By Mike Tony
For HDMedia
Competition from more cost-effective energy alternatives and aging infrastructure have pointed toward a blacker economic picture for coal and the West Virginians who have paid sharply higher prices for their mostly coal-fired electricity over time.
That didn’t stop President Donald Trump from painting a brighter, misleading economic and reliability picture of coal at a White House gathering Wednesday at which Trump sang the praises of what he claimed was “clean, beautiful coal.”
“Coal is one of the lowest-priced energy sources,” Trump claimed, contradicting years of evidence of its increasingly uneconomic position in the nation’s energy portfolio from independent experts and the federal government’s own Energy Information Administration. “It’s probably considered by almost everybody to be the most reliable. It requires no subsidies, because you make money with coal.”
But subsidies totaling nine figures are exactly what the Trump administration is committing to extend the lifespans of aging coal-fired power plants throughout the country — including three in West Virginia.
The Department of Energy announced Wednesday $175 million in funding for six projects for coal-fired plants, including upgrades for Appalachian Power’s John E. Amos and Mountaineer plants in Putnam and Mason counties and Mon Power’s Fort Martin Power Station in Monongalia County.
The DOE said the upgrades at the 54-year-old Amos and 46-year-old Mountaineer plants are to improve their environmental performance and will result in better plant reliability and power output at Mountaineer and reduced fuel, operating and maintenance costs at Amos.
Appalachian Power told the Gazette-Mail Thursday the DOE awarded it roughly $34.5 million. The company declined to say for how long the operational lives at Amos and Mountaineer would be extended via the federal funding.
“Amos and Mountaineer plants have served our customers and the nation for decades,” Aaron Walker, Appalachian Power president and chief operating officer, said in a separate news release. “This grant will allow us to make key investments in these plants and ensure they continue to provide reliable service for years to come.”
The DOE said the Fort Martin investment would lower fuel costs per unit of electricity as well as operating and maintenance costs and improve fuel supply stability.
Will Boye, spokesperson for Mon Power parent company FirstEnergy, told the Gazette-Mail Thursday it expects Fort Martin to operate at least through 2035, in line with its Integrated Resource Plan, a state-required long-term energy portfolio forecast that Mon Power filed along with fellow FirstEnergy subsidiary Potomac Edison last year.
“We will work with state leaders, the Public Service Commission and stakeholders to assess the plant’s future beyond that date, prioritizing reliability and affordability,” Boye said in an email.
Boye said the grant funding will cover work that would have been recovered through customer rates, like upgrading coal-handling equipment. Boye said the company couldn’t share further financial details, including how much in funding it was slated to receive, or expected long-term impact because the award had not been finalized.
The Trump administration is ramping up its coal industry support following deep cuts in protections for coal miners, prompting criticism that it’s prioritizing the health of companies over workers.
The administration has stopped billions of dollars in federal energy infrastructure funding from flowing to Appalachian communities — a figure pegged at more than $2 billion in a ReImagine Appalachia and Keystone Research Center analysis released last month of data collected by national data analysis firm Atlas Public Policy.
ReImagine Appalachia is a regional coalition of community and environmentalist groups. The Keystone Research Center is a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based public policy analysis group.
Under Trump, the Mine Safety and Health Administration downsized by his administration has agreed to delay enforcement of a landmark 2024 rule to limit miner exposure to toxic silica dust and has been discussing a potential settlement with industry groups after a federal court put the rule on hold in April in response to a challenge from those groups.
Trump’s Department of Energy disbanded the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities established under the Biden administration to improve economic conditions for communities dependent on fossil fuels — like those throughout West Virginia.
“This is not the way to build a better future for Appalachia,” Rebecca Shelton, policy director at Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, a Whitesburg, Kentucky-based nonprofit law firm that focuses on black lung benefits and environmental threats, said in a statement responding to the Trump administration’s coal plant funding rollout. “If you’re going to invest in coal, you need to invest in protecting workers and strengthening our communities, but this plan does neither.
Shelton noted that the region previously had more federal resources at hand, including protections for miners that would have saved lives.
“Now, that’s all been cut in favor of this shortsighted bailout,” Shelton said.
But West Virginia leaders have welcomed the Trump administration’s coal support.
On hand for Trump’s pro-coal stand at the White House Wednesday were Mountain State decision-makers that included Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Senate Energy Resources Committee member Jim Justice, R-W.Va.
Also at the White House were West Virginia Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee Chair Chris Rose, R-Monongalia, Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee member Brian Helton, R-Fayette, and state House of Delegates Energy and Public Works Committee member Clay Riley, R-Harrison.
Meanwhile, the West Virginia Legislature was grappling with what to do about the swelling demand for electric power and how to limit state ratepayers’ rising electricity cost growth amid that demand.
The House of Delegates on Wednesday in a 96-1 vote passed House Bill 4012, which shortens the time frame for Public Service Commission consideration of proposed major transmission power line projects like the deeply unpopular, proposed $1.16 billion MidAtlantic Resiliency Link project slated to cross four northern West Virginia counties.
Cost concerns loom for heavily opposed $1.1B transmission line project seeking PSC OK
Now before the Senate, HB 4012, in part, would:
- Reduce the extended statutory approval time for high voltage transmission lines from 400 to 360 days
- Provide for a PSC waiver for maintenance and repair of high-voltage facilities at the commission’s discretion
- Reduce the PSC statutory approval time for siting certificates from 300 to 270 days
But the House didn’t pass HB 4012 before a 70-minute-long House floor debate over amendments intended to protect ratepayers.
An amendment adopted by Energy and Manufacturing Subcommittee Vice Chair George Street, R-Preston, and Energy and Public Works Committee Vice Chair Mark Zatezalo, R-Hancock, would prohibit construction, operation or maintenance costs from being recovered from ratepayers and demand-serving entities unless such costs “are at least commensurate to the benefits of such ratepayers.”
An amendment rejected by the House proposed by five other delegates after opponents voiced fears of potential adverse ratepayer cost impacts would have went further, requiring any electric transmission line operating at 200 kilovolts or more that crosses West Virginia to include at least two in-state substations or interconnection facilities. The proposed amendment was an attempt to extract in-state economic development from projects traveling through West Virginia.
The House’s approval of HB 4012 followed its Feb. 6 passage in an 86-6 vote of HB 4026, which if also approved by the Senate and enacted would require utility companies to expand long-term energy portfolios already required to be filed with the PSC every five years to describe current and potential uses of advanced transmission technologies.
Looming over the House’s moves is NextEra Energy Transmission LLC’s proposed MidAtlantic Resiliency Link transmission line anticipated to support electricity demand growth expected from data centers and planned to cross Monongalia, Preston, Mineral and Hampshire counties on its way from a Greene County, Pennsylvania, substation to a connection point in Frederick County, Virginia.
In May, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a Valley City, Ohio-based energy market analysis firm, published a study projecting West Virginia electricity customers would have to pay more than $440 million for the MidAtlantic Resiliency Link project and another proposed transmission line expected to support data centers.
Read the rest from the Herald Dispatch, here.