Trump orders the military to make agreements with coal power plants

Today’s executive order takes a different route to propping up coal: artificially inflating demand. “The Secretary of War, in coordination with the Secretary of Energy,” the order states, “shall seek to procure electricity from the coal-fired power generation fleet of the United States by approving long-term power purchase agreements, or entering into similar contractual agreements, with coal-fired power generation facilities to serve Department of War or other critical facilities.”

The rationale for this appears to come from an alternate reality that has little to do with the US network. “It’s going to be less expensive and actually a lot more effective than what we’ve been using for many, many years,” Trump said at the event. “And again, thanks to the environmental progress made on coal, it will be just as clean.” None of this is true.

The executive order instead seeks to highlight coal’s supposed ability to produce consistent electrical power, touting the “proven reliability of our coal-fired generation fleet to provide continuous, on-demand baseload power.” This seems to ignore Texas’ recent experience, in which coal-fired power plants contributed significantly to the collapse of the state’s grid, after being knocked out of service for a wide range of reasons.

The Trump administration, however, has rarely let false justifications get in the way of its preferred policy actions. The key action here will likely be to lock the military into long-term contracts that last beyond the end of Trump’s term in 2029.