The United States is projected to generate more power from coal in 2025 than in 2024, though the resource has endured an assault from the executive branch, green groups, and Congress in recent years. [emphasis, links added]
America generated about 13 percent more energy from coal between January and October 2025 than it did during the same period in 2024, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.
Though the Biden administration, prominent green groups like the Sierra Club, and Congressional Democrats have worked to block coal projects and smother the industry in regulations, the energy resource continues to help meet America’s power needs.
Climate activists and some high-profile Democrats argue that coal pollutes the environment and should therefore be phased out of the U.S. energy profile.
However, critics of this view contend that coal remains a reliable and affordable source of electricity that is impossible to replace on the accelerated timelines often mandated by blue states, forcing a trade-off between an expedited energy transition and maintaining a sufficient power supply.
“If Santa leaves you coal this year, you’re obviously on the nice list,” Amy Cooke, co-founder and president of Always on Energy Research and the director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Center, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In a winter of surging demand and cold temperatures, it’s coal plants … that are the workhorses of the electric grid, delivering round-the-clock, reliable, and affordable power to keep your Christmas lights burning bright.”
The Trump administration’s Department of Energy (DOE) has warned that continuing to retire reliable power without replacements could trigger 100-fold more blackouts in the U.S. by 2030.
Meanwhile, the agency has issued multiple emergency orders aimed at keeping coal plants online amid power shortage concerns, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday extending that authority to two coal plants in Indiana.
“Keeping these coal plants online has the potential to save lives and is just common sense,” Wright said in a statement Wednesday. “Americans deserve reliable power regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining during extreme winter conditions.”
Notably, blackouts that coincided with winter storms led to loss of life in Texas and New York in recent years.
A recent North American Reliability Report (NERC) warned that “much of North America” is at risk of failing to meet demand in “extreme operating conditions,” with conditions mirroring those of 2021 before winter storm Uri devastated Texas.
NERC’s Reliability Assessments and Performance Analysis director, John Moura, said that “electricity demand continues to grow faster than the resources being added to the grid,” with the report noting that artificial intelligence (AI) data centers are increasing periods of high energy demand.
With data centers increasingly driving up American electricity demand, approximately 60% of the plans to retire oil, gas, and coal plants along America’s largest power grid, PJM, have been postponed or canceled this year, Reuters reported Tuesday.
Cooke told the DCNF that a Colorado utility’s extension of one coal plant past December helps secure more reliable power for her state, arguing that “without it, Colorado would face a darker, colder new year.”
“Coloradans are especially grateful for the early gift of sparing Comanche 2 from an arbitrary, politically driven retirement date of December 31,” Cooke said. “Extending this proven plant’s operation through 2026 isn’t nostalgia — it’s common sense at a time when reliability and affordability matter.”
Colorado is far from the only state that has aggressive mandates to support an energy transition that could result in high energy costs and a destabilized power grid, as most states with the top electricity costs are blue states with stringent profile goals, according to one recent analysis from Always on Energy Research and the Institute for Energy Research.
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Rising demand for coal in the US in 2026 would tend to raise coal prices. This is due to the fundamental economic principle of supply and demand, where increased demand against a potentially constrained supply pushes prices upward. U.S. coal prices are driven by a combination of both domestic and global supply and demand, with the specific influence varying by the type and region of the coal.