President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to promote the fate of the coal flag, Report Bloomberg.
The order will direct the federal government to list coal as a key mineral and force some coal-fired power plants facing closures to continue generating electricity. The Trump administration is expected to provide inventory for the directive, part of increasing electricity production as demand for data centers.
While executive orders may prevent some closures, it is impossible to reverse the ongoing decline of coal in the power sector. The share of coal already exists Steady decline Since 2001, when it generated 51% of the country’s electricity, total consumption peaked in 2007. Today, the coal generation share is about 15%.
Clean air regulations have caused some power plants to close, but the main drivers are already Low-cost natural gas. Cheap renewable resources such as Wind and Solar also play a role.
Coal is the dirtiest way to generate electricity. It releases more carbon per kilowatt-hour than any other fossil fuel, and the smoke contains sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter.
They made it together Scope of environmental and health issuesfrom acid rain and ozone to heart disease and Probably Parkinson’s. Burning coal also releases mercury into the environment Gathering among fish and other animalsand finally entered the person who ate them. Mercury poisoning reduces IQ and leads to birth defects.
The Trump administration may have more luck in designating metallurgical coal as a key mineral. However, steel is often manufactured Not alwaysusing coal to reduce iron ore from coal to pig iron from intermediate materials. While green steel technologies have made progress on coal-based technologies, they are usually still more expensive.
But in the power sector, coal faces major challenges. Existing power plants may have a brief reprieve, but they will compete with solar and winds that are becoming cheaper and increasingly cheaper. In the United States, except for a coal-fired power plant Cheap Newer renewable energy than building.
Renewable energy can also be deployed faster than new fossil fuel power plants, which makes it even more remote to build new coal-fired power plants to cope with data center loads.
