Zeus: The growing threat behind those coal plant extensions

As Trump administration touts a decades-long gas project in Alaska, a real energy crisis may be developing on the East Coast.

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Georgia Power's Plant Scherer, in Monroe County, Ga., is the most powerful coal-fired plant in the U.S. It’s also been named among the most deadly due to pollution.

(David Callaway is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Callaway Climate Insights. He is the former president of the World Editors Forum, Editor-in-Chief of USA Today and MarketWatch, and CEO of TheStreet Inc. His climate columns have appeared in USA Today, The Independent, and New Thinking magazine. His debut novel, Unregulated Militia, is available now on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and all major outlets).

SAN FRANCISCO (Callaway Climate Insights) — While the Trump energy team tromps through Alaska this week bragging about plans to ravage environmental lands with renewed drilling and pipelines, a real energy crisis is developing on the East Coast.

Three times in the past two weeks the Department of Energy has intervened in regional power markets; twice to keep coal plants open in Michigan and Pennsylvania and once in Puerto Rico to bring new fossil-fuel generators online.

The orders are designed to bulk up electric grids this summer as heat bites and energy demand soars. Grid officials have reportedly been told that green energy supplies are not as reliable as just keeping the plants running, which will jack up electricity costs for millions, as local customers in Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey will soon discover.

That we face an electricity shortage this summer as temperatures rise is no lie. Stifling heat combined with the ravenous race for more power to drive AI data centers, especially on the East Coast, threatens rolling blackouts in some areas depending on the weather.