Command pollution

This time, a Colorado plant scheduled to shut down will be kept on standby.

None of the three units at the Craig Plant, shown here, were expected to stay open past 2028. Credit: Brian Brainerd

On Tuesday, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued a now familiar order: because of a supposed energy emergency, a coal plant scheduled for closure would be forced to remain open. This time, the order targeted one of the three units present at Craig Station in Colorado, which was scheduled to close at the end of this year. The remaining two units were expected to shut in 2028.

The supposed reason for this order is an emergency caused by a shortage of generating capacity. “The reliable supply of power from the coal plant is essential for keeping the region’s electric grid stable,” according to a statement issued by the Department of Energy. Yet the Colorado Sun notes that Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission had already analyzed the impact of its potential closure, and determined, “Craig Unit 1 is not required for reliability or resource adequacy purposes.”

The order does not require the plant to actually produce electricity; instead, it is ordered to be available in case a shortfall in production occurs. As noted in the Colorado Sun article, actual operation of the plant would potentially violate Colorado laws, which regulate airborne pollution and set limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The cost of maintaining the plant is likely to fall on the local ratepayers, who had already adjusted to the closure plans.

The use of emergency powers by the DOE is authorized under the Federal Power Act, which allows it to order the temporary connection of generation or infrastructure when the US is at war or when “an emergency exists by reason of a sudden increase in the demand for electric energy, or a shortage of electric energy.” It is not at all clear whether “we expect demand to go up in the future,” the DOE’s current rationale, is consistent with that definition of emergency. It is also hard to see how using coal plants complies with other limits placed on the use of these emergency orders:

The Commission shall ensure that such order requires generation, delivery, interchange, or transmission of electric energy only during hours necessary to meet the emergency and serve the public interest, and, to the maximum extent practicable, is consistent with any applicable Federal, State, or local environmental law or regulation and minimizes any adverse environmental impacts.

At the moment, coal-fueled generation is more expensive than anything other than nuclear power, and is far and away the dirtiest form of generation. Its airborne pollution is responsible for a significant number of deaths in the US, and it leaves behind solid waste that is rich in toxic metals. It’s difficult to square those financial and health costs with serving the public interest.

Yet the Trump Administration has relied heavily on declaring energy emergencies in its attempt to keep coal afloat despite the economics. A check of the use of similar emergency orders shows that, in the past year, the Administration has declared 16 energy emergencies—more than the entire total declared between 2008 and 2024.

The Administration’s reliance on this sort of emergency declaration is in the process of being challenged in court, though. Several states and a collection of environmental organizations recently filed a suit that argues that the administration is misusing what’s meant to be a response to temporary emergencies by simply renewing the orders indefinitely, as it has with a coal plant in Michigan that has been forced to remain open well past the summer demand surge that the DOE initially used as its justification.

John is Ars Technica’s science editor. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. When physically separated from his keyboard, he tends to seek out a bicycle, or a scenic location for communing with his hiking boots.