boost demand for the fossil fuel<\/a> amid its declining cost competitiveness and climate change concerns.<\/p>\nIn an executive order signed on Wednesday, Trump directed the US Department of Defence to enter into long-term purchase agreements with coal-fired plants and prioritise the \u201cpreservation and strategic utilisation\u201d of \u201ccoal-based energy assets\u201d.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s order did not specify how much energy the Pentagon would purchase or under what financial terms.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do so much,\u201d Trump said at a White House event attended by coal industry executives and miners.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou heat our homes, fuel our factories, and turn natural resources into American riches and dreams,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Trump also announced that the US Department of Energy would invest $175m to upgrade six coal plants in North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important people here today are those who get their hands a little bit dirty to keep America running at full speed \u2013 our front line coal workers,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Coal production in the US has been in decline for decades amid growing competition from natural gas and renewables, including wind, hydropower and solar.<\/p>\n
Production fell by more than half between 2008 and 2023, when output hit 578 million tonnes, according to the US Energy Information Administration.<\/p>\n
The fossil fuel accounted for about 16 percent of US energy production in 2023, behind natural gas and renewables at 43 percent and 21 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n
Trump: \u2018Beautiful, clean coal\u2019<\/p>\n
A 2023 analysis by Energy Innovation, a California-based nonprofit, found that 99 percent of coal-powered facilities in the US were more expensive to run than the cost of their replacement with renewable alternatives.<\/p>\n
Trump has championed the revival of \u201cbeautiful, clean coal\u201d as crucial to boosting domestic manufacturing and achieving US dominance in artificial intelligence, despite the fossil fuel\u2019s flagging competitiveness and contribution to greenhouse gases that drive climate change.<\/p>\n
Trump, who initiated Washington\u2019s exit from the Paris climate accord and has described the scientific consensus on warming temperatures as a \u201ccon job\u201d, declared an \u201cenergy emergency\u201d on his first day in office to prevent the closure of ageing coal plants.<\/p>\n
The US Energy Department has forced at least five plants to extend their operations beyond their scheduled retirement date since Trump\u2019s order.<\/p>\n
Also on Wednesday, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the largest public utility provider in the US, voted to extend the lifespan of two coal plants that had been scheduled for closure by 2035.<\/p>\n
The TVA vote came after the utility added four Trump appointees to its board of directors last month, after the US president had earlier fired three board members chosen by his predecessor, President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s order is the latest move by US administration to boost fossil fuel industry despite climate change concerns.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,4869,12,101,1872,12418,3,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-464001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-climate-crisis","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-energy","13":"tag-fossil-fuels","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-us-canada","21":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/jp-1730786685-rotated.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n