By Frank Clemente and Fred Palmer; Coal is the Cornerstone, LLC. 

Fred Palmer

Frank Clemente

January 18, 2026 - 

The warnings come from the organizations responsible for assuring reliable electric power. The National Electric Reliability Council has stated” “coal-fired generator retirements… have caused a sharp decline in anticipated resource … new generation is insufficient to make up for retirements and load growth.” The largest power pools in the nation echoed NERC concern in testimony before the House Energy Committee:

 

(1) PJM Interconnection (67 million people), CEO Manu Asthana: “dispatchable generators- those generators that can quickly respond regardless of weather, are retiring at a rapid pace largely due to state and federal policies.”

 

(2) MISO (15 states), Jennifer Curran, Senior VP,: “The rapid retirement of existing coal power plants threatens to outpace the ability of new resources”

 

(3) Southwest Power Pool (13 states) : CEO Lanny Nickell : “these retirements have almost exponentially increased reliability risks… around-the-clock generation (coal) was retired and largely replaced with weather-dependent resources” (i.e. wind and solar).

 

 

Meanwhile, China is building the most reliable, affordable and robust electric power system in the world - and it is anchored by coal. By 2030, China’s coal generating capacity will be over 1,300 GW—compared to 68 GW in the US. In fact, China is adding 55 GW of coal capacity this year alone.

 

American families already pay more than twice as much for electricity as families in China and the worst is yet to come. Since January 2025, more than 108 million electric utility customers across 49 states and Washington, D.C., faced rate increases of over $80 billion and 2026 costs are already off and running.

 

Two decades of benign electricity demand have made the United States intellectually lazy regarding how power needs of the next generation of Americans will be met reliably and at reasonable cost. 

 

 

Source: Data: Grid Strategies; Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals

So now the worm has turned and with the rise of data centers, electric vehicles, heat pumps, re-industrialization, air conditioners, cryptocurrency, and an overall societal push for electrification, EIA projects demand to increase from about 4,176 GWh in 2025 to over 5,600 GWh in 2044. This rise of 1,400 GWh in the next 20 years is more than six times the growth in power generation from 2004 to 2023. To give a better idea of scale, this increase alone is more than the current electricity generation of Germany, France and the UK combined.

 

As the projections of these massive increases in demand crystallize into reality, it is increasingly clear that many people involved in the energy industry drank too much of the Kool - Aid from billionaires like Michael Bloomberg who has dedicated $500 million to the Sierra Club to “close every coal plant in the United States”. All this despite the fact that coal is our greatest energy resource, with a production, transportation, distribution and utilization profile second to none. The relatively passive coal industry has been shunted aside by more aggressive special interest environmental groups, overzealous regulators, idealistic protesters (many paid) and a broad range of reporters who avoided college physics like the plague.

 

The recently inaugurated Governor of New Jersey presents a pie-in-the-sky energy program cavalierly ignoring that her state’s rush to expensive and unreliable power has led to a 22% increase in electric rates for her constituents in just one year. In Indiana, where coal has kept electricity prices in check for decades, regulators want to close coal and rely on intermittent renewables as well as more natural gas with the highest price volatility of any fuel. In Michigan, a utility wants to close one of the largest coal plants in the state and join the government dole of free money from the Inflation Reduction Act to skew the power system further and further away from affordability and reliability.

 

In Massachusetts, a prime example of the cost of closing coal plants, utilities had to burn jet fuel in a Polar Vortex. In states which have abandoned coal altogether the price of electricity has skyrocketed and is now on a par with the European Union, with the highest electric rates in the world. The average residential price of electricity in the continental United States is 18 cents per kWh. But in Massachusetts it is 32 cents and in California 34 cents. As Orr and Rolling have pointed out, research from Lawrence Berkeley National Labs demonstrated: “each of the five most expensive states for electricity have mandates requiring 100% of their power to come from renewable or carbon-free sources, making their electricity unnecessarily more expensive”. 

 

Such hard data are consistently ignored by the eager beavers who want to close coal. In virtually every Polar Vortex over the last decade, coal has been the fuel that has stepped up to the plate to bailout foolhardy utilities and states which have relied too heavily on renewables and natural gas. Renewables virtually always underperform in a Vortex and natural gas prices jump while supply is often limited due to freeze-offs as well as rules in some states that gas be diverted to the residential sector and away from power plants.

 

But the lemming-like trend continues as coal power plants are scheduled to close in such states as  Michigan (2025) –the 1,420 MW J.H.Campbell Plant; Maryland (2029) -- Brandon Shores 1,273 MW; Indiana (2028) – Rockport Generating Station 2,600 MW ; Colorado (2026) Craig Station Unit 1-446MW,  Washington (2026) Centralia Plant  730 MW. And here’s  the kicker, Pennsylvania plans to retire all of its coal plants by 2030.

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Frank Clemente PhD. specializes in research on the socioeconomic impact of energy policy and is the author of The Global Value of Coal, published by the International Energy Agency (2012). Professor Clemente has served on the faculty of the University of Kentucky, University of Wisconsin and Penn State. He has extensive experience in speaking, writing and presenting data on the value of coal to the United States and the world. All opinions expressed here are presented independently from any university with which he has been affiliated.

 

Fred Palmer Esq. served as CEO of Western Fuels before he joined Peabody Energy as Senior Vice President for Government Affairs. Palmer was Chair of the World Coal Association Board and a member of the National Coal Council. He received the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers Award for “Distinguished Achievement in Coal Technology”.  He also received a Statement of Appreciation from the National Coal Council in 2015 with a plaque for “Guidance since 1990”