US support for nuclear energy is soaring. Meanwhile, coal plants are on their way out and electricity-sucking data centers are meeting huge pushback. Welcome to the next front in the energy battle. Take yourself back to 2017. Get Out and The Shape of Water were playing in theaters, Zohran Mamdani was still known as rapper Young Cardamom, and the Trump administration, freshly in power, was eager to prop up its favored energy sources. That year, the administration introduced a series of subsidies for struggling coal-fired power plants and nuclear power plants, which were facing increasing price pressures from gas and cheap renewables.

Countries have fallen behind on emissions goals, but Hannah Ritchie looks at the numbers and sees real gains. Get your news from a source that's not owned and controlled by oligarchs. It has been 10 years since countries signed on to the Paris Agreement, and emissions and temperatures continue to reach new highs, fueling unprecedented weather disasters around the globe. Meanwhile, the shift to clean energy is facing powerful headwinds in the United States, where climate policies are being reversed and support for clean energy is withdrawn. Yet, while the headlines paint a dismal picture of efforts to rein in climate change, the numbers often tell a different story. That is the assessment of data scientist Hannah Ritchie, a researcher at the University of Oxford and deputy editor of the publication .

This story was originally published by WIRED and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Last Tuesday, President Donald Trump held a press conference to announce the signing of executive orders intended to shape American energy policy in favor of one particular source: coal, the most carbon-intense fossil fuel. "I call it beautiful, clean coal," President Trump said while flanked by a crowd of miners at the White House. "I tell my people never use the word coal unless you put'beautiful, clean' before it." Trump has talked about saving coal, and coal jobs, for as long as he's been in politics.

Donald Trump signed four executive orders on Tuesday aimed at reviving coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel that has long been in decline, and which substantially contributes to planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. Environmentalists expressed dismay at the news, saying that Trump was stuck in the past and wanted to make utility customers "pay more for yesterday's energy". The US president is using emergency authority to allow some older coal-fired power plants scheduled for retirement to keep producing electricity. The move, announced at a White House event on Tuesday afternoon, was described by White House officials as being in response to increased US power demand from growth in datacenters, artificial intelligence and electric cars. Trump, standing in front of a group of miners in hard hats, said he would sign an executive order "that slashes unnecessary regulations that targeted the beautiful, clean coal".

There are, largely speaking, two camps when it comes to artificial intelligence. On one hand, there's those who are wary of the negatives that have been reported on in the press and worry that the future isn't as bright as we'd hoped for. Then there's those who see the remarkable opportunity it offers and are working hard to mine its advantages. Undeniably, AI will shape society, it's unavoidable; history's not exactly littered with examples of technological advancements that have simply been rejected. While the tightrope of personal intrusion needs to be very carefully walked, it would be remiss of us to reject its benefits outright.

Power plants can deploy these innovative technologies today to more accurately predict the condition of assets and schedule appropriate maintenance to correct equipment problems before failure. Although the new administration in Washington has reversed the "war on coal," long-term trends in the U.S. are not promising. Most coal-fired capacity was built between 1950 and 1990, and the average coal plant is about 42 years old. With plant retirements expected to continue in 2018 and beyond, investment in new plants has come to a standstill. The confluence of regulatory issues and alternative energy sources is well known.