Guest column: Electricity prices are soaring and coal is a key solution

Electricity bills are climbing almost everywhere, and the reasons have little to do with ideology.

Three forces are driving prices higher: massive new utility spending on infrastructure, rising natural gas costs and growing capacity shortages in electricity markets as power demand soars from the AI revolution. In some states, prices have jumped more than 60% since 2022.

The Trump administration inherited this mess and now has its work cut out for it. The strategy the administration has embraced is built around reinforcing dispatchable power — the generating resources that run when called upon, not when the weather allows.

Along with trying to ramp up development of new nuclear and natural gas power plants, the administration’s biggest pivot from the Biden era is to freeze the closure