United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to revive the country's coal industry to meet AI datacentre energy demands - despite the private sector investing in 120 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy purchases.
The move is another unwinding of years of past administrations' work to curb fossil-fuelled power generation.
AI data centres could need 10 GW of additional power capacity by the end of the year, which is more than the total power capacity of Utah.
Trump says the increase in demand, coupled with existing capacity challenges, strains America's electrical grid.
“The U.S. is experiencing an unprecedented surge in electricity demand driven by rapid technological advancements, including the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers and an increase in domestic manufacturing,” the order states.
“The United States’ ability to remain at the forefront of technological innovation depends on a reliable supply of energy from all available electric generation sources and the integrity of our nation's electric grid.”
Black gold
In an address about the new measures, Trump pointed to China - where a “resurgence” in coal-fired power plant construction is “undermining the country’s clean-energy progress”, according to an analysis released in February.
The Middle Kingdom began building 94.5 GW of new coal-power capacity and resumed 3.3 GW of suspended projects in 2024, “the highest level of construction in the past 10 years”.
“China is opening up two coal plants every single week,” Trump said.
“Germany went green, they went to green and they almost went out of business … they went to wind, the wind wasn’t blowing too much and they went to other things too.
“The green new scam went to Germany too, and guess what, they went back to coal. They’re opening up coal plants all over Germany and we’re the ones that aren’t doing it.
The move follows America leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change earlier this year, a move that Trump made in his first term in office that lasted just four months.
“I call it beautiful clean coal. Today we’re ending Joe Biden’s war on beautiful clean coal. We’re going to put the miners back to work.”
“The value of untapped coal in our country is 100 times greater than all the gold at Fort Knox and we’re going to unleash it and make America powerful again.
“I’m authorising the spending of billions of dollars of funding to invest in the next generation of coal technology.”
Private sector clean energy push
This runs against the grain of the past 12 months in the private sector, which has been making significant strides in clean energy - purchasing almost 48 GW in the period, 92% of which came from the tech sector, S&P Global said, adding to a total 120 GW of consigned power purchases.
“Solar remains the preferred technology for corporate offtakers securing clean energy capacity in the US, however, accounting for 49.1% of overall corporate-tied US clean-energy capacity tracked,” S&P said.
Microsoft and Brookfield Renewable announced one of the largest corporate renewable deals in history in May 2024, partnering to add 10.5 GW of renewable capacity to the grid in the US and Europe by 2030.
Amazon, OpenAI and Google have all followed suit since, inking deals worth billions; and Nvidia, xAI and others announced their AI Infrastructure Partnership last month.
