Trump directs Pentagon to purchase coal-fired electricity

[groundloop]

Source: UPI

President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to purchase coal-fired electricity to boost domestic coal production, a move that has drawn staunch criticism from energy and environmental experts.

Trump issued the directive via an executive order that he signed Thursday at the end of a White House ceremony attended by coal executives called "The Champion of Coal Event."

"We're going to be buying a lot of coal through the military now," he said. "And it's going to be less expensive and actually much more effective than what we have been using for many, many years. And again, with the environmental progress that's been made on coal, it's going to be just as clean."

The executive order directs the Department of Defense to approve agreements with coal-fired power facilities to serve its installations and other mission-critical facilities.

Read more: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/02/12/Trump-executive-order-Department-Defense-purchase-coal/9401770882099/

[Walleye]

1. Talk about gaslighting, there's no such thing as clean coal

I’m sure Donald Trump has never been in a coal bin or even held a lump of coal in his hand so what does he know?

[Ray Bruns]

2. How in god's name is the pentagon going to choose which power plant they are going to buy power from?

It’s not how the electrical grid works.

[jgmiller]

3. Along with his love of WW2 battleships now he wants WW1 coal fired ships I guess N/T

[cstanleytech]

7. Ya, all battleships are glorified aircraft carriers but without the air support to attack and defend themselves with.

In other words they are giant clay pigeons with a "SHOOT ME HERE!!!" sign.

[CousinIT]

4. The definition of government waste, fraud, and abuse. n/t

[gab13by13]

5. I worked at a Clay Plant to make money for college

We made tile pipe and flu liners. One summer, my last month of work I got to fire kilns. The kilns were huge igloo-shaped structures made of brick and the clay tile were placed inside to be cooked.
There were 10 fire boxes spaced around the kiln that I had to shovel coal into, and get the clinkers out with a bar that weighed almost as much as me. You had to watch the fire would blow back on you. The trick was to raise the temperature inside the kiln so many degrees every 8 hour shift, work was around the clock.
I worked firing kilns for about a month before I had to go back to school. I spit black for 2 weeks after I quit.
After many years the owner decided to switch to natural gas, no fireman was needed and the temperatures could be much better regulated.

Also, someone should show Krasnov pictures of Pittsburgh before and after heavy coal usage.

[GB_RN]

6. Example Number 40,000,000,000...

Showing, once again, that everything Cantaloupe Caligula the Corpulent touches, dies/turns to shit.

What. An. Asshole.

[angrychair]

8. Hell yeah!!

We are going steam punk! That is the modernized military that people have been asking for: steam powered, lots of valves and gears and smoke and pollution.

It perfectly fits into our new dystopian hellscape.

[angrychair]

9. Seriously

I don't know what this means. The more I read it the more insane it is and the less sense this makes.

What the hell is going on?!? Like facilities? Like bases? Are we taking facilities off the normal power grid and building coal fired power plants? Are we going to have members of the military working in coal fired power plants shoveling coal?

None of this makes sense.

[GCG]

10. The problem with this foolish idea...

For a coal fired power plant you need railroad tracks running to the plant bringing train cars full of coal. You need to dump that coal into a crusher which grinds the coal into fine powder which is sprayed into a furnace. After the coal powder is burned you need to empty out the furnace of all the leftover hazardous materials and load them into train cars that haul the hazardous materials to storage facilities which poison all the local streams and rivers.

Operating a coal fired power plant is considerately more expensive than natural gas plant. Coal powered power plants can't turn a profit and is a bad business decision.