system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why would a government want to invest in coal powered power plants as opposed to wind/solar?
gpt
It shouldn't. There is no economic reason to be investing in coal at this point, as coal is more expensive, more dangerous, more damaging to the environment (and thus to your taxpayers), and less efficient, than more modern forms of energy production.

The reason Trump wants to invest in this outmoded technology is because we in the United States have a whole belt of states whose economies have collapsed over the past several decades as coal companies steadily went out of business or got into other fields. Coal - producing states have been left behind by US economic policy. Trump promised to bring coal back to get those states' votes, and it worked. Those states gave him the election.

The problem, of course, is that he can't make good on that promise. Coal company execs are on record saying their industry is doomed, it's not going to magically come back just because the president promised it would. Even if we removed all regulation on coal burning plants, it would still be more expensive than wind and solar in most areas of the country at this point due to massive advances in those fields.

What needs to happen is an effort to reinvest in former coal producing areas so they can be part of the new energy economy. Factories producing solar panels could be encouraged to move there with the right federal encouragment, and that would provide new economic boosts which would actually survive into the modern era. Coal is an economic dead end.