coal provides about 16%<\/a> of the United States\u2019 electricity, a share that has fallen steeply in recent years as the cost of natural gas, wind and solar energy has come down, and anti-pollution regulations have helped to convince utilities to close coal power plants.\n <\/p>\n\n Coal mining has also fallen out of favor in recent decades as demand for the fuel has declined. Coal is the energy source that produces the most global warming pollution, and its decline in the US had been helping to reduce the nation\u2019s emissions.\n <\/p>\n
\n Environmental groups denounced the new moves as a waste of money, a threat to public health and a step backward in the fight against human-caused global warming.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cExpanding mining and spending taxpayer money on burning coal, while rolling back vital health protections, will only exacerbate the deadly pollution and rising electricity bills that communities are facing across the country,\u201d said Jill Tauber of Earthjustice in a statement. \u201cClean energy and other climate solutions are driving significant growth in our economy, but this administration is choosing to throw its weight behind fossil fuel industries and stymie progress.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s attempts to ban clean energy and prop up dirty and costly coal will not only cause costs to keep going up, but will also risk the health of our communities and threaten public lands that belong to all of us,\u201d said Matthew Davis of the League of Conservation Voters, in a statement.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Trump administration, however, sees coal as a reliable source of baseload power at a time when such energy sources are at a premium given rising electricity demands amid the artificial intelligence boom.\n <\/p>\n
\n The White House is prioritizing such energy sources, be it coal or nuclear power plants, over the cheapest sources of electricity today, which are wind and solar.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cBeautiful, clean coal will be essential to powering America\u2019s reindustrialization and winning the AI race,\u201d Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement. \u201cThese funds will help keep our nation\u2019s coal plants operating and will be vital to keeping electricity prices low and the lights on without interruption.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Trump administration wages war against clean energy, it is now vowing to lease millions of acres…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-464794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115296924300267404","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}