In the coming days, US authorities are prescribed to make the government’s largest coal sale in more than a decade, which offers 600 million tonnes from publicly owned stores next to strip mines. Montana And Vyoming,
Sales is a signature piece of president Donald TrumpThe ambitions for companies to dig more coal than federal land and burn it for electricity. An associated press data analysis suggests that most power plants served by those mines are planned to be completely burnt within 10 years.
According to data from US Energy Information Administration and Non -Global Energy Monitor, three other mines prepared under Trump or three other mines prepared for new leases have to face detailed demand under Trump as the power plants use their coal less and are closed in some cases.
Those market realities have raised a fundamental question about the Republican administration’s push to revive a heavy polluting industry that has been in a long fall: Who is going to buy all that coal?
This question is encouraging on a major contributor to climate change, on the enthusiastic hug of coal. It also shows the uncertainty vested in incorporating policies in markets where energy producing customers take long-term decisions not only for their own viability but also for the future of the planet, sometimes in a political scenario, in a political scenario, with large scale implications.
Escape to approve projects
The upcoming lease sales in Montana and Vyoming are in the powder river basin, the most productive homes for American coal fields.
Officials say they will move forward from Monday despite the government being closed. The administration exempted the workers who process fossil fuel permits and leases.
Democratic president Joe Biden Last year, citing his ability to make climate change worse, he worked to block future coal leases in the region. Burning coal from two leases being sold in the coming days will produce more than 1 billion tonnes of planetary-wise carbon dioxide, according to an energy department.
Trump rejected climate change as a “Con Job” during the September 23 speech for the United Nations General Assembly, an assessment that puts them on obstacles with scientists. He praised coal as “beautiful” and claimed about the abundance of American supply by achieving solar and wind energy. Administration officials said on Wednesday that they were canceling $ 8 billion for clean energy projects in 16 states won by Democrat Kamla Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
In response to an order of Trump on its first day at the office in the office, the shelter or stalled coal lease was revived and run for approval, in which the greenhouse gas emissions were rejected. Administration officials have upgraded coal mines expansion and lease sale in Utah, North Dakota, Tennessi and Alabama besides Montana and Vyoming.
Internal secretary Dug bargam On Monday, the administration said that the administration is opening for more than 20,000 square miles (52,000 sq km) of federal land. It is an area larger than the New Hampshire and Vermont.
The administration also rapidly reduced royalty rates for coal from federal land, ordered a coal -powered power plant in Michigan that they approved $ 625 million for the recommendation or modernization of coal plants between the coal -powered power plants in Michigan to be open on the previous employed retirement dates and from the demand for power from artificial intelligence and data centers.
“We are hosing American miners back to work,” Bergam said, hoisted by coal miners and Republican politicians. “We have a demand curve that is literally passing through the roof in the case of power demand.”
Coal demand plmets
The discovery of AP is that the power plants served by mines on public land are burning low coal, showing an industrywide fall in 2007.
Energy experts and economists were not surprised. He expressed doubts that coal would ever recover dominance in the power sector. Officials of the internal department did not answer questions about the future demand of coal from public land.
But it will take time for more electricity than natural gas and solar projects planned to come online. This means that Trump’s functions can give a short -term competition to coal, said Ummed Paliwal, an expert from the electricity markets at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Paliwal said, “The coal will eventually be out of the market.” “Economics will only eat coal production over time.”
Coal sales in Montana and Vyoming were requested by the Nawazo Nation owned company. The Nawazo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC) has been one of the largest industry players since purchasing several major mines in the powder river basin during the 2019 bankruptcy auction. They supply 34 power plants in 19 states.
In the next decade, twenty-one-one plants are prescribed to prevent burning coal. They include all the five plants using coal from the spring creek mine of NTEC in Montana.
In filing with federal officials, the company stated that the proper market value of 167 million tonnes of federal coal next to Spring Creek Mine was more than $ 126,000.
It is less than tenth of one penny per ton, a part of the coal brought to its north. Comparatively, the last large -scale lease sales in the powder river basin, also for 167 million tonnes of coal, bid $ 35 million in 2013. Federal officials rejected it as very little.
NTEC stated that low value was supported by reviews of the former government predicting less buyers for coal. The company said that taxpayers will benefit from royalty on any coal in future years.
“The market for coal will fall significantly in the next two decades. Coal mines that expand their reserves are less, thermal coal has less buyers and more regulatory barriers,” the company said.
In Central Vyoming on Wednesday, the government will sell 440 million tonnes of coal next to Mrig Khan of NTEC. More than half of the 29 power plants served by the mine are prescribed to prevent burning coal by 2035.
Among them is Rawhyid plant in North Colorado. This is due to leaving coal in 2029, but will continue to make electricity with natural gas and 30 MW solar panels.
Aging plants and optimism
The largest American coal company has offered to take more optimistic on the future of coal. Because the new atomic and gas plants are year away, Pibody Energy suggested in September that coal demand in the US may increase by 250 million tonnes annually – up to 50% from current versions.
The launch of the pubody was based on the basis that existing power plants could burn more coal. The amount, known as the capacity of the plant, fell by about half in recent years.
“The US coal is clearly in return mode,” the chairman of the pobody, James Grech, recently stated with analysts in a conference call. “America has more energy than any one energy source in its coal reserves.”
Since 2013, no major coal power plant has come online in the US. Most existing plants are 40 years or older. Nikhil Kumar, with an energy consultation group gridlab, said that the money promised by the administration to resume old plants will not cost a single boiler component $ 25 million in a plant that will not cost a single boiler component.
This returns to the question of who will buy coal.
Kumar said, “I don’t see where you get all this coal from.”
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Grover reported from Wellington, Colorado. Associated press writer Susan Montya Bryan contributed to this report in Albuquerk, New Mexico.