For Immediate Release
April 15, 2025
Contact:
- Adrian Herder, Media Organizer, [email protected] (928) 380 3914
- Nicole Horseherder, Executive Director, [email protected] (928) 240-0762
BLACK MESA, NAVAJO NATION – Recently, President Trump announced several executive orders to prop up coal. Nicole Horseherder, Executive Director of Tó Nizhóní Ání, issued the following statement in response:
Besides the fact that coal has been disastrous for our health and planet, President Trump’s efforts to rescue failing coal plants and mines and open our lands to more destructive mining is another series of actions that sacrifices communities for fossil industry.
These measures ignore the diminishing role of coal in the energy market. In 2017, when the owners of Navajo Generating Station announced the plant’s closure, they cited economics as the reason for the decision to close. Central Arizona Project (CAP), a primary buyer of NGS power, claimed that it could buy power from the open market cheaper than buying it from NGS. In subsequent years, each coal plant closure has been similar in story – increasing costs of running a coal plant, aging infrastructure and expensive power for ratepayers prompts owners to transition to more affordable generation resources.
Instead of looking toward tried and tested renewable energy opportunities, these backward-looking efforts will leave us falling behind other countries that are investing in the energy sources of the future. Solar, wind, small-scale hydropower, geothermal and others, combined with advanced battery and energy storage systems.
There are very real financials issues that all but guarantee Trump’s executive orders will have little impact on the coal industry and the underlying economics. Firing up new coal plants does not happen overnight. Plants that have already closed and are not yet demolished cannot just flip a switch to be turned back on. The owners have known for years they were replacing coal and thus have foregone tens of millions of dollars in needed maintenance and overhauls that would have been needed to keep the plants running. Firing them back up would require a huge investment of income just to make them operable – which in itself is questionable because so many of the plants are decades old and already past their operational lives. On top of that, most utilities have already secured replacement resources.
To put this another way, you wouldn’t put a new engine and new tires, replace the windshield and brakes, and overhaul the transmission on a car that’s 60 years old after you’ve already purchased a new one. Corporate utilities are making the same bottom-line decisions.
As for building a new coal plant, Trump will be out of office before one is even permitted, let alone built and ready to come online. Coal is a diminishing resource. Here in the Four Corners region, coal plants would have to be constructed specific to the quality of coal that exists, and it is getting worse.
Assuming hypothetically that a new plant is built, one of the biggest challenges will be finding a buyer for energy that is generated at 2-3 times the cost of solar or wind. Mining coal, and running coal plants is expensive, which all add up to making coal-fired power expensive, too.
The recent closure of the Cholla coal plant is unfortunate for workers and the community of St. Johns. While I know the owner/operator of Cholla, Arizona Public Service (APS) probably let workers know well enough ahead of time of the upcoming closure, I was hoping that unlike Navajo, the communities around Cholla would pull together resources and work with the utility to get new investments going in the communities and some training and redeployment for workers. As I have said before, utilities are key in making transition work. I have always stated they have an obligation to assist in community transition. The fact that Cholla workers were in D.C. is a sign that between unions, utilities, and elected leaders we still can’t figure out solutions that offer Just Energy Transition – reinvesting in communities with cleaner, sustainable energy projects and economic development. Instead, we keep falling back on “solutions” that keep utility monopolies in control and communities dependent on a single captured economy and elected leaders muffled.
When it’s all said and done, I would not underestimate the Navajo communities that have had to endure the true cost of coal on Black Mesa. You will see us continue to fight for clean air, clean water, clean landscapes, and public health. – Tó bee iiná
Resources:
Reopening closed coal plants makes no economic sense, IEEFA
https://ieefa.org/resources/reopening-closed-coal-plants-makes-no-economic-sense
