This is John Batchelor, conferring with my good colleague Bud Weinstein, who watches the energy matrix for me, reminding all of us that coal is a vital, necessary, profound energy source for the demands of the United States now and into the future.

Coal.

I understand the coal-fire-generating plants have been shut down routinely for years.

And here we are.

The demands are high.

The cost of electricity is rising.

The demands not only consist of the usual growth,

but also the tech centers, and also the fact is that without coal, we have no base power. That is what remains when the renewables don't function all the time, when oil is cut off, when natural gas is troubled.

Coal. Here's Jim Budd to explain. Much more of this tonight.

Well, part of it is political for a variety of reasons. Both Obama and President Biden did not like coal and pushed policies and regulations on the industry

that effectively made them non-competitive.

President Trump in his first term tried to bring back coal.

He didn't have much success in his second term.

I think on day one, he talked about bringing back the coal industry.

And frankly, he's had some success.

But I think the real story is economic reality, and the fact that we need our remaining coal plants to provide electricity

because we really don't have an alternative. Coal's share of the grid has dropped from, gosh,

at one time it was 70%. I think today it's somewhere between 15 and 20% of the electrons generated in the United

States. But those are very critical electrons because those coal plants, the ones that are still

online, operate 24-7. They are baseload plants. And if it weren't for those coal plants,

we would be having some serious problems right now.