Throughout his 2024 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump made energy and infrastructure improvements a key pillar of his Make America Great Again Platform.
Now that he is in office for a second term, Trump is endeavoring to invest upwards of $100 million in the restoration of coal plants across the country and reverse damaging Biden-era priorities, as the Daily Caller reports.
Trump’s Department of Energy (DOE) has announced plans to restore coal-powered energy plants to bolster the national grid.
On Friday, the DOE issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity in this particular strategic realm.
According to the announcement, the effort is meant to support “practical, high-impact projects that improve efficiency, plant lifetimes, and performance of coal and natural gas use.”
The DOE noted the administration’s hope that the projects would help turn the tide away from harmful policies undertaken by Trump’s predecessors.
In a statement, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said:
“For years, the Biden and Obama administrations relentlessly targeted America’s coal industry and workers, resulting in the closure of reliable power plants and higher electricity costs.
“Thankfully, President Trump has ended the war on American coal and is restoring common-sense energy policies that put Americans first.
“These projects will help keep America’s coal plants operating and ensure the United States has the reliable and affordable power it needs to keep the light on and power our future.”
The Energy Department added that the Notice of Opportunity seeks applications from those capable of launching projects that will “design, implement, test, and validate three strategic opportunities for refurbishment and retrofit of existing American coal power plants to make them operate more efficiently, reliably, and affordably.”
One such opportunity area is the “development, engineering, and implementation of advanced wastewater management systems capable of cost-effective water recovery and other value-added byproducts from wastewater streams.”
Another involves the “engineering, design, and implementation of retrofit systems that enable fuel switching between coal and natural gas without compromising critical operational parameters.”
The last realm of opportunity is the “deployment, engineering, and implementation of advanced coal-natural gas co-firing systems and system components, including highly fuel-flexible burner designs and advanced control systems, to maximize gas co-firing capacity to provide a low-cost retrofit option for coal plants while minimizing efficiency penalties.”
The DOE’s push could not come at a better time.
It follows the Trump administration’s recent release of a report documenting the risk of grid failure currently plaguing the nation.
This summer, the DOE report revealed that “blackouts could increase by 100 times in 2030 if the U.S. continues to shutter reliable power sources and fails to add additional firm capacity.”
As such, the DOE’s Friday announcement underscores not just the urgent energy challenges facing America, but also Trump’s willingness to address them.
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