Trump has long vowed to end Obama's so-called "war on coal," which included regulations on mining and energy production. Trump also promised to bring thousands of coal jobs back. However, these two goals have proven difficult to reach.
Recently, the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC) rejected a proposal by Rick Perry, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, to subsidize coal and nuclear plants to maintain the power grids' dependability and keep the industry alive. Perry's proposal failed to pass as almost every major U.S. grid operator was in strong opposition to it.
Essentially, Perry's idea was to pay coal and nuclear plants a premium for them to store at least 90 days worth of fuel on site in order to help make the grids more reliable. This plan is specifically designed to protect coal and nuclear plants over gas plants, as they are not fed by pipelines and would help boost the coal and nuclear generators. This proposal was deliberately inefficient, keeping coal and nuclear power plants that are not independently economically viable on a kind of life support.
Rick Perry introduced this idea in support of Trump's agenda to revive the coal industry. Many coal and power plants have been shutting down in recent years, unable to compete with the much cheaper and cleaner natural gas plants and renewable sources. Rick Perry has warned that a continued loss of coal plants could threaten the "reliability and resiliency of our nation's grids," but experts have pointed out that delaying the retirement of these inefficient plants would do little to boost resiliency, since grid failure generally arises from problems with transmission lines, not inadequate supply. A case study by Resource for the Future on the costs and benefits of rescuing unprofitable energy providers concluded that enacting Perry's proposal would cost electricity users an extra $72 billion through 2045 without any additional benefits. The study also showed that the proposal has a negative environmental net benefit from 2025 through 2045, and would contribute to 27,000 premature deaths in the United States. The U.S. Department of Energy argued that the proposal, along with Trump's stance on coal overall, undermines competition in wholesale power markets, ending over a 30-year trend to reward efficient and low-emission technology
The administration has had few clear victories on the coal front. While coal production in the U.S. is up by 3.6% overall, with 767.4 million tons produced since Trump took office, the U.S. Department of Energy predicts that coal production will drop by 2% in 2018 and 2019 as consumers turn to cheaper natural gas. Trump has tried to promote U.S. coal exports, which indeed rose 55% in the first half of 2017. But this boost may not last, as the U.S. is a swing producer, able to export more only when demand is high and other dominant exporters, such as Australia and South Africa, have limited supply. Coal plants continue to shutter apace. 20 such plants announced plans to close in 2017, and there is little likelihood that more coal plants will open since natural gas facilities are much cheaper and simpler to build. And while some mining jobs were added in the first six months of 2017, figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that employment is sliding back down. The industry is so small, with only 51,000 employees, that it is difficult to economists to gauge whether there has been a gain in jobs or not.
- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/business/energy-environment/coal-miners.html
- https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/22/trump-pledged-to-revive-coal-industry-little-has-changed-in-a-year.html
- http://www.rff.org/files/document/file/RFF-WP-17-22.pdf
- http://theconversation.com/macrons-pledge-to-wipe-out-coal-is-just-as-meaningless-as-trumps-plan-to-revive-it-90729
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/01/16/fact-checking-the-trump-administrations-claims-on-saving-coal-country/?utm_term=.176c9d1d4f94
- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/climate/trump-coal-nuclear.html
