About
The Coal Hard Truth

Sponsored by Core Natural Resources, The COAL Hard Truth is a national awareness campaign dedicated to restoring appreciation for coal’s vital place in America’s energy and industrial future. By highlighting coal’s essential role in powering industries, supporting communities, and driving progress, The COAL Hard Truth aims to reshape the conversation around American energy with data, evidence, and honesty.

Core Natural Resources remains committed to meeting the world’s growing energy demands through responsible production, technological advancement, and an unwavering belief in the value of American energy leadership.

The Case for Coal

Proven, Practical & Indispensable

America’s energy leadership should be guided by facts, innovation, and commonsense. The most effective energy policies are rooted in reliability, affordability, and performance. Our nation deserves an energy strategy built on proven resources that power progress at scale and strengthen our economy.

Yet, the public narrative too often overlooks the unmatched benefits of coal, its abundance, dependability, and role in advancing modern life. The truth is, coal continues to drive innovation, support industry, and ensure energy security for millions. As you explore this site, you’ll see a new story emerging—
the COAL hard truth.

Why Coal Still Matters

Coal does more than power our world. It strengthens economies, supports industries, and forms the foundation of countless essential products. From steel and cement to advanced materials, coal continues to fuel innovation and growth. As wind and solar continue to overpromise and underdeliver, coal is seeing a major comeback—proving once again that reliable, scalable energy remains indispensable to progress.

Affordable access to these resources improves quality of life, expands opportunity, and sustains the infrastructure that keeps communities moving forward. Globally, coal remains a cornerstone of stability and advancement—especially when you consider the following realities.

Our National Security & Energy Independence

  1. In times of high energy demand such as periods of extreme weather, renewables like wind and solar are intermittent and unreliable forms of power, especially compared to storable and dispatchable energy sources like coal that can provide months of dependable, on-site energy and quickly adjust to fluctuating demand. [1]
  2. The U.S. is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign countries for key minerals and components to build and maintain the massive infrastructure required to realize a “net-zero” world. [2]
  3. Many of these countries do not share our workplace and environmental standards.
  4. The U.S. has the most abundant coal reserves of any country in the world, so to the extent we can develop innovative ways to sustainably use this valuable domestic resource, it will go a long way toward mitigating our dependence on foreign nations.

Human Rights & Global Poverty

  1. Coal remains essential for meeting the basic needs of billions of people around the world. Denying these populations affordable energy would have severe ethical and moral consequences.
  2. Developing nations simply cannot experiment with renewables as their primary means of power, so without continued access to coal, petroleum, and natural gas, millions will be condemned to needless poverty.
  3. These societies have a right to realize the immense benefits of fossil fuels—benefits that far outweigh the consequences of not utilizing fossil fuels as a proven and essential driver of economic development.
  4. Greenhouse gas emissions are prevalent all over the world, across all sectors of the global economy. Therefore, climate challenges demand innovative and economy-wide solutions.

Building a Renewable Energy Infrastructure Requires Coal & Other Fossil Fuels 

  1. To build the massive infrastructure needed for renewable power generation, an enormous amount of materials and energy will be required. For example, steel is indispensable to the production of wind turbines. On average, one megawatt of onshore wind capacity requires hundreds of tons of steel and concrete, which require hundreds of tons of coal to produce.[3]

The Free Marketplace of Ideas

  1. Appropriate measures must be adopted that allow energy-intensive sectors most vulnerable to cost increases from unilateral domestic policy changes to maintain global competitive positioning.
  2. Maintaining fossil fuels as part of a diverse mix of sources of electricity promotes competitive pricing and incentivizes electricity providers to pursue fuel sources that are not only affordable but can also stand on their own without being artificially propped up.
  3. The magnitude of investment required for economywide decarbonization is substantial. “Green” alternatives and advanced technologies rely on taxpayer subsidies to be economically competitive with their traditional counterparts.
  4. Renewable energy must stand on its own in the free market and be able to reliably meet the demands of our economy, which arguably depends on energy more than any other factor. This requires substantial investment, infrastructure buildout, and the commercialization of new technologies that are currently in the experimental stages of development.

Products Created with Coal

  1. Coal is a building block of modern life. From essential materials including steel and cement, to components of water filtration and fertilizers that provide clean water and food, and the electricity that reduces global poverty—all are produced with the assistance of coal—either for its carbon, an upstream material, or as a source of heat in the manufacturing process.
  2. Promising R&D efforts are focused on other opportunities within the coal value chain, such as the prospect of taking advantage of coal’s unique chemistry for use as a feedstock to innovate advanced materials.
  3. Coal is now being used in the development of high-performance materials in aerospace, our military, battery storage, building materials, and other high-technology applications.

Get Involved

We need every voice to join in this effort. Here’s how you can play your part.

1

Enhance your energy knowledge.

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