Trump says coal should make a comeback. At what price?

“You have a significant number of states…where it’s harder and harder, or nearly impossible, to build the infrastructure necessary to produce electricity,” said Kent Chandler, former chair of the Kentucky Public Service Commission and former president of the Organization of PJM States…

PJM has tried to catch up with the problem of the long queue of proposed generation projects. “Frankly, one of the top jobs that PJM had was running the queue,” Chandler said. “That’s certainly been a failure on their part…”

On top of that is the damage to investor confidence stemming from the head-spinning vertigo between 2021 and now. Former President Joe Biden made a major policy drive at moving away from coal for good and making big investments in advancing this century’s energy technology. Trump has spent almost every day of his new term cutting funding for clean energy and talking up oil, gas and coal.

“It is absolutely true that uncertainty is keeping new generation from being built,” Chandler said…

PJM’s annual “capacity auction” — the strategy it uses to line up commitments for future supplies from power plant owners — has not enticed much new generation…

The next auction, scheduled this July, would be under a new set of rules continuing the churn of policy changes PJM has rolled out in recent years to get the results it wants and needs, Chandler said. These changes, like the payments to Talen Energy for the Baltimore plants, require FERC approval.