coal

An energy company focused on supporting artificial intelligence (AI) through infrastructure has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a Utah-based nuclear power services company, as the groups evaluate ways to provide electricity for a massive data center campus in that state.

The lone remaining coal-fired power plant in the state of Washington will shut down at the end of December, and will be converted to burn natural gas. Operator TransAlta Corp. on December 9 signed an agreement with Puget Sound Energy (PSE) for the transition, with a 16-year, fixed-price contract for the gas-fired generation that runs through 2044.

“The result of the 2024 presidential election probably had the biggest impact on the direction the U.S. energy industry is headed right now,” Brandy Johnson, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) with Babcock & Wilcox (B&W), told POWER. “It has opened up the pathway for fossil fuels in power generation again.” That shift is already visible across […]

For years, some folks have considered coal-fired power plants relics of a bygone era, overshadowed by the rise of natural gas and renewables. Yet, in an unexpected twist, coal is finding its way back into the

An energy research group said U.S. power generation capacity will be led by solar power in the short term, natural gas in the mid term, and nuclear power in the long term as coal-fired units continue to be retired.

The retirement of older thermal power generation facilities, driven by a transition to cleaner forms of energy, has increased in recent years as utilities and other power generators mothball plants that are uneconomic or simply no longer needed.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) providing up to $100 million in federal backing for projects focused on restoring and modernizing the nation’s existing coal plant fleet.  The Oct. 31–issued NOFO, administered by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) under the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, […]

For more than a decade, the U.S. coal industry has been in decline — with waning investment, shrinking capacity, and the steady rise of gas and renewables. Yet, in 2025, a different story is emerging. Across the country, coal units once scheduled for quiet retirement are being called back into service in ways few anticipated—driven […]

Officials with Denmark-headquartered Aalborg CSP said the company has developed technology that could convert retired coal-fired power plants into thermal storage facilities for renewable energy.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) has redrawn the U.S. energy sector map. By scaling back clean energy tax credits and easing regulations on fossil fuels, the act has simultaneously cooled renewable investment and reignited traditional energy expansion. For dealmakers in the energy industry, this has created both headwinds and new openings, especially in […]