Unlike his predecessor, President Donald Trump understands that abundant and affordable energy is absolutely essential to the future of America. Since his return to the Oval Office, Trump has made energy dominance a keystone of his domestic agenda.

On day one, Trump issued an executive order titled Unleashing American Energy, which aims to increase “energy exploration and production” and “protect the United States’ economic and national security and military preparedness by ensuring that an abundant supply of reliable energy is readily accessible in every State and territory of the Nation.”

More recently, Trump posted a message to Truth Social stating that he intends to rapidly boost energy production by authorizing his “administration to immediately begin producing energy with beautiful, clean coal.”

Although most Americans probably think that coal is an antiquated form of energy, it remains one of the most affordable, abundant, and reliable energy sources on the planet. In terms of energy density, coal is far ahead of any so-called green energy source.

Coal has also been given a bad reputation as being exceedingly dirty and “bad” for the environment, however, that is not necessarily the case in 2025.

A long time ago, when coal was first used to power the Industrial Revolution, it certainly was considered an environmental hazard. But, over the past few centuries, remarkable progress has been made in ensuring that coal production is as clean as possible.

As the Department of Energy notes, “Coal-fired electricity generation is cleaner than ever… research shows that a new coal plant with pollution controls reduces nitrogen oxides by 83 percent, sulfur dioxide by 98 percent, and particulate matter by 99.8 percent compared to plants without controls.”

Unfortunately, climate alarmists have been quite successful in their quest to rapidly reduce the production and use of coal in the United States in recent decades. But this has come at a high cost.

Since the climate alarmists targeted coal (and all other fossil fuels for that matter) for extinction, Americans have paid the price with higher energy costs and a less reliable grid. Meanwhile, adversarial nations like China have built hundreds of new coal-fired power plants.

The juxtaposition between China’s unencumbered coal power-plant buildout and America’s sacrifice of its once mighty coal industry is particularly disturbing given that coal will almost assuredly play a pivotal role in the global race for AI and quantum computing supremacy.

These technologies of the future require vast amounts of reliable, affordable, and abundant energy. As of now, “green” energy sources like wind and solar are not even close to being capable of powering tomorrow’s technologies.

If the United States wants to remain competitive in the AI arms race, it must embrace coal as a baseload energy source.

Fortunately, President Trump and his energy advisors understand that coal must play a key role in the nation’s energy portfolio lest we cede future technological superiority to nations that are not aligned with U.S. interests.

So far, Trump’s Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, and Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum, have made it clear that they agree with his assessment that the United States must reclaim its mantle as a top producer of coal.

Unsurprisingly, the environmental left has gone apoplectic after hearing of Trump’s announcement to increase coal production. They want you to think that reopening shuttered coal power plants or not closing perfectly operational coal power plants will cause the seas to instantly rise and the glaciers to completely melt. Of course, that is absurd on its face.

Human beings have been using coal for hundreds of years, and the planet is still habitable.

For far too long, coal has been ostracized and falsely labeled as a dirty source of energy that must be eliminated at all costs. In truth, great strides have been made to make coal as clean as possible. Moreover, the war on coal has made Americans poorer and our energy grid unstable.

The United States has been blessed with ample coal deposits. Don’t fall for the bogus talking points that coal is dirty and bad for the environment. If anything, a strong case can be made that coal is overwhelmingly beneficial and that so-called renewable energy like wind and solar are actually much worse for the environment, cost-prohibitive, and will impede U.S. technological progress during a time when we cannot afford to lose any leverage.

Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.

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