President Trump signed severalĀ executiveordersĀ Tuesday that will allow coal-fired power plants to stay online past planned retirement dates, identify coal resources on federal lands, and bolster the reliability of the electric grid. The orders may help the U.S. face an uncomfortable truth: wind turbines and solar panels canāt cost-effectively meet the U.S.ā growing electricity needs.
Coal provides an important source of the reliable and fuel-secure energy needed to keep the lights on. Our organizationās research shows that it is more affordable than wind and solar, too.
Mr. Trumpās executive orders will allow coal operators the flexibility to delay the premature closures caused in part by President Bidenās policies. AĀ May 2024 ruleĀ from the Biden Environmental Protection Agency would have forced coal plants to spend billions on unproven technology to capture 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions. If coal plants failed to comply by 2035, they would be forced to shutter by 2039. The Trump EPA has since announced it willĀ reconsiderĀ this rule, but the process could take years.
Coal should be allowed to help keep the lights on, especially because U.S. electricity demand is rising. The North American Electric Reliability Councilās 2024Ā long-term reliability assessmentĀ warns that āresource additions are not keeping up with generator retirements and demand growthā in most regions of the U.S. CoalĀ produced 16%Ā of the U.S.ā electricity in 2023, and coal, natural gas and petroleum together produced 60%. Nuclear comprised another 18%. It is folly to believe that the U.S. can meet its growing power demands while kneecapping a significant source of its baseload power.
Not only is reliable baseload power a must for the grid, but electricity generated by coal is less expensive than intermittent resources like wind and solar. Itās easy to understand why: the cheapest source of electricity is from plants that have already been built. Most of the U.S.ā coal fleet is like houses where the mortgages have been paid off. With no loans or interest left to repay, operating costs for existing coal plants typically consist of property taxes, insurance, labor, maintenance, and fuel.
Our organization models the full costs of building enough wind, solar, and battery storage to replace coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants. Powering a grid on wind, solar, and batteries is more expensive than coal because connecting wind turbines and solar panels to the grid entails system-wide costs like constructing new transmission lines. The intermittency of wind and solar means you need more power plant capacity to generate the same amount of power. More power plant infrastructure means more property taxes. More weather-dependent resources means more costs to managing the grid, like turning off wind turbines and solar panels when they are producing too much electricity for the grid to absorb ā or conversely, ramping up natural gas generation on cloudy and still days when wind and solar arenāt producing.
OurĀ researchĀ incorporates system-wide costs and shows that a realistic midpoint estimate for wind turbines is $72 per MWh. Electricity from new solar can range betweenĀ $50 per MWh to $85 per MWh. Data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shows that the average coal plant generated electricity for only $34 per megawatt-hour (MWh) in 2020 (the last year of available data). It could be even less expensive for coal plants to generate electricity if states and utilities allowed coal plants to operate more often. In 2024, the coal fleet generated electricity onlyĀ about 43%Ā of the time. If that approached 80%, costs could go as low as $29.
Keeping Americaās ābeautiful, clean coalā plants online is the right thing for the country and it is good news for consumers that the U.S. has recognized the electric gridās reliability hole and decided to stop digging.
Isaac Orr is vice president of research, and Mitch Rolling is the director of research at Always On Energy Research, a nonprofit energy modeling firm.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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