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This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. It looked for a while like the coal mining era was over in the Clearfork Valley of East Tennessee, a pocket of mountainous land on the Kentucky border. A permit for a new mine hasnt been issued since 2020, and the last mine in the region shuttered two years ago. One company after another has filed for bankruptcy, with many of them simply walking away from the ecological damage theyd wrought without remediating the land as the law requires. But theres going to be a new mine in East Tennesseeone of a few slated across the country, their permits expedited by President Donald Trumps declaration of an energy emergency and his designating coal a critical mineral. Trump was only hours into his second term when he signed an executive order declaring a national energy emergency that directed federal agencies to identify and exercise any lawful emergency authorities available to them to identify and exploit domestic energy resources. The administration also has scrapped Biden-era rules that made it easier to bring mining-related complaints to the federal government. The emergency designation compresses the typically years-long environmental review required for a new mine to just weeks. These assessments are to be compiled within 14 days of receiving a permit application, limiting comment periods to 10 days. The process of compiling an environmental impact statementa time-intensive procedure involving scientists from many disciplines and assessments of wildlife populations, water quality, and other factorsis reduced to less than a month. The government insists this eliminates burdensome red tape. Were not just issuing permitswere supporting communities, securing supply chains for critical industries, and making sure the U.S. stays competitive in a changing global energy landscape, Adam Suess, the acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management at the Interior Department, said in a statement. A representative of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement told Grist that community safety is top of mind, pointing to the administrations $725 million investment in abandoned mineland reclamation. The Department of Interior ruled that a new mine slated for Bryson Mountain in Claiborne County, Tennessee, would have no significant impact and approved it. It will provide about two dozen jobs. The strip mine will cover 635 acres of previously mined land that has reverted to forest. Hurricane Creek Mining, LLC plans to pry 1.8 million tons of coal from the earth over 10 years. The Clearfork Valley, which straddles two rural counties and has long struggled economically, bears the scars of more than a centurys underground and surface mining. Local residents and scientists regularly test the creeks for signs of bright-orange mine drainage and other toxins. The land is part of a tract the Nature Conservancy bought in 2019 for conservation purposes, but because of ownership structures in the coalfields, it owns only the land, not the minerals within it. We have concerns about the potential environmental impacts of the operation, the organization said in a statement. We seek assurance that there will be adequate bonding, consistent and transparent environmental monitoring, and good reclamation practices. Matt Hepler, an environmental scientist with environmental advocacy group Appalachian Voices, has been following the mines public review process since the company applied for a permit in 2023. He remains skeptical that things will work out well for Hurricane Creek Mining. Despite Trumps promise that he is bringing back an industry thats been abandoned, coal has seen a steady decline, driven in no small part by the plummeting price of natural gas. The number of people working the nations coal mines has steadily declined from 89,000 or so in 2012 to about 41,300 today. Production fell 31 percent during Trumps first term, and has continued that slide. What is this company doing differently thats going to allow them to profitably succeed while so many other mines have not been able to make that work? he said. All the time Ive been working in Tennessee theres only been a couple of mines permitted to begin with because production has been on the downswing there, Hepler added. Economists say opening more mines may not reverse the global downward trend. Plentiful, cheap natural gas, along with increasingly affordable wind and solar, are displacing coal as an energy source. The situation is so dire that one Stanford University study argued that the gas would continue its climb even with the elimination of coal-related regulations. Metallurgical coal, used to make steeland which Hurricane Creek hopes to excavate fares no better. It has seen flat or declining demand amid innovation in steel production. Expedited permits are leading to new mines in the West as well. The Department of Interior just approved a land lease for Wyomings first new coal mine in 50 years. Ramaco Resources will extract and process the material in order to retrieve the rare earth and other critical minerals found alongside it. The Trump administration also is selling coal leases on previously protected federal land. Shiloh Hernandez, a senior attorney at the Northern Rockies office of the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice, thinks it is a fools errand. I dont see them changing the fundamental dynamics of coal, he said. Thats not to say that the Trump administration wont cause lots of harm in the process by both making the public pay more money for energy than they should and by keeping some of these coal plants and coal mines that really are zombies. Still, Hernandez said he isnt seeing many new permits, just quicker approval of those already in the pipeline. That said, the Trump administrations moves to streamline environmental review will reduce oversight and the time the public has to scrutinize coal projects. The result is theres just going to be its going to be more difficult for the public to participate, and more harm is going to occur, Hernandez said. Theres going to be less attention to the harm thats caused by these operations. This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/energy/trump-is-fast-tracking-new-coal-mines-even-when-they-dont-make-economic-sense/. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org
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When Mark Zuckerberg recently announced his grand plans to build enormous data centers in Ohio and Louisiana, two things stood out. First was the scale of the centers set to power Metas AI ambitions. Zuckerberg said that just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan. While both will cost hundreds of billions. The other was their names: Prometheus will soon pop up in New Albany, Ohio, and will be joined by Hyperion in Louisiana in 2030. Where do these weird names come from? Typically, the process is generally for most naming projects to go through a companys brand team, though that doesnt always happen, says Dalton Runberg, a naming expert who has previously worked for big tech companies. It could depend on the size of the companyat some smaller places, it might just be a function of other marketing people, but any big company is going to have a dedicated brand team, and may even have a dedicated naming person or team. Or they could work with a naming agency, especially for very high-profile brands. One of those agencies that big tech companies bring in to advise on this is Lexicon Branding, whose president and founder, David Placek, says: These are relatively nerdy names, or geek names that geeksand I dont mean that in a derogatory wayare very comfortable with. The question is whether they are for non-geeks. Theyre going to be, for the general public, hard to spell, and the awareness of them will be very, very low. Some nameslike Grok, the AI model developed by Elon Musks xAItap into sci-fi. (The reference is to Robert A. Heinleins 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where its used to describe deeply knowing something). Others, like Prometheus, rely on mythology. (Prometheus is the Greek god of fire, known for stealing the resource from the gods and giving it to humans.) I think Prometheus was a very deliberate decision on their part, says Placek. The metaphor of bringing the fire of AI to the world and to people, I think, was appropriate. The more inscrutable names are also chosen because they can feel a bit insider-y, says Runberg. Silicon Valley likes to think of itself as separate toand smarter thanthe average person, and so the names technology companies choose often reflect that perspective. If you know the deeper meaning of the word, or which Greek god was the god of whichever thing your product is related to, or whatever other fun fact might end up in a Jeopardy! clue someday, it can feel like it has an added layer of, If you know, you know exclusivity and inspeak, explains Runberg. They feel familiar yet a bit mysterious. But the danger is that those types of names can feel smart, though theyre not always as clever as they think they are. For instance, data centers wont want to catch on fire, particularly when they cost billions of dollars. Still, fire and storms are in vogue among tech. Just look at Anduril, Palmer Luckeys defense companyand also the name of the sword wielded by Lord of the Rings character Aragornor Palantir, the Peter Thiel-founded tech firm that takes its name from surveillance orbs popular in the same Tolkien lore. The naming starts to get meta when you look at Palantirs product names, like Gotham, its intelligence product designed for the Department of Defense, U.S. intelligence agencies and other allied military forces, which also happens to be the name of the city Batman inhabits. But the reason that those mythological figures appear more often is because they offer the products linked to them a credibility that theyd otherwise not get. Classical, mythological, or historical names tend to sound and feel powerfuloften being associated with mighty empires or omnipotent gods, says Runberg. Also importantly for a young, disruptive industry like tech, theyre old, adds Runberg. They have a feeling of legacy, which can give your brand a sense of authority or reliability, as if it has been around for a long time. Its sort of borrowing the credibility from a word or name that has existed for hundreds or thousands of years. However, just because theyre old doesnt mean theyre good for tech today. Theyre not great names, admits Placek. Good names help process fluency for the reader, the branding expert says, or has things in it that are familiar to you. One of Placeks best-known non-tech names is Febreze, a new coinage that evokes a little bit of fabric and the breeziness of hanging your laundry out to dry within it. Yet Placek also dabbles with tech names. One of his most recent jobs was to help come up with a new name for an AI product previously called Codeium. His solution? Windsurf, the firm initially due to be bought by OpenAI, whose CEO was then acquired by Google when that deal fell through, with the rest of the company heading to competitors Cognition.
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President Donald Trump’s modus operandi is to keep the news cycle moving, fast. For even avid consumers of news, that can make it hard to keep up. But one public art project is doing its best to slow things down by retelling stories in new ways, the latest shining light on the people behind the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Phil Buehlers Wall of Shame, 2025, is currently on view in Brooklyn. [Photo: courtesy of the artist] Wall of Shame is artist Phil Buehler’s 50-foot-long, 10-foot-tall mural put up in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn in partnership with Radio Free Brooklyn; it takes a data viz approach to very recent history. Subtitled Visualizing the J6 Insurrection, it’s made up of more than 1,500 color-coded waterproof vinyl panels that display a headshot, name, age, and hometown of rioters who invaded the Capitol on January 6, along with details of their actions on that day, including their charges and sentencingall information that is publicly available. Phil Buehler, Wall of Shame, 2025 [Photo: courtesy of the artist] The U.S. flag-inspired colors used for the mural are designed to turn right-wing positioning of rioters as patriots on its head. Red panels indicate violent rioters, while blue panels indicate those who damaged property. The rest are white, according to Radio Free Brooklyn, a local New York station. “A red hat, white skin, and blue jeans dont make you a patriot. But storming the Capitol makes you a traitor,” Buehler told the station. Phil Buehler, Wall of Shame, 2025 [Photo: courtesy of the artist] Buehler’s approach makes the attack more personal. This isn’t another photo or footage of the faceless mob of flag-waving rioters storming the Capitol in an attempt to overturn an election; it’s a look at individual people from the crowd. The artist fact-checked everything written on the panels with reporting from NPR. Phil Buehler collaborated with Radio Free Brooklyn on Wall of Lies back in 2020. It showed 20,000 false statements Donald Trump made during his first term as president. [Photo: courtesy of the artist] The artist has made two previous murals with Radio Free Brooklyn. Wall of Lies in 2020 was made up of 20,000 false statements Trump made during his first term as president. Wall of Liars and Deniers in 2022 showed Republican candidates running for office that year who denied the results of the 2020 election. Wall of Shame was unveiled on Independence Day. Phil Buehler, Wall of Shame, 2025 [Photo: courtesy of the artist] A February Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that 83% of Americans opposed Trump offering clemency for violent criminal offenders connected to the attack, and 55% opposed him offering clemency for nonviolent crimes. But in today’s fast-paced political news cycle, January 2021 can feel like ancient history. By turning the backstories of those who attaced the Capitol into public art, Buehler and Radio Free Brooklyn found a new way to visualize the story, and from hundreds of different points of view.
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