Silicon Valley’s intense energy demands for AI are making coal-fired power plants a hot-ticket item again

Harrisburg, PA. (AP) -The electric plants fired by coal, long-term increased proposal in the US money loss, is becoming more important now that the sudden powerful demand for electricity to run cloud computing of big tech and artificial intelligence applications set a full sprint to find new energy sources.

President Donald Trump – who has pushed for us “energy dominance” in the global market and suggested thatcoalmay help meet power power demand – uses its emergency authority toAttract utilitiesTo maintain older plants fired by coal online andElectricity making.

While some utilities are alreadydelayRetirement of coal-fired plants, the marks of coal-fired plants that have shut down the past few years — or closed in the next years — is the purpose of growing interest fromTech companiesVenture capitalists,stateand others competing for electricity.

That's because they have an attractive quality: high-voltage lines that connect to the power grid they no longer use and can be used by a new power plant.

That ready connection can enable a new generation of power plants-gas,NuclearWind, solar or even battery storage – to help meet demand for new electricity sources faster.

For many years, the bureaucratic nightmare around the development of high-voltage power lines has efforts to obtain permissions for such interrelated for new power plants, John Jacobs, an energy policy analyst for Washington, DC-based Bipartisan Policy Center.

“They are very interested in the potential here. All kinds of seeing the wall writing for the need for delivery infrastructure, the need for clean power power, the difficulty of sitting projects and the cost of reuse of Brownfield's sites,” Jacobs said.

Rising power demand, dying coal plant

Incidentally, the speed of retirement of the coal-fired coal-fired plants is expected to accelerate at a time when electricity demand rises for the first time in decades.

The Department of Energy, in a December report, said its approach for the conference that the demand included the reuse of coal plants, which did not compete with a flood of cheap natural gas while burning more difficult pollution regulations aimed at the relatively heavy release of fuel that showed greenhouse gases.

There are federal incentives, as well as-like tax credits and guarantees of Pauta-which encourage the redevelopment of retired coal-fired plants to new energy sources.

Todd Snitchler, President and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, which represents independent electric plant owners, said he hopes Trump's executive orders mean some coal-fired plants longer than they have-but they are still reserved for retirement.

Demand flow means power plants, fast

Time is the essence of getting power plants online.

Data center developers report one year to wait in some areas to connect to the regional electricity grid. The approval of rights to generate power lines can also be difficult to secure, given the resistance of neighbors that may not want to live near them.

Stephen Defrank, chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, said he believed that the increase in energy demand made retired coal -fired plants more important.

That's especially true now that the Congested Mid-Atlantic Power Grid operator hasRe-configured its plansTo favor sites such as retired coal -fired plants as a shortcut to meet demand, Defrank said.

“That will make these possessions more important because now, as long as I'm ready for the shovel, these power plants have a connection that has been established, I can come in and convert it to whatever,” Defrank said.

Gas, solar and more of coal power sites

In Pennsylvania, most conversions are probably natural gas because Pennsylvania is sitting above the prolific Marcellus Shale Reservoir, Defrank said.

In states throughout the south, utilities replacing retirement or retired coal units with gas. This includes a plant owned byTennessee Valley Authority;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; a Duke Energy project in North Carolina; and a power of Georgiaplants.

High-voltage lines on retired coal plants on the Atlantic coast to New Jersey and Massachusetts were used to connect coastal wind turbines to power grids.

In Alabama, the site of a coal-fired plant, Plant Gorgas, closed in 2019, will be home to the first utility-scale energy storage plant of Alabama Power.

Meanwhile, Texas-based Visra is in the process of installing solar panels and energy storage plants in a retired fireplace and still operating coal-fired plants it owns in Illinois, thanks to the part in the part in theState subsidiesApproved there in 2021.

Nuclear may come

Nuclear also gets aIt's hard to look at.

In Arizona, lawmakers are promoting the law to make it easier for three equipment there-owner Public Service, Salt River Project and Tucson Electric Power-to put advanced nuclear reactors on the sites of retired coal-fired plants.

At the Governor of Indiana, Purdue University is studying how to attract the state of a new nuclear industry. In the November report, it estimated that the reuse of a coal -fired plant site for a new nuclear power plant could reduce project costs between 7% and 26%.

The Bipartisan Policy Center, in a 2023 study before electricity began, estimated that nuclear plants could reduce costs from 15% to 35% by developing a retired coal plant site, compared to developing a new site.

Even the building next to the coal can cut costs by 10% by using delivery assets, roads and buildings while avoiding some allowable barriers, the center said.

That interconnection is a major driver forTerrapowerWhen it chooses to start construction in Wyoming with a next-generation nuclear power plant next to Pacificorp's coal-fired naughton power plant.

Jobs, town left with coal

Kathryn Huff, a former US secretary assistant for nuclear energy who is now an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said the department said that many sites may suit the advanced nuclear reactor plants.

One compelling factor is workers from coal plants that can be trained for work in a nuclear plant, Huff said. Electricians, welders and steam turbine maintenance technicians include.

In Homer City, the horrible loss of the coal-fired plant-it was closed in 2023 after operating 54 years-existing years on the country's country of western Pennsylvania country hills.

“It's been a rough 20 years here for our area, maybe longer than that, closing the mines, and this is the final nail, along with the closure of the power plant,” said Rob Nymick, Homer City manager. “It's like, 'Oh my God, what are we going to do?'”

That changes.

Plants -owned in recent weeks have devastated smoke smoke and cooling towers in Homer City forming a state andannouncedA $ 10 billion plan for a natural gas center -powered campus.

It is the third of the largest power generator and has been sown by some optimism locally.

“Maybe we can get some families move, it will help the school district in their registry, it will help us with our population,” Nymick said. “We're a dying town and hopefully we might get a restaurant or two to open and start developing again. We look forward to it.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com