Trump’s Love for Coal Is Crashing Into Market’s Economic Reality

The US coal industry is once again enjoying support from the White House. Yet that’s unlikely to quell the economic challenges that underpin a long-term decline for the dirtiest fossil fuel.

Just this week, President Donald Trump in a social media post touted “BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL.” His administration has signaled it’s eyeing emergency powers to restart shuttered plants and has launched a sweeping overhaul of US environmental mandates. The moves overlap a macro trend that’s also poised to help the industry: surging power demand from data centers. Already, power companies have extended, or are considering extending, the lives of some plants that had been ticketed for extinction. All of this suggests the US may burn more coal in the near term.