Residents in Pennsylvania are stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. On the one hand, keeping the Eddystone coal-powered plant online provides job security and generally adds to the energy grid in America. On the other hand, they will inevitably bear the brunt of the financial burden of keeping the site that was due to be closed down operational. The Department of Energy issued an order to keep the Eddystone plant operational recently, despite the site being scheduled to go offline and close its doors for good. Now the average Pennsylvanian will need to cough up more money to keep the site running.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission lays the costs of the Eddystone site on the laps of Pennsylvanians
Last month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued notice that it had approved a plan that allowed PJM Interconnection to recover its payments to the plant’s owner, Constellation Energy, from customers across its 13-state empire. The move was met with massive backlash from residents and industry watchdogs.
The coal-powered plant at Eddystone was ordered to remain operational and stay online, despite the site’s owner, Constellation Energy, planning to shut down the site. The justification laid out by the federal government is that America needs as much power at the ready in order to compete with China in the emerging AI market.
The US DOE is prioritizing the Trump administration’s fossil fuel-first energy policy
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a former oil drilling and mining company executive, stated that his department is prioritizing the current administration’s approach to keeping coal as the dominant energy resource in America, describing the future of coal as “long and bright.”
There are like 40 coal plants that are supposed to close this year, and our biggest impact is going to be to stop the closure of most of those,” – U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright during a visit to the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia
Putting the need to compete with China in the AI arms race aside, Wright stated that the Eddystone plant needed to continue operating because of “peak electricity demands and growing consumption.”, and that it had nothing to do with a recent heatwave in the area.
“We need to stop digging the hole, keep working power plants open today, and do everything we can in the regulatory framework to allow new capacity to be added to our grid so we can lead in the AI race.” – U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright
The projected cost of keeping coal plants operational is astronomical
We would be remiss if we did not mention that the majority of the energy produced at the Eddystone power plant is diverted to other parts of the country and does not necessarily provide power to the locals. The federal government is delaying coal power plants’ retirements all across the United States.
Power industry consulting firm Grid Strategies has reported that the projected cost of keeping retiring power plants online is between $3 billion and $6 billion nationwide by 2029.
The Trump Presidency is inevitably going to cost the average American more than they might think
The Trump administration has taken significant steps to bring the energy sector back from the depths of despair, and for that, it needs to be credited. However, we suspect that the current administration is prioritizing short-term success at the cost of long-term financial burden to the average American. The American energy sector has started on the path to energy independence, in part thanks to the Biden-led prioritization of the renewable energy sector, and also in part thanks to the Trump administration’s new executive orders. The question becomes, which one has a more impactful effect on the American citizen?
