Trump administration’s coal-plant meddling will harm WA ratepayers

The Trump administration’s campaign to resurrect obsolete coal power plants came to Washington state this past week. Energy Secretary Chris Wright signed an emergency order requiring the TransAlta company to continue operating its Centralia coal-powered generating station, despite its long-planned closure at the end of the year.    

Restarting an antiquated coal power plant will be costly, polluting and will likely delay the plant’s recently announced conversion to natural gas as its energy source. It also goes against years of planning by multiple governors, the Legislature and utilities around the state to make the electricity grid greener and less reliant on heat-trapping fossil fuels.

The Trump administration asserts that the plant’s continued operation is critical to ensure grid reliability. But it has so far failed to take note of an announcement to convert the facility to a more efficient power plant tailored to the needs of today’s electricity grid.

Under that plan, Puget Sound Energy, the state’s largest utility, will pay TransAlta to convert the plant and to send electrons to the grid in times of high energy demand — the coldest or hottest days of the year. This crucial development, slated for completion in 2028, would install a cheaper and cleaner fossil fuel source to backstop the grid’s increasing number of renewable resources like wind and solar power.

It’s hard to see how the Trump administration’s plan won’t push off a far superior natural gas option that will boost the grid’s reliability, as it is increasingly under strain from demands like data centers to power AI.  

The administration’s similar move in Michigan to keep open the J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant past its shutdown date is costing its operator $615,000 a day, according to MLive Media Group. And that’s after accounting for the revenues the plant generated in producing power.

In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at boosting the coal industry, calling it “Beautiful, clean, coal.” But the president’s efforts to prop up a declining industry don’t make sense for Washington state, as elsewhere.

While coal once contributed almost half of the country’s electricity, a continuing cascade of plant closures puts that number at 16% — with more shutdowns coming. Coal is not only the most harmful source of power generation to human health; it also doesn’t make sense economically. It will be more expensive for ratepayers when compared to today’s alternatives.

State Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, who has represented the area that includes the TransAlta plant since 2012, said the Trump administration’s announcement came as a surprise. The Senate Republican Leader told the editorial board that he prefers the approach TransAlta and Puget Sound Energy had already committed to — converting the plant to natural gas.

TransAlta’s rampdown of its Centralia plants has been planned since 2011, when Gov. Christine Gregoire signed a legislative bill to phase out coal. The state’s Clean Energy Transformation Act also bans coal as a power generating source for state utilities at the end of this year.

State leaders, including Gov. Bob Ferguson and Attorney General Nick Brown, should seek legal avenues to halt this unwise move — and aid the already-established plan by TransAlta and Puget Sound Energy to transition to a better energy source.