Kohle erhält 700 Millionen US-Dollar Lifeline unter Verteidigungsproduktionsgesetz

Nearly $700 million of taxpayer money is now headed to the coal industry under a Cold War emergency law. That's the number President Trump slapped on the table Thursday when he invoked the 1950 Defense Production Act to refurbish 13 existing coal plants, build two new ones, and construct a West Coast coal export terminal.

I've watched coal's share of U.S. primary energy consumption slide from over 50% in the early 2000s to just 8% in 2024, per the Congressional Research Service. The administration claims its intervention will create 14,000 new jobs and that coal firms will chip in another $1.7 billion. Color me skeptical — the economics are working against them.

The Numbers Don't Add Up

Wind and solar already produced a record 17% of U.S. energy in 2025 and are cheaper than coal on a levelized cost basis. Natural gas, which the industry once called a bridge fuel, has long since overtaken coal in the generation mix. Even the EPA's own 2009 endangerment finding — the legal bedrock for regulating CO₂ — got scrapped in February, with Administrator Lee Zeldin claiming the move would save consumers $2,400 per vehicle. That's a lot of accounting magic.

Environmental groups are not buying it. Kit Kennedy at the Natural Resources Defense Council called the move a way to "put polluters first and put the rest of us at risk." She's right. Coal is the single largest fossil fuel contributor to climate change, and its decline has been a major reason recent global warming projections have softened.

What This Means for Energy Markets

The Defense Production Act lets the government compel private companies to prioritize certain contracts for national security. Using it to prop up a fuel that accounts for 8% of national energy — and falling — is a bet against market trends. The administration is also angling to keep coal plants in four states running past their retirement dates, and the EPA reversed a 2014 regional haze ruling that would have closed a Wyoming plant.

Whether the Defense Production Act can reverse two decades of market-driven decline — or just delay the inevitable — is a question that will be settled by economics, not executive orders.

Source: Trump invokes Defense Production Act to keep U.S. coal plants running
Domain: scientificamerican.com