal is the dirtiest source of fuel and is dangerous to mine -- making it damaging to both human health and the environment, Cui said. The carbon footprint and threat to human health are a few of the reasons why it fell out of favor as the source of power globally.
In 2024, the United Kingdom became the first major economy to eliminate coal power when it closed its last coal-fired plant.
"The Trump administration can't force utilities to buy dirtier, more expensive fuels they don't want," said Rob Jackson, an environmental scientist at Stanford University and chair of the Global Carbon Project, told ABC News.
Trump's executive order follows plans announced in March for deregulations of Environmental Protection Agency policies, several of which are meant to restrict emissions and pollution related to the use of coal.
Trump's stance on energy may be a last hurrah to boost the fossil fuel industry, the experts said.
"A flurry of executive orders won't save the coal industry," Jackson said.
