It happened seven days after Donald Trump wrote the coal industry a $700 million check.
The June 4th ceremony had everything. Cabinet secretaries lined up behind the Resolute Desk. A plan to prop up 13 dying coal plants, restart a shuttered one in Maryland, and build the first new American coal plants since 2013.
To pay for it, Trump invoked the Defense Production Act, a 1950 law written to mobilize factories against the Soviet Union.
"Coal's a great business," Trump told the room. "In terms of power, there's really nothing like it."
He's right. There's really nothing like it. Nothing else loses to sunlight.
On Wednesday, the energy think tank Ember released the May electricity data. Solar generated 12.8 percent of America's power. Coal generated 12.2 percent. For the first time in the history of the United States, the sun out-produced coal.
It gets worse for the coal barons.
April was coal's lowest month ever recorded. May was its fourth lowest. Solar is now the third largest power source in the country, behind only gas and nuclear, and it has been the number one source of new power for five years running.
Here's the mechanism nobody at that Oval Office event wanted to say: coal lost because it can't do math.
Lazard, the Wall Street investment bank, prices new coal power at roughly double the cost of utility-scale solar per megawatt-hour. That's why solar and batteries made up 91 percent of all new generating capacity built in the first quarter of this year. Not because of mandates. Because investors can read a spreadsheet.
Martin Pochtaruk, who runs the solar manufacturer Heliene, put it plainly: Trump can declare coal is back all he wants. Money goes where the returns are, and the returns are in solar.
So the scoreboard reads like this. Trump canceled $7 billion in funding for affordable solar in working class communities. He killed projects, strangled permits, and wrote a $700 million check to coal billionaires with your money. And the sun beat his fuel of choice anyway.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jun 13^th, 2026 at 10:31am:

It happened seven days after Donald Trump wrote the coal industry a $700 million check. The June 4th ceremony had everything. Cabinet secretaries lined up behind the Resolute Desk.

There were one or two underneath it too.

If they ever make Ideocracy 2 Donald will be the king and could play himself.

Hang on, Sprint, help me to get this straight.

DL just gave coal-fired power companies $700 mil of taxpayer dollars. He did this to help them get an edge on solar energy, which is outperforming coal-powered plants in the energy market. Is that right?

Just consider the fiscal case for a mo. DOGE saved the US taxpayers $200 mil. With DL's coal subsidies, they're now down half a bil, not including all the free power they would have got if they had just stuck with solar.

Consider the ideological case. DL campaigned on getting government out of people's lives. Now he's propping up the coal industry.

Consider worker safety. Most coal miners develop respiratory illnesses at some point, having a far lower life span per capita. The work is casual, dangerous and these days, rare.

Consider the environment. Many parts of the Appalachians are scarred, no-go zones, due to defunct open-pit mines. They cause flood risks and landslides to surrounding roads and towns.

So I'm curious. Other than triggering the leftards and modern classic right wingers, what are the benefits here?

Please explain?

Dirty Paki Khunt wrote on Jun 13^th, 2026 at 11:33am:

Hang on, Sprint, help me to get this straight. DL just gave coal-fired power companies $700 mil of taxpayer dollars. He did this to help them get an edge on solar energy, which is outperforming coal-powered plants in the energy market. Is that right?

If you want to have a manufacturing industry then for now you are going to need coal.

Western Australia is a good example of that, they have enough coal for centuries but have put all their eggs in the renewable market. Today they can't entice the manufacturing industry to locate there and pay much more for their electricity than anyone else. On top of that they have industry closing down due to high energy costs.




Quote:

China's dual strategy of aggressively building both renewable energy and new coal plants stems from domestic energy security concerns and a desire to provide "backup" stability for intermittent green energy.