Burgum and Wright Look to Coal Power

How can the U.S. win the AI arms race with China and preserve reliable and affordable power for all Americans? Secretary of the Interior and Chair of the Energy Dominance Council, Doug Burgum, had a clear answer: use the coal fleet.

In a TV interview with Bloomberg News (watch the clip below), Burgum said the nation needs more baseload power from coal. He added, “I think as part of the national energy emergency which President Trump has declared we’ve got to keep every plant open. And if there have been units at a coal plant that have been shut down, we need to bring those back on.”

Burgum pointed to the importance of dispatchable coal power in both meeting soaring power demand and in meeting the peak demand we already face today, especially when renewable sources of generation falter during adverse weather. Asked what’s the mechanism to keep coal plants online longer, he said, “First, we can stop death by regulation. And part of that we can do by taking a close look at some of the actual legality of some of the rule-making that was perpetrated against these industries.”

Undoing the suite of regulations imposed by the previous administration to force coal plants closures is a critically important step. Getting more out of the coal fleet and finding the levers to address market failures that have undermined the reliability of the nation’s power supply is next.

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said exactly that earlier this week. He said, the Trump administration is working on a “market-based” plan to stem the closure of coal-fired power plants, adding, “we’ve got to not only grow new production, but we’ve got to stop digging the hole, which means stop shutting down existing, viable, economic plants.”

Both Burgum and Wright recognize the coal fleet’s importance to navigating the collision of rapidly increasing power demand with rapidly eroding grid reliability. As Rich Nolan, the president and CEO of the National Mining Association observed in a recent op-ed, “With months of fuel on site and the world’s largest coal reserves, the coal fleet is the nation’s ace in the hole to underpin reliability and dispatchable fuel diversity.”

Nolan concluded, “Energy abundance is the key to winning today’s global industrial arms race. The world is using more coal than ever before. It is past time the U.S. recognizes its coal fleet and coal mining industry not as problems to solve but as answers to today’s most pressing challenges. The coal fleet can and should underpin the administration’s energy abundance agenda.” Fortunately, it appears message received.