A hiccup for coal
Trump's latest effort to keep coal alive clumsy at best
Unit 1 at the Craig Generating Station, seen here, got a last-minute reprieve on New Year's Eve from the Trump administration. However, the federal order to keep the to-be shuttered unit open failed to recognize the cost of keeping the unit open, which will be borne by rural customers, as well as the fact that its supplying mine closed in October./ Telegraph photo
In October 2016, Donald Trump swung through Colorado, delivering a multitude of promises. “We’re going to put the miners right here in Colorado back to work,” he said during a stop in Grand Junction, presumably referring to coal.
Coal production in Colorado had slid from 40 million tons in 2004 to 12.8 million tons the year Trump visited. Trump failed to deliver. Decline has continued. Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association closed its ColoWyo Mine between Meeker and Craig in October 2025. Last week, 133 workers at the mine were formally laid off.
Tri-State in 2019 made the decision to get out of coal in Colorado. But in 2016, the wholesale provider had agreed to close Unit 1 at the Craig Generating Station by New Year’s Eve 2025.
With barely 24 hours before the scheduled retirement, the federal government interceded. Energy Secretary Chris Wright ordered the 427-megawatt Craig Unit 1 be available for continued operation for another 90 days.
Ironically, the Craig unit had then been disabled by mechanical failure for 11 days. Coal plants do break down, some more than others. Problem-plagued Comanche 3, the state’s newest plant, located at Pueblo, went down again in August and will remain so at least until June. Renewables are called intermittent. Coal can be, too.
Tri-State, which provides wholesale power for 15 electrical cooperatives in Colorado plus a few in adjoining states, protested the federal order. The cost of keeping the Craig unit open will have to be absorbed by rural and less-affluent areas, pointed out Duane Highley, Tri-State’s chief executive.
Like other utilities, Tri-State has become comfortable integrating large volumes of far cheaper wind and solar backed by natural gas. Tri-State produces more electricity than it needs to supply its members.
How much will it cost to put the Craig unit back into production? The team of Gov. Jared Polis estimated millions of dollars. Tri-State itself has offered no estimate.
The underlying authority for the federal directive comes from an executive order issued by Trump earlier in 2025. He cited a provision in the Federal Power Act, a 1935 law expanded in 1977, that gives the government authority to intercede in utilities in special circumstances. In this case, Trump argued the United State’s was facing an “energy emergency.”
Trump has aggressively expanded what constitutes an emergency. The Craig case illustrates that questionable expansion. Wright, in his order, cited concerns about adequacy of electrical supplies in several Rocky Mountain states. The report Wright cited, North America Electric Reliability Corporation’s 2025-26 Winter Reliability Assessment, had actually concluded supplies were adequate in coming months, the Sierra Club pointed out.
Democratic politicians in Colorado had a field day. “Ludicrous,” said Polis. Will Toor, director of the Colorado Energy Office, likened it to “Soviet-style central planning, driven by ideology rather than the realities of the electric grid.” U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet called it part of Trump’s “revenge tour.”
The order was best understood as a clumsy attempt to halt the exodus of coal. Coal is on its farewell tour in Colorado. This is a hiccup but not the only one. Colorado Springs Utilities wants to delay closing its coal-burning unit near Fountain. It cites the rising prices of renewables and difficult supply chains.
Supply chains are indeed a problem. That includes natural gas. A new gas plant approved today may take five or more years to complete. And natural gas prices are rising, too.
Xcel Energy a year ago warned of coming problems with resource adequacy. The utility predicted surging demand for electricity from new data centers plus building electrification and EVs. How real will this demand from data centers be? Hard to say. Some think we have an artificial AI investment bubble that might burst in 2026.
Clearly, though, demand for electricity has accelerated after a decade of slow growth. The United States faces an energy crunch of historic proportions, said Brian Deese, a former energy aide to President Barack Obama, and Lisa Hansmann in a recent essay published in the journal Foreign Affairs.
RMI (formerly Rocky Mountain Institute), the think tank based in Basalt and Boulder, on Jan. 6 noted that utilities can still do more to tap “soft path” solutions that founder Amory Lovins described in his famous 1976 “Road Not Taken” essay in Foreign Affairs.
Ron Sinton, who operates Sinton Instruments, a company in Boulder, believes we can better pair our electrical demands with renewable generation. EVs, for example, can be charged at mid-day when we often have a glut of solar power.
Keeping the coal plant in Craig open was a simple but likely expensive solution that leaves open the question of who will pay? The better solutions will likely be more complex but less costly to ratepayers.
Allen Best publishes a journal called Big Pivots. It covers the water and energy transitions. Find it at bigpivots.com