UNITED STATES

The United States (US) holds the world’s biggest coal reserves and has the world’s third-biggest capacity of operating coal plants behind China and India. Although the number of US coal mines shrank by half from 2008 to 2019, the country is within the world’s top four biggest producers of coal in 2023. In April 2021, President Biden announced that the United States was committing to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions over the next eight years to 50-52% of what they were in 2005, a commitment formalized under the Paris Agreement. The Biden Administration has also pledged to create a “fully or predominantly” decarbonized power sector by 2035 and a net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.

The country’s coal capacity peaked at approximately 340,000 megawatts (MW) in 2011 and has been declining since. Many plants retired or switched to other fuels, and new coal plants were no longer being commissioned because of the declining economics of coal power plants due to the decreasing costs of low-carbon alternatives and the implementation of environmental regulations. In 2021, a 400 MW CONSOL Energy Mining Complex power station was proposed as an “advanced carbon-negative power plant”; the project would be designed to burn coal and sequester carbon, but it had not progressed beyond the “announced” stage as of December 2023. In late 2023, another Carbon Capture and Storage project involving a 400 MW coal- and biomass-fired power station was proposed in Alaska. Coal plant utilization rates in the country have significantly decreased. Despite the record pace of retirements, the US remains among the OECD countries with the largest projected coal power capacity in 2030 and more than 90,000 MW still lacking clear retirement dates. The United States joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance in December 2023.