Coal sees renewed demand as US plant bidding war escalates amid AI power crunch

The dirtiest fuel in the energy mix is staging an unlikely comeback, and artificial intelligence is the reason. US utilities are not only delaying the retirement of coal-fired power plants but actively fighting to keep them running, as data center electricity demand threatens to overwhelm the nation’s grid. Power sector CO2 emissions in the US rose 4% in 2025, roughly double the 2% increase seen economy-wide. The culprit: a 13% jump in coal generation, driven largely by the insatiable appetite of AI data centers that now consume approximately 4.4% of total national electricity. The numbers behind the power grab US data centers chewed through roughly 176 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2023. That figure is projected to balloon to somewhere between 345 and 580 TWh by 2028 to 2030. For context, the upper end of that range is roughly equivalent to the entire annual electricity consumption of France. The energy mix feeding these facilities tells its own story. In 2024, natural gas supplied more than 40% of US data center electricity. Renewables followed at around 24%, nuclear at about 20%, and coal at approximately 15%. That 15% coal share might seem modest, but it represents a meaning...