Trump's Clean Coal Revival Proves Elites Were Wrong
For more than a decade, Washington elites, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ideologues, and global bureaucrats declared coal finished.
They told Appalachia its best days were behind it.
They told America to abandon energy independence and trust foreign supply chains, unreliable renewables, and climate mandates written by people who never worried about keeping the lights on.
They were wrong.
Coal isn't dying. If anything, it's evolving.
Under President Donald Trump's leadership, America is finally rejecting the lie that prosperity and energy security must come at the expense of its natural strengths.
This next chapter of American energy dominance is not being drafted in Davos. It’s taking shape in West Virginia, Wyoming, and across the industrial heartland that built this country.
President Trump has made clear that America will no longer wage war on its own energy workers. His administration's approach – removing regulatory chokeholds, restoring domestic production, and backing innovation over ideology – has reopened the door to technologies that the green lobby worked for years to suppress.
For too long, coal was framed as a binary choice: burn it the old way or ban it entirely.
That false narrative hollowed out communities, weakened grid reliability, and handed strategic leverage to adversaries like China, which never stopped building coal plants while lecturing the world on emissions.
What was ignored was coal utilization.
Coal is not just something you burn.
It's a hydrocarbon resource – one of the most abundant on Earth – rich in fuels, chemicals, and industrial inputs essential to modern life.
Advanced processing techniques now allow coal to be converted into cleaner fuels, industrial materials, and energy inputs with dramatically reduced emissions and waste.
This shift matters because energy security is national security.
Artificial Intelligence, data centers, defense systems, and advanced manufacturing require massive amounts of reliable power.
Wind and solar cannot scale fast enough.
Batteries depend on foreign-controlled supply chains. Nuclear takes decades to deploy.
Clean coal – used intelligently – is available now.
That reality is driving renewed investment across Appalachia, where large-scale industrial facilities are being planned to anchor long-term growth.
These projects promise high-wage jobs, thousands of construction positions, and a return of economic dignity to communities written off by climate planners and coastal elites.
Several American firms are now leading this technological transition, including Frontieras North America, which is among those developing next-generation coal processing systems that extract greater value while reducing environmental impact.
They are not outliers – they are early indicators of where the industry is heading when Washington steps aside.
The Trump energy doctrine is not ideological, it is grounded in reality: trust American workers, unleash American engineers, and stop apologizing for America’s strengths.
It rejects the failed belief that prosperity must be rationed or outsourced to please global elites.
Coal built America once.
With the right leadership, it can help build the future again – cleaner, smarter, and more secure. Our nation's 47th commander in chief understands this.
He has never wavered in his support for American energy workers or his belief that clean coal can power the nation without surrendering sovereignty or common sense.
While others declared coal obsolete, Trump recognized its potential and refused to abandon the communities that depend on it.
That's leadership!
Coal didn't fail. Washington failed it.
Under President Trump, America is finally correcting that mistake – by choosing strength over submission, innovation over ideology, and energy independence over global dependency.
From 2007-2010, Mark Vargas served as a civilian in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, traveling to Baghdad, Iraq, 14 times. Follow Mark on Twitter: @markavargas. Read more Mark Vargas Insider articles — Click Here Now.