The Trump administration has a new slogan for the energy industry.
“Everybody likes to say, ‘Drill, baby drill.’ I know that President Trump's got another initiative for us, and that's, ‘Mine, baby mine’,” said Sec. of the Department of the Interior Doug Burgum at a recent press conference.
The administration says to power the future of AI, it’s looking to coal. That’s big for Wyoming, the country’s largest coal producer.
But others warn that this will cost Americans more on their electric bills and threaten their land, water and air.
Reporter Jake Bolster is tracking this issue closely. He writes for the online publication Inside Climate News and spoke with Wyoming Public Radio’s Caitlin Tan.
Editor's Note: This story has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Caitlin Tan: Jake, it's possible many of our listeners have read your content; we publish it from time to time on our website. Tell us first a little bit about your reporting and your interest in Wyoming.
Jake Bolster: So I cover Wyoming and some of the neighboring states for a place called Inside Climate News. We're an online publication that covers climate change and the environment across the United States.
As I've done this reporting over the last two years, one thing that's really stood out about Wyoming is it has almost every major pillar of the climate crisis at play in the state. You've got these vast, for the most part intact, ecosystems that people really want to protect, but you also have a lot of heavy industry activity with coal, oil, gas, and there's renewable energy potential. There are also two tribes, sovereign nations, within the state's borders that have some of their own policies.
CT: The story of yours we're focusing on today is how the administration is deregulating coal to invest into powering AI and data centers.
There was a press conference in late September where there were several top Wyoming officials. There were even coal miners in hard hats standing behind Sec. of the U.S. Department of [the] Interior Doug Burgum, who talked about this “AI arms race.”
Doug Burgum: We're in a competition. And that competition for the AI arms race, as we call it, is with China. China, the absolutely, the number one, number one user of coal, and they are aggressively adding more power. Our nation can lead in technology, but if we don't lead in electrical production, we're going to lose the AI arms race.
CT: Jake, the first few words in your story were striking to me. You wrote, “The U.S. announced its intention to compete for a 21st century technology using 19th century energy.” Break that down for us.
JB: Burgum spoke quite a bit about how China is adding a ton of energy and really driving home its AI capabilities. It struck me that there was all this talk about AI being the technology of the future, and yet this administration is pivoting towards technology from the 1800s to power this next gen AI. I think most people, if you ask them to describe next gen energy technology, would probably point to wind, solar, batteries, maybe even nuclear.
CT: Tell us a little bit about what they announced in trying to prop up coal.
JB: The administration said it was making 13 million acres of public land available for new coal leases. It was cutting the royalty rate that coal companies pay to mine that coal. It was making hundreds of millions of dollars available to coal companies to retrofit their plants with various technologies that could make the plants more competitive. And then there were also a slew of deregulatory actions that the EPA announced that are meant to essentially remove some environmental safeguards on coal fired power plants.
CT: I am curious, Jake, why do you think the administration thinks they need to revitalize coal? Give us a quick look back at the coal industry's history. It's been on the decline for more than 15 years. If we're even just looking at this fall, the federal government announced a coal lease sale in Wyoming, and it ultimately didn't even happen. Seemingly, there wasn't a lot of demand. What's going on here?
JB: The first thing that most insiders would point you to is the rise of natural gas. On top of that, renewable energy has made up a growing share of the market for the last few years. It is even cheaper than natural gas and does not carry the same pollution concerns as either coal or gas. All of that positioned coal in this market where people are viewing it as a declining resource. And then the last thing is the pollution part of the equation. With coal, it is essentially a flammable mineral that when you burn it, it releases greenhouse gases. And those greenhouse gases have been shown to warm the planet, and that is leading to rising sea levels, worse wildfires and rising temperatures.
CT: Just to touch on that AI component, we are anticipating needing to put a lot more power into the grid to support these AI data centers. So it sounds like the disagreement is, what is going to be that source of power? It seems the Trump administration is banking on if they give more federal subsidies to coal, the market preferences will shift, and electricity providers will find more affordable ways to bring coal to the market.
But in my reporting, I've spoken to one of the main electricity providers in Wyoming, and they're still planning to stop burning coal at one of their Wyoming power plants at the end of this year. They said that’s simply because coal is more expensive. What are you hearing?
JB: I'm hearing a lot of the same things. I had someone who studies energy markets tell me that even if this administration is successful in undoing some regulations, a new administration could come in and reimpose those regulations. So there is still a cloud of uncertainty that these companies are dealing with that's going to be reflected in their behavior. I think one place that you can see this is the coal auction in Wyoming that was postponed. That happened after a similar one in Montana drew only one bid, and it was a very low bid.
So you're seeing even the industry for whom all of these regulations are designed for, they're not coveting a new mine and a great, big expansion that would match the rhetoric of the administration.
CT: So when we're looking at other countries that are preparing for a demand for more power, what are some of the solutions they're looking at?
JB: China is the global leader in wind and solar capacity added. They are also adding a lot of coal, that is true, but they are adding far more renewable energy.
But as you survey the other options – wind, solar, nuclear, even, and certainly batteries – these are all technologies that people are viewing as the way forward. And right now, the U.S., or at least the administration, is signaling that it wants to preserve something that worked several decades ago for us.
CT: What do you think will be telling in the coming months or years?
JB: I'm going to be looking at more of these coal lease auctions, because I think that's really an indication of what the industry is willing to bet on itself. Another thing to keep an eye on is utilities – how they get their energy and power bills. If what my sources are saying bears out: that wind and solar are cheaper ways to go and utilities that don't invest in those will have higher bills. But if it's not, if that storyline doesn't bear out, that's worth looking into as well. And then the last piece of all of this is AI growth. For there to be a massive demand increase for electricity, there needs to be tons and tons of new data centers that come online. For that to happen, companies need to be certain that AI is going to be profitable for them. And right now, you're starting to hear a little more talk of a bubble around AI. If that pops, what would the administration say? Would it pivot from coal without this demand? Is there a reason to get back into coal? These are all questions that we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
To read more of Jake Bolster’s reporting for Inside Climate News visit their website.
