This story comes from WVIA News.
President Donald Trump signed four executive orders on Tuesday to reinvigorate the country’s coal mining industry. The order is part of the president’s priority to “Unleash American Energy” and could help power data centers.
Coal mining was once synonymous with Pennsylvania. Some think Trump’s move could be beneficial for the industry in this state. Others are not so sure.
“No matter what part of the coal business you’re in, I think you’re going to feel some kind of, or the operators are, going to feel some kind of relief from the executive order,” said Justin Emershaw, mine engineer for Atlantic Carbon Group in Luzerne County.
But PennFuture, a statewide environmental advocacy organization, say the executive orders gives false hope to communities whose mines are coming to the end of their lifespan.
“As we plan for the future, we need a realistic understanding of what this cornerstone industry for a region might look like. And so these energy communities, which there are many in Pennsylvania, they need pragmatic, practical, stable information to build their future with.” said Annie Regan, campaigns manager for the organization.
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State, national context
In 2023 there were 29 active underground mines and 84 surface mines in Pennsylvania, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Coal-burning plants account for less than 20% of U.S. electricity generation, according to Reuters.
One of the orders Trump signed says that the policy of the United States is “that coal is essential to our national and economic security.” It goes on to say that the nation’s “beautiful clean coal resources will be critical to meeting the rise in electricity demand due to the resurgence of domestic manufacturing and the construction of artificial intelligence data processing centers.”
In a statement, Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser said that coal is a cornerstone of the national energy mix and produces 16% of the nation’s electricity, supports thousands of American jobs and contributes billions of dollars annually to the economy.
“President Trump continues to lead with bold action to make the United States energy dominant once again,” said Meuser. The “Executive Order marks a major step forward for clean coal and for the future of American energy. It reverses the damaging and ideological policies of the Biden Administration and opens the door for job creation, grid reliability, and economic growth — particularly here in Pennsylvania.”
The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) said in a statement on Wednesday that they are “appreciative of the President’s initiative and his recognition of the critical role coal miners have played — and continue to play — in powering our nation.”
The union’s statement says they believe that sustaining mining jobs requires further action.
“Coal miners and their communities need more than a temporary reprieve. We want coal workers to have good, stable jobs not just for the next four years, but for the next 40. That future must be built with sustainable policy, investment in new technologies like carbon capture and storage, and support for the economic diversification of coal-producing regions.”
The UMWA says they are ready to work with the administration.
PennFuture’s Regan said conversations about long term solutions have been happening across Pennsylvania’s energy communities.
“They’re facing these hard choices and long term economic investment conversations about their future, we should not be feeding them false hope for an industry that doesn’t look to have a robust future in the region,” she said.
A history of coal
In Pennsylvania’s mountains and beneath the surface are two types of coal. First is the most carbon-rich and best burning, known as anthracite. It was once called “Black Gold.” The country’s only anthracite mines are in Carbon, Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Northumberland and Schuylkill counties.
Bituminous coal is the other and second-best burning. It’s mined mostly in Western Pennsylvania.
Anthracite accounted for less than 1% of the coal mined in the United States in 2022, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Bituminous is the most abundant coal in the United States and can be used to generate electricity. EIA reports it accounted for about 46% of total U.S. coal production in 2022.
The Keystone State, especially Northeast Pennsylvania, was once a major player in the coal mining industry. But when oil and natural gas came on the scene by the mid-20th century, the heyday of coal came to an end.
Sarah Corcoran from Sierra Club’s Pennsylvania Chapter noted that executive orders are not law and that the Northeast Pennsylvania is still dealing with the impacts of coal mining.
As the story goes, mining companies consolidated and consolidated, shut off their underground water pumps and left the region for dead with open pits, mine fires and polluted-orange water that spills out of the mines and plagues the region to this day.
“Mining has not always had a very good historical past,” said Emershaw.
Mining today
Atlantic Carbon Group is headquartered in Stockton and has four active anthracite surface mines in Luzerne County. The company employs around 200 workers.
Emershaw lectures during Anthracite History Month in January.
“People either don’t realize that we still mine, whether it’s coal, any kind of mineral, gold, they don’t realize that mining really still exists … Trump is looking at this is because there are a lot of importance is to coal,” he said.
Atlantic’s main market is industrial. The company does sell to the residential market for home heating but it’s a very small margin.
“Not many people burn anthracite today like they did, you know, fifty-some years ago,” he said.
Anthracite is mainly used by the metals industry, according to the EIA and Emershaw.
Like scrap steel. Emershaw said when it’s melted down it loses strength. Anthracite coal is blasted into the molten steel. It has a high carbon count and reinforces the steel to make metals like titanium. Anthracite also is used in water filtration.
He said mining is totally different today than in decades past.
“It’s done responsibly. It’s done, you know, in a way that really benefits the environment. It is probably one of the safest industries today,” he said.
Emershaw said when his company is finished mining an area, they pay, out of pocket, to put the land back to its original contours. Any mining done near water involves state and federal agency approval.
He said it’s also one of the most regulated industries.
The executive order does mention changing regulations.
“Supporting the domestic coal industry should be a priority by removing federal regulatory barriers that undermine coal production,” the order states.
‘Coal is expensive’
Corcoran doesn’t want any of those regulations rolled back. She also doesn’t believe that realistically coal can make a comeback.
“I think that it’s been on (the) decline for decades now, and that’s not because of over regulation. It’s because coal is expensive. It’s expensive to to turn it into energy, right? So it’s actually less expensive for a lot of the more renewable resources,” she said.
Regan echoed that. Reinvigorating the coal industry doesn’t make sense from an economic or environmental standpoint, she said. PennFuture believes the energy industry should be pushing for investments in renewable energy, especially with the high cost of energy for consumers.
“We have the technology for renewables that will make it cheaper to add to our grid. It’s also faster to employ wind and solar … and cheaper than maintaining a coal power plant or building a fracked gas plant, etc.,” she said. “And so we have been really pushing that these renewable energy utilities, utility scale projects, could be the answer to solving the high energy prices consumers in Pennsylvania are seeing today.”
As for the data centers that Trump is hoping to power with coal, Regan said more research needs to be done on PennFuture’s behalf but they know the center’s don’t need to be powered by fossil fuels like coal.
Pennsylvania’s energy communities need a seat at the table, Regan said.
“We really want to see leadership on the state and federal level come together to have honest, hard conversations of how we can have real investments that have long term economic and environmental sustainability and stability in these communities,” she said.
