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Page Updated:
Sept. 18, 2025

• • Coal Stock at Power Plants Up 28% Year-On-Year

  Daily Rake Supply at 436.5 in September
  
  {ET Energy World}
  
  

  Sept. 17, 2025 -New Delhi: Coal availability at thermal power plants (TPPs) rose to 47.55 tons (MT) as of September 10, 2025, compared with about 37 MT in the period last year, an increase of nearly 28 per cent, according to official data.

  Mine-end stock stood at 99 MT, while the average daily coal rake supply during September was 436.5 per day, of which 388.6 rakes per day were delivered to the power sector.

• • Why India Says Coal Will Remain in the Energy Mix Till 2050

  This Is Despite Its Net Zero Pledge
  
  {EnergyWorld}
  
  

  Sept. 13, 2025 -At the 17th India Coal Summit, NITI Aayog advisor (Energy) Rajnath Ram underlined that India’s energy transition will not mean the end of coal in the near term. While India has pledged to achieve net zero by 2070, coal is expected to remain a key part of the country’s primary energy basket at least till 2047–50.

  Why coal will continue till 2047-50:

  India has coal reserves of about 347 billion tonnes. According to Rajnath Ram, the demand for energy will rise sharply as the economy expands 8-9 times by 2047. Energy demand is expected to grow three to four times, and electricity demand could increase by eight to nine times in the same period.

• • House Republicans Push New Coal Bills, But...

  Critics Say the Industry’s Decline Can’t Be Reversed
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 5, 2025 -Trump has made reviving the coal industry a political and policy priority in his second term, swimming against the current of a domestic—and international—market that’s increasingly turned away from the fuel source. A Wednesday hearing of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, on two bills aiming to bolster the U.S. coal industry, showcased the debate around the use of federal lands, the nation’s energy future and the fate of the world’s oldest fossil fuel.

  During the hearing, Republican lawmakers lauded coal as indispensable to U.S. energy security and blasted federal oversight as a bureaucratic chokehold suffocating the mining industry. Democrats and environmental groups dismissed the bills as a symbolic and misguided attempt to rescue U.S. coal production, arguing that the policies would fail to revive jobs and succeed only in worsening emissions and undermining progress on climate policy.

• • Will Trump Try to Keep Coal Burning in Pueblo?

  Pueblo County is Asking the Trump Administration to Keep Coal Burning as Colorado Regulators Greenlight the State’s Largest Clean Energy Build
  
  {Energy Central}
  
  

  Sept. 4, 2025 -The PUC approved 6,000 MW of new resources for Xcel—$15B in wind, solar, gas peakers, and batteries—but far less than the 14,000 MW the utility sought to meet data center demand. Commissioners insisted data centers, not households, shoulder the risk if demand projections flop.

  Local leaders say the plan abandons their community when its Comanche 3 coal plant closes in 2030, demanding a nuclear or gas plant to replace both the jobs and tax base. Their appeal to Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright signals a possible federal push to keep the county’s coal units running.

• • China and India Account For 87% of
  New Coal-Power Capacity so Far in 2025

  Whereas Other Regions Continued to Move Away From Coal
  
  {CarbonBrief}
  
  

  August 27, 2025 - These developments, highlighting a growing global divide between many countries phasing out coal power and a handful continuing to expand new capacity, are revealed in Global Energy Monitor’s latest Global Coal Plant Tracker results and reported here for the first time.

  The results include Ireland becoming the fifth EU country to phase out coal power and Latin America becoming a region with zero active proposals for new coal capacity.

  Meanwhile, the results show the US is on track to retire more coal capacity in 2025 than it did under the Biden administration last year, despite the efforts of the Trump White House.

• • The Battle Over Polluted Water
  Beneath an Iowa Coal Ash Landfill

  A Year-Long Fight With an Alliant Energy Subsidiary Over Its Discharge of Groundwater Possibly Contaminated With Coal Combustion Residuals
  
  
  
  

  August 27, 2025 -The Ottumwa-Midland Landfill holds ash from one of Iowa’s few remaining coal power plants.

  A stew of substances marinates within the landfill’s basin that, at high enough concentrations, is hazardous to human health.

  Any liquid discharges from the landfill are subject to state and federal rules governing safe treatment and disposal. But the rules aren’t so clear when it comes to the groundwater pumped out from beneath the landfill.

• • China’s Emissions Fall But Growing
  Coal-To-Chemicals Sector Raises Concern

  The Fast-Rising Use of Coal in the Production of Synthetic Fuels and Plastics Could Put China’s Climate Targets At Risk
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}
  
  

  August 21, 2025 -While China’s planet-warming emissions keep falling, its growing use of coal to produce liquid fuels and chemicals – including plastics – risks threatening its climate goals, a new analysis has shown.

  Record installations of solar power helped extend a slight decline in China’s overall carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the first half of 2025, but the country’s ballooning coal-to-chemicals industry bucked the positive trend, according to analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for Carbon Brief.

• • EPA Plans to Revise Coal-Fired Power Plant Wastewater Rules

  It's Moving to Delay and Potentially Weaken Coal Plant Wastewater Rules That Were Finalized Last Year
  
  
  
  

  August 13, 2025 -The rule: The 2024 update set zero-discharge limits for toxic wastewater from coal plants, with a 2029 compliance deadline and an end-of-2025 requirement for plants unable to meet the standard to announce retirement plans.

  The shift: In a court filing, the EPA said it plans to extend the end-of-year deadline and reconsider both the technology basis for certain discharge limits and the zero-discharge standard itself.

• • Coal Company Sues UK

  After Environmentalists Win Major Climate Case
  
  
  
  

  August 11, 2025 -A coal company is pushing back against the United Kingdom after a British court canceled a proposed mine due to a flawed accounting of its potential climate impacts.

  On Friday, the mine’s Singaporean and U.K. investors initiated arbitration proceedings against the British government based on a 1975 treaty between the U.K. and Singapore that allows foreign companies to bypass national courts and challenge governmental policies before panels of arbitrators, part of a little-known but powerful system embedded in thousands of international investment agreements and contracts.

• • Kids in Pennsylvania Are Breathing
  (Much) Easier After a Coal Plant Shuttered

  Pediatric Asthma ER Visits Dropped 40 Percent After a Coal Processing Plant Near Pittsburgh Closed Down
  
  
  
  

  August 5, 2025 -In 2015, when Karen Grzywinski heard that the Shenango Coke Works near Pittsburgh was closing after 54 years in operation, she didn’t believe it. Neither did her neighbors, some of whom had joined her in fighting a long battle for the plant to better control its pollution. “A number of us thought it was a joke,” she said. “We were really, really surprised.”

  Shenango, which produced coke, a concentrated form of coal used to manufacture steel, was then a major source of air pollution in the region. After years of suffering from respiratory symptoms triggered by bad air days, Grzywinski said she noticed a change soon after the closure.

• • Coal Royalty Rate Drop Could Boost Business

  It Also Means Less Revenue for Wyoming
  
  {energycentral}
  
  

  July 22, 2025 -The GOP megabill drops federal coal royalties from 12.5% to 7%, slicing into funds that support Wyoming’s schools, roads, and healthcare.

  State economists hope increased production will offset the loss, but warn the math may not add up—especially as demand for coal continues its long-term decline.

• • EPA To Delay Cleanups of Georgia’s Toxic Coal Ash Landfills

  The EPA Will Side With the Coal Industry
  
  {SIERRA CLUB}
  
  

  July 18, 2025 - Coal ash, also known as coal combustion residuals (CCRs), is the toxic ash left behind from burning coal and can pollute waterways, groundwater, drinking water, and the air with harmful chemicals such as mercury, cadmium, chromium, and arsenic. In Georgia, there are 24 federally regulated coal ash ponds and landfills containing nearly 87 million cubic yards of toxic waste at nine coal plants. All but one of these sites have contaminated groundwater.

  This decision comes as the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) is considering allowing coal ash to be capped-in-place at Plant McDonough, leaving the toxic ash in an unlined pit with no barrier to prevent it from seeping into groundwater below.

• • Coal's Comeback in the U.S. Under Trump

  Trump’s Administration is Promoting Coal By Halting Plant Closures and Supporting New Mining Projects
  
  {OILPRICE}
  
  

  July 7, 2025 - Under the Biden administration, the United States made strides in its green transition, supported by policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). The U.S. renewable energy capacity increased significantly, and a long-term shift away from coal was in the works. However, since President Trump came into office, his administration has begun to undo much of the green progress made over the last four years and is once again looking to coal to meet the domestic power demand.

  Coal is widely considered the “dirtiest fossil fuel”, as burning it is the single largest contributor to global warming, accounting for 41 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, as well as high levels of methane

• • New Energy Realities Could Extend
  Coal’s Role in Global Energy Markets

  How Energy Security Concerns, Unprecedented Power Demand, and Technological Advances Could Extend Coal’s Life and Reshape the Global Energy Transition
  
  {yahoo!finance}
  
  

  July 17, 2025 -Global coal demand could remain stronger for longer, with coal-fired power generation potentially staying dominant through 2030, well beyond current projections for peak coal, according to a new Horizons report from Wood Mackenzie.

  The report titled ‘Staying power: How new energy realities risk extending coal’s sunset’ suggests that a confluence of factors, from a rapidly electrifying global economy to energy security priorities rising from geopolitical and cost shocks to Asia’s young and evolving coal fleet, could extend coal’s role as a vital power source well into the next decade and beyond.

• • Don't 'Coal' It a Comeback

  Financial Industry Pledges to Move Away From Coal Haven't Translated Into Reduced Worldwide Funding
  
  {AXIOS}
  
  

  July 10, 2025 -Why it matters: Coal is the most CO2-intensive fuel, and its future trajectory will help dictate how much global warming occurs.

  Driving the news: The report from German NGO Urgewald and other groups traces funding since the 2021 UN climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

  The summit featured many non-binding country pledges to phase down coal and major bank vows to wring CO2 out of their portfolios over time.

  What they found: The analysis of 650 commercial banks worldwide, which explores finance for thermal coal production and coal-fired power, shows $130 billion in loans and underwriting in 2024.

• • US Power Pollution Climbs On Higher Coal Use

  U.S. Power Sector Emissions Are Already at Their Highest Levels in Three Years, But Will Likely Climb Further During the Peak Summer Months as Greater Use of Air Conditioning Systems Drives Higher Generation From Coal and natural Gas Plants
  
  
  
  

  By Aron Anderson July 1, 2025 -Over the first five months of 2025, U.S. power sector emissions from the burning of fossil fuels were up 5% to around 640 million metric tons, according to data from Ember.

  The roughly 32 million ton rise in emissions from the same months a year ago stems mainly from higher use of coal within the U.S. generation mix, as power firms have so far cut back on natural gas use from a year ago after gas prices rallied.

• • TVA Moves Forward With Grid
  Stability Project At Retired Coal Plant

  TVA Plans to Repurpose Its Retired Bull Run Coal-Fired Plant With Synchronous Condensers For Grid Stability
  
  {FACTOR THIS}
  
  

  June 30, 2025 -As more electricity comes from intermittent renewable energy, maintaining grid stability becomes more challenging as coal plants retire. Synchronous condensers help balance grid inertia by replacing decommissioned power generation equipment, increasing power reliability and redundancy.

  TVA is working with Eaton, who will provide the electrical and mechanical solutions needed to convert one machine comprised of two generators into two 605 mega-volt amperes reactive (MVAR) synchronous condensers.

  Eaton has worked on similar synchronous condenser design and conversion projects. For example, Eaton worked with FirstEnergy on a conversion project at the utility’s Eastlake, Ohio plant back in 2014.

• • EPA Says It Will Delay Pollution Rules for Coal Plants

  The Trump Administration Plans to Delay and Potentially Loosen Water Pollution Rules for Coal-Fired Power Plants
  
  {THE HILL}
  
  

  June 30, 2025 -In a press release, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Monday that it will “propose to extend compliance deadlines” for some of the requirements in a Biden-era regulation.

  The agency also said that it “intends to explore other flexibilities to promote reliable and affordable power generation” but did not specify which parts of the rule it will consider loosening.

• • Eight Utility Regulators Challenge DOE
  Order Keeping Michigan Coal Plant Open

  The Department’s Invocation of Emergency Powers to Interfere With State and Regional Utility Planning is Unprecedented, According to the Challenge.
  
  {UTILITY DIVE}
  
  

  June 26, 2025 -Eight utility commissions in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator’s footprint are challenging the U.S. Department of Energy’s emergency order to keep a coal-fired power plant running in Michigan past its May 30 retirement date.

  DOE failed to show that emergency conditions exist in the MISO footprint warranting its May 23 order directing Consumers Energy to delay retiring the 1,560-MW, J.H. Campbell power plant in West Olive, the Organization of MISO States said in a June 23 rehearing request to the department.

• • Why Eliminating Coal Could Take a Long Time

  A California Mining and Processing Business is Replacing One Coal Plant But Says Another Could Stay Online For Many Years
  
  
  
  

  June 18, 2025 -Coal use has been declining for decades, but ending the use of the fuel isn’t going to be easy, even in a place like California, which has ambitious climate change goals.

  In the high desert just south of Death Valley, the hottest place on earth, two small coal plants have been running for 50 years. They provide heat and power to Searles Valley Minerals, a mining and processing plant in Trona, Calif., that churns out raw materials used in wind turbine blades, solar panels, pesticides and other products.

• • Trump is Forcing This Dirty, Costly Coal Plant to Stay Open

  The Administration Blocked an Electricity Plant in Michigan From Closing, Overturning a Plan By a Utility and Local Officials
  
  

  June 1, 2025 -An emergency order last month from Washington rattled Michigan regulators: The Trump administration reversed the state’s plan to retire an aging power plant, forcing it to remain open and continue burning coal.

  Michigan and the plant’s operator have mounds of evidence that closing the 63-year-old J.H. Campbell plant on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan won’t create a shortage of electricity. But the Trump administration adopted a different view, claiming the Midwest is overly dependent on intermittent wind and solar power.

• • Trump Touts ‘Clean Coal’ —
  But Cuts Programs that Protect Miners

  A Federal Program that Screens Coal Miners for Black Lung Disease has Been Shuttered Because of Layoffs and Budget Cuts
  
  

  Apr. 21, 2025 -Emory “Curly” Carter sometimes feels like he can’t breathe. Household chores, such as cleaning and gardening, leave him gasping for air, making him feel like he has a “real bad” case of pneumonia.

  After nearly four decades working in underground coal mines, Carter was diagnosed with black lung, a deadly and incurable disease caused by inhaling coal dust over a long period. Now, the 70 year-old worries that the Trump administration’s steep cuts to health and safety programs will endanger the next generation of miners across the coalfields of West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia.

• • Trump Wants to Reverse Coal’s Long Decline

  It Won’t be Easy
  
  

  Apr. 14, 2025 -President Trump last week issued executive orders designed to revive the use of coal in power plants, a practice that has been steadily declining for more than a decade.

  But the effort is likely to fail, energy experts said, because the fossil fuel faces some critical hurdles. The power that coal plants produce typically can’t compete with cheaper, cleaner alternatives. And many plants that burn coal are simply too old and would need extensive and expensive upgrades to continue running.

• • Coal Plant Ranked as Nation’s
  Dirtiest Asks for Pollution Exemption

  The Facility, in Colstrip, Mont., Used a New E.P.A. System For Requesting Special Waivers from President Trump
  
  

  Apr. 2, 2025 -The nation’s most polluting coal-burning power plant has asked President Trump to exempt it from stricter limits on hazardous air pollution after the administration recently invited companies to apply for presidential pollution waivers by email.

  The aging Colstrip power plant in Colstrip, Mont., emits more harmful fine particulate matter pollution, or soot, than any other power plant in the nation, Environmental Protection Agency figures show.

• • Where Coal Is Retiring, and Hanging On, in the U.S.

  One of the Oldest Power Plants in the U.S., Perched on the Edge of the Nation’s Largest Coal Mine, was Slated To Close in 2027. But...
  
  

  Feb. 6, 2025 -But the plant’s operator recently cancelled the retirement of the 66-year-old station, according to a draft utility plan published in late December.

  Now, three coal-burning units at the Dave Johnston Power Plant, near Glenrock, Wyo., are among dozens nationwide that could keep burning coal far past scheduled retirement dates. Utilities could be taking advantage of growth in energy demand and changes in environmental regulations to keep these plants operating. But experts say that won’t do much to slow coal’s inevitable decline.

• • Why Coal Has Been So Hard to Quit in the U.S.

  What the Economics of Coal-Rich States Like Wyoming Tells Us About the Transition Away From the Dirtiest Fossil Fuel
  
  

  Feb. 6, 2025 - While it once dominated the nation’s power grid, hundreds of units have shuttered over the last two decades and have been largely replaced by natural gas and renewables like solar and wind. More than half of the remaining coal units in the United States are slated for retirement.

  But as was reported today, since 2017, utilities have extended the life of nearly a third of coal units with planned retirement dates, either through delays or by reversing course and removing retirement goals entirely.

• • Trump Said, ‘We Have More Coal Than Anybody.’

  See Where We Burn It
  
  

  - Jan. 24, 2025 -After declaring a national energy emergency on his first day in office, President Trump said Thursday that coal could be a fuel source for new electric generating plants.

  He announced a plan to issue emergency declarations to build power plants to meet a projected increase in electricity demand for artificial intelligence.

• • The Pope Led Notre Dame Toward Decarbonization

  He Hasn’t Influenced the
  School’s Alabama Coal Investment
  
  

  Jan. 21, 2025 -On issues of climate change, the pope’s influence may stop at the Alabama border.

  Following an unprecedented, forcefully written call to action on climate change from Pope Francis to Catholics and non-Catholics alike in 2015, institutions like the University of Notre Dame, storied in Catholic history, took heed. Almost immediately, the university made pledges to curb its use of fossil fuels and aim toward carbon neutrality—goals the pope had lauded in his environmental appeal. But...

• • The Dirtiest Set of Coal-Fired Power Plants in the US

  Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Operates It
  
  

  Jan. 13, 2025 - A Reuters analysis shows that Berkshire coal plants emit more nitrogen oxide gases than any other coal-fired fleet in the country. Despite big investments in renewable energy, the company has resisted efforts by regulators to make coal plants cleaner.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • Only Five Proposals For Coal Plants Remain Across OECD

  Demand Is Finally Shrinking
  
  

  Dec. 19, 2024 - The number of new coal plants under development in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) region has reached record lows since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015.

  The OECD is an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic growth and global trade. It includes many of the world’s wealthiest countries.

  In all, the number of proposed coal plants in the OECD region has decreased from 142 in 2015 to five today – a 96% fall.

• • Supreme Court Allows Biden Plan to Address Toxic Coal Ash

  The Court’s Order Was Provisional, Rejecting a Request From a Kentucky Electric Utility to Block the Plan...
  
  

  Dec. 11, 2024 -The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request from an electric utility in Kentucky to block an Environmental Protection Agency effort to address the health risks presented by coal ash, a toxic substance created by burning coal to produce electricity.

  The court’s brief order gave no reasons, which is typical when it acts on emergency applications. There were no noted dissents.

• • Coal is Not Dead Yet

  Analysis and Forecast to 2027
  
  
  (IEA 50)

  Dec. 10, 2024 -Coal is often considered a fuel of the past, but global consumption of it has doubled in the past three decades. At the height of lockdowns related to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, demand declined significantly.

  Yet the rebound from those lows, underpinned by high gas prices in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has resulted in record global coal production, consumption, trade and coal-fired power generation in recent years.

• • From Mine to Shine:

  RWE to Turn Former Coal Mining Sites into Solar and Storage Projects
  
  

  Nov. 22, 2024 -Global renewable energy company RWE Clean Energy is advancing development in Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) territory in a unique way: transforming former coal mining sites into large-scale solar and storage projects.

  RWE has announced a new partnership with Peabody Energy, a coal mining company, to repurpose reclaimed land previously used for mining in Indiana and Illinois. RWE is acquiring a majority interest in R3 Renewables LLC, a joint venture launched by Peabody, which will retain 25% equity interest. RWE is acquiring Summit and Riverstone’s equity interest in R3.

• • This Historic Ship Runs on Coal

  Can It Find a New Way Forward?
  
  

  Oct. 10, 2024 -Boarding the S.S. Badger, a 410-foot freight and passenger ferry that crosses Lake Michigan each summer, is like stepping back in time. A National Historic Landmark, the ship retains many of the original components from when the vessel first entered service in 1953: train tracks that once carried railcars, a telegraph system the captain still uses to communicate with the engine room and two massive engines powered entirely by coal.

  Thirteen tons of coal for each 60-mile crossing, to be precise.

• • Britain Shuts Down Last Coal Plant

  ‘Turning Its Back on Coal Forever’
  
  

  Sep. 30, 2024 -Britain, the nation that launched a global addiction to coal 150 years ago, is shutting down its last coal-burning power station on Monday.

  That makes Britain first among the world’s major, industrialized economies to wean itself off coal — all the more symbolic because it was also the first to burn tremendous amounts of it to fuel the Industrial Revolution, inspiring the rest of the world to follow suit.