The Hill reports that United States Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette has announced a $64 million-dollar coal research initiative, dubbed ‘Coal FIRST’. The plan was developed in an effort to “produce more coal-based power more efficiently and transform it into a near-zero emissions energy source,” says Brouillette.
Brouillette acknowledges that coal is a declining industry in the United States. Rather than trying to subsidize a shrinking industry, the research initiative is intended to make coal plants smaller and environmentally cleaner, according to The Hill.
Coal-fired power generation continues to account for an increasingly smaller part of the United States’ total energy generation. In 2019, the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced that renewable energy production had surpassed coal-fired generation or the first time in U.S. history.
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