Intense Silicon Valley energy requirements for the AI ​​make coal plants a hot ticket item

Harrisburg, bread. (AP)-Electric power plants in coal, an increasingly money in the United States, are becoming more valuable now than the sudden demand for electricity to execute cloud applications and Big Tech artificial intelligence applications has launched a complete sprint to find new sources of energy.

President Donald Trump, who has pushed the United States’s “energy domain” to the global market and suggestedcoalcan help meet the demand for power to increaseattract public servicesto keep larger coal plants online andproducing electricity.

While some utilities were alreadydelayThe withdrawal of coal plants, the scores of coal plants that have been closed for the last two years, or which will be closed in the next two years, are the subject of growing interest sinceTechnological companiesRisk capitalists,indicateand others that compete for electricity.

This is because they have a very attractive quality: high voltage lines that connect to the mains they no longer use and that could use a new power plant.

This connection ready to go could allow a new generation of electric power plants-gas,nuclearWind storage, solar or even batteries – to help meet the demand for new energy sources faster.

For years, the bureaucratic nightmare around the creation of new high voltage power lines has made efforts to obtain permits for these interconnections for new electric power plants, said John Jacobs, an analyst energy policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center based on Washington DC, DC.

“They are very interested in the potential here. Everyone sees writing on the wall due to the need for transmission infrastructure, the need for net firm power, the difficulty of finding projects and the value of reusing Brownfield places,” said Jacobs.

Increased demand for power, dying coal plants

Coincidentally, the rhythm of the retirement of the aging coal plants of the nation had been projected to accelerate at a time when the demand for electricity is increasing for the first time in decades.

The Department of Energy, in a December report, said that its strategy to meet the demand includes the reuse of coal plants, which have not been able to compete with a flood of cheap natural gas while loading on harsh regulations of pollution aimed at their relatively heavy emissions of greenhouse gases.

There are also federal incentives, such as tax credits and loan guarantees, which promote the redevelopment of plants withdrawing coal to new sources of energy.

Todd Snitchler, President and CEO of electricity Power Supply Association, who represents the owners of independent electric power plants, said that he hoped that Trump’s executive orders will mean that some coal plants work more than they would have, but are still intended for retirement.

Augmented demand means that electric power plants are necessary, fast

Time is essential to get online electric power plants.

Developers at the Data Center report a wait throughout the year in some areas to connect to the regional power grid. Passes of passage to build power lines can also be difficult to secure, given objections by neighbors who may not want to live near them.

Stephen Defrank, chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Services Commission, said that he believed that the increase in energy demand has made the retired coal plants much more valuable.

This is especially true now that the ATLANTIC MID-ATLANTIC CONTENTED MID-ATLANTIC Network hasre -set up his plansTo favor places like plants withdrawn from coal as a shortcut to meet demand, said Defrank.

“This will make these properties more valuable because now, as long as it is ready, these electric power plants already have this connection, I can enter and turn it into anything,” said Defrank.

Gas, solar and much more in coal energy sites

In Pennsylvania, the vast majority of conversions are likely to be natural gas because Pennsylvania is at the top of the prolific Shale reservoir in Marcellus, said Defrank.

In the southern states, public services are replacing retired or retired coal units by gas. That includes a plant owned by theTennessee Valley Authority; a Duke energy Project in North Carolina; and a power of Georgiasole.

High voltage lines on coal plants withdrawn from the Atlantic coast in New Jersey and Massachusetts were used to connect wind turbines to the coast on electricity networks.

In Alabama, the place of a coal plant, Plant Gorgas, closed in 2019, will become the first plant storage plant of battery energy at a useful Alabama Power.

Based on Texas LateIn the meantime, it is in the process of installing solar panels and energy storage plants in a fleet of retired coal plants and although they have in Illinois, thanks in part toState subsidiesApproved there by 2021.

Could get nuclear

Nuclear is also getting aLook hard.

In Arizona, the legislators are advancing in the legislation to provide three public services (Arizona Public Service, Salt River Project and Tucson Electric Power) to put advanced nuclear reactors at the charcoal plants withdrawal.

In the instance of the Governor of Indiana, Purdue University studied how the state could attract a new nuclear energy industry. In its November report, it estimates that the reuse of a coal -plant plant for a new nuclear power plant could reduce the costs of the project by 7% to 26%.

The Bipartisan Policy Center, in a 2023 study before increasing the demand for electricity, estimated that nuclear power plants could reduce the costs of 15% to 35% by building in a place in the retreat coal plant, compared to the construction of a new place.

Even construction next to the coal plant could reduce costs by 10% by using transmission assets, roads and buildings, avoiding some allowed obstacles, the center said.

That interconnection was one of the main engines forTerrapowerWhen he chose to begin construction in Wyoming at a nearby nuclear power plant next to the Pacificorp Coal Naughton Electric Power Station.

Jobs, cities left by coal

Kathryn Huff, a former U.S. attachment of Nuclear Energy, who is now an associated professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said that the department analyzed how many places could be suitable for the advanced plants of the nuclear reactor.

A convincing factor is the coal plant workers who can form -to work at a nuclear power plant, Huff said. These include electricians, welders and steam turbine maintenance technicians.

In Homer City, the fear of losing his coal plant, which closed in 2023 after operating for 54 years, he existed for years on the western Pennsylvania coal hills.

“It has been about 20 years for our area, perhaps even longer than this, with the closing of the mines, and this was the final nail, with the closure of the power station,” said Rob Nymick, manager of Homer City. “It was like,” my God, what do we do? “”

This is changing.

The owners of the plant in recent weeks demolished the piles of smoke and the refrigeration towers in the state of the city of Homer andannouncedA plan of $ 10 billion for a Data Center Center with Natural Gas.

It would be the third largest energy generator in the country and this seemed a bit of optimism locally.

“Maybe we will get some families moving, helping the school district with their enrollment, would help us with our population,” Nymick said. “We are a dying city and we hope that we may be able to get a restaurant or two to open up and start to prosper again. We hope.”

This story originally presented to Fortune.com

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