The Environmental Protection Agency’s recent announcement that it is repealing its carbon rule is an important step in preserving our nation’s access to reliable and affordable electricity.
People are paying more for electricity this year, and those higher prices may soon be coupled with less reliable service. New data from the Labor Department finds that electricity prices jumped 4.5% in just the past year, with further spikes expected this summer. Meanwhile, in some parts of the country, consumers began their summer coping with rolling blackouts brought on by surging demand for power.
One of the drivers of these disruptions in the electricity market has been the EPA’s regulatory overreach under the Biden administration. This has been the case with its carbon rule, which would have shut down the nation’s fleet of coal power plants despite warnings from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation that more than half of the United States is at risk for electricity shortages over the next five years.
The risk of electricity shortages is being fueled by the explosion in electricity demand from artificial intelligence and the new data centers required to power this technology. An Energy Department report found that the amount of U.S. electricity consumed by data centers is expected to jump from 4.4% in 2023 to between 6.7% and 12% by 2028.
While electricity providers and grid operators have been talking about how to prepare for this massive demand spike, EPA regulations have made their job even more challenging. For example, the carbon rule would have illegally forced utilities to either shift generations away from coal, install expensive and unproven technology on existing coal plants, or shut the plants down altogether. Already, more than 120 coal units across 32 states are now scheduled to shut down within the next five years, unless steps are taken to stop these retirements. The carbon rule would have made matters even worse.
The goal of the Biden carbon rule was to make the U.S. reliant on wind and solar power, but such a dramatic transition carries heavy risks to the reliability of our grid.
We can look to the recent blackouts in Europe as a warning for us here in our country. For example, Spain has pursued aggressive policies to transition its grid to renewables. On April 16, the country boasted that for the first time, and for just a few minutes, renewables were delivering 100% of the nation’s electricity. Just 12 days later, a grid failure led to a prolonged blackout that plunged the country into darkness for days.
Solar and wind are intermittent sources of electricity because they, unlike coal, lack the capabilities necessary to serve as baseload sources of power capable of meeting demand at all hours and in all weather conditions. And it is reliable, dispatchable power that will be required to meet the demands of data centers, which operate 24/7.
In addition to hurting our nation’s electric reliability, the Biden-era carbon rule also undermines our national security. While premature coal retirements shrink America’s power supply, China is rapidly building new coal plants to strengthen its grid and expand its economy.
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China, which already has the world’s largest coal fleet, plans to build another 420,000 megawatts of coal power. With these additions, China’s coal fleet will be almost 10 times larger than that of the U.S. Coal’s resurgence in China and other countries including India underscores how taking America’s coal fleet offline would make little impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. Today, the U.S. power sector is responsible for just 3% of global carbon emissions.
The growth of AI and other advanced technologies will require the U.S. to build new sources of electricity generation, but at a minimum, we need to stop needlessly retiring our existing coal fleet. In repealing the carbon rule, the Trump administration is ensuring that our country’s electric grid will be more reliable and that America can continue to remain an economic superpower in the century ahead.
Michelle Bloodworth is the president and CEO of America’s Power.