By Will Wade, Bloomberg News

Swelling U.S. demand for electricity has the potential to boost coal consumption as much as 57%, according to mining giant Peabody Energy Corp., in what would be a major shift for an industry that’s been waning for years.

With the U.S. seeking to meet skyrocketing demand and the Trump administration pushing to prop up the coal industry, Peabody expects utilities to ramp up output from coal plants that are running well below full speed, the company said in an investor presentation on Wednesday. Boosting usage to “historic capacity factors” could lead to more than 250 million tons of additional annual demand in the coming years, it said.

Still, analysts see this forecast as a mathematical maximum that’s unlikely to be achieved in the real world.

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