Don’t put coal on ice

Let’s say it plainly: The United States needs its fleet of coal-fired power plants.

Consider, for starters, the rising demands for electricity driven by the expansion of data centers, electrification, and industrial growth. A year ago, public utilities and grid operators nearly doubled their forecasts of the additional electricity needed to power the U.S. economy over the next five years. That unanticipated increase threatens to overwhelm the nation’s already strained power supplies.

The elephant in the room is the remarkable growth of artificial intelligence and the data centers needed to support it. The newest and largest data centers, such as the Quantum Loophole project in Frederick County, Maryland; the Citadel in Reno, Nevada; the Bumblehive project south of Salt Lake City; and the Microsoft Data Center in West

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