Talk about all the great things in these recent announcements we've seen, uh, that are supporting the president's energy agenda and that Coal Nation would be interested in hearing about.

Sure.

So the first thing probably to say is that President Trump has ended the war on coal.

For years and years, we've seen policies that have done everything they can to inhibit coal as a resource.

And in fact, between various market designs and various regulations and regulatory burdens, it was clear that there was an agenda and an attempt to get rid of as much of the coal as possible.

We need the coal generators for the electric system.

We simply need them, and in fact, it's worth noting that coal was the bulk of the generation fleet, the fundamental component of it for years, and our transmission system was originally developed around the idea of having a large number of coal generators that would be the baseload power.

How's DOE, you know, what you guys are talking internally and what we're hearing coming out of the Department of Energy as a coal industry, how are you guys viewing possible new coal plants too to support all those things you guys are doing?

Are we getting where we need to go to, to meet this challenge and to win the AI race?

So, so you give me too much credit in predicting that I can predict exactly how far the demand is gonna go.

All I know is that the ...

I, I know the direction of the vector, it's up.

I don't know the, the scale of the vector, right? And, and if you look at even the most sophisticated, uh, predictions of, of where the demand is heading, the, the, the delta between the top and bottom range ...

or the ranges are so broad that it's hard to know.

Here's what I can say.

Yeah.

But give us an idea how much damage was done to coal during Obama and Biden.

There were many tens of gigawatts of coal plants that were going to be retired as a result of the previous administration's regulatory burdens.

And only a handful of gigawatts were going to replace it of actual dispatchable electricity.

And the result of that is that the grid became less reliable and less secure and less affordable.

And this was mostly due, as I say, to regulatory burdens.

One of the most important things, of course, about coal plants is not only are they dispatchable, that is, they can be called upon to operate when needed, but they also have fuel on site in abundance.

And so they are what you might call super reliable in that not only do they run continuously when called upon, but they have plenty of fuel on site.

Tell us what's going on with the nuclear power over at DOE.

How much damage, uh, was done to coal, uh, during Obama and Biden?

There were, uh, uh, many tens of gigawatts of coal plants that were going to be retired as a result of the previous administration's, uh, regulatory burdens, and, uh, only, only, uh, a handful of, of, uh, gigawatts were going to replace it of actual dispatchable electricity.

And the result of that is that the, the grid became less reliable and less secure and less affordable.

And, um, this was mostly due, as I say, to regulatory burdens.

Um, uh, one of the, the most important things, of course, about coal plants is not only are they dispatchable, that is, they can be called upon to operate when needed, but they also have fuel on site in, in abundance.

And so they are, they are what you might call super reliable in that not only do they run continuously when called upon, but they have plenty of fuel on site, and they're, uh, a part of the energy mix.

In fact, the, the transmission system, the electric system we have today was based upon the original system, was mostly coal-fired.

Tell us what's going on with the nuclear power, uh, over at DOE.