CHARLESTON - Working in a verdant valley in southeastern West Virginia, Donnie Hairston restacks beehive boxes overturned by a bear and tries to lure wayward goats out of a chicken coop.

He is a participant in Economic Development Greater East (EDGE), an initiative promoting projects in a region left impoverished by the drop in coal production.

“I’m a fourth generation coal miner,” he said, who once moved around the state chasing mining jobs.

When he came home to the town of Berwind, he met EDGE founder Jason Tart and opened a poultry business with the organization's support.

His business "can fill a void, right here in this county, with food from those chickens,” he said.

As West Virginia has shifted away from mining coal after 150 years of dominance, startups and non-profits like EDGE have launched projects aimed towards clean energy and land restoration.

But President Donald Trump wants to revive the coal industry, in part to provide fuel sources for energy-hungry artificial intelligence systems and data centers.

The administration's pro-coal stance puts boosters of West Virginia in a squeeze, trying to figure out if fossil-fuel extraction will coexist, compete or conflict with efforts to turn the economy green.

To the founder of EDGE, coexistence seems possible.

"The companies are going to mine the coal anyway.... So why not partner them with agriculture to make sure that that’s being done correctly?" Tart said.

"Agriculture can do a lot to rehabilitate anything that’s been damaged."

Trump issued an executive order in April to revive coal by easing regulations, despite documented health and environmental tolls.

Coal mining and processing can render water toxic, and coal dust-filled air lethal, leading to cancer risks and black lung disease.

As of 2024, about one in 12 long-tenured miners in central Appalachia, including West Virginia, had black lung disease, which causes coughing, shortness of breath, extreme fatigue and death, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Journal of the American Medical Association.

When funding was slashed for the federal worker-safety agency NIOSH, hundreds of West Virginia miners lost access to mobile black-lung screening units used to test for the deadly disease.

"UNLIKELY ALLIES"

Using $300-million in private and federal grants mostly dating from the administration of former President Joe Biden, the nonprofit Coalfield Development trains former miners and others in solar installation and entrepreneurship and is repurposing an abandoned mine for solar power.

Based in Huntington, West Virginia, it also is a partner in a federally funded rural solar project whose grant has been paused and is at risk.

The Trump administration has reversed 2022 legislation passed under Biden that directed billions of dollars towards clean energy subsidies and investments.

"We're trying to rebuild the Appalachian economy from the ground up," said Coalfield Development CEO Jacob Hannah, adding that it seeks to work with coal companies by taking over abandoned mines, effectively freeing them from cleanup costs.

"I'm going to choose a strategy that welcomes unlikely allies," he said.

Once the nation’s top coal producer, West Virginia was home to more than 130 000 miners in 1940. By 2023, that figure was fewer than 11 000.

In Huntington, once a bustling coal port along the Ohio River, more than a quarter of residents now live in poverty, according to the US Census Bureau.

Hannah said his organization is training workers, installing solar power systems and helping reclaim land by planting cash crops of lavender and using free-range chickens whose pecking and scratching habits help regenerate soil.

It also supplies training and grants to community-minded local businesses such as a company named Solar Holler which makes solar panels, he added.

Solar Holler is installing panels across the state, including 18 public schools in nearby Wayne County that were intended to save millions of dollars with federal solar tax incentives, he said.

However, the Trump administration has cut much of the clean energy tax credits that were created under Biden.

GLOBAL DEMAND FOR COAL

A coal revival could threaten West Virginia's clean energy transition.

Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced an energy plan in September to increase power from coal, natural gas and nuclear plants to 50 gigawatts (GW) by 2050, compared with the current 15 GW.

Coal is enjoying renewed global and domestic demand, said Matthew Mackowiak, director of government affairs at Core Natural Resources, a Pennsylvania-based coal producer.

U.S. coal use grew by 10% in the first half of 2025, according to the International Energy Agency.

"Such increases are likely to continue due to growth in data centers and AI-related energy. The coal industry remains necessary and continues to provide well-paying jobs and stability, especially in West Virginia," Mackowiak said.

Coal production declined under Biden-era emissions rules, and it's unclear whether easing those rules will make production competitive again, said Tom Seng, assistant professor at Texas Christian University’s Neeley School of Business, who specializes in fossil fuel energy.

SHAPING PUBLIC OPINION

The coal industry itself helps shape public opinion to believe a rebirth in mining is the answer to West Virginia's woes, said Sean Hornbuckle, minority leader in the state's House of Delegates.

"They brainwash people. They play on insecurities .... all to justify politicians putting resources into a dying industry," he said.

He singled out initiatives like the state's Coal Education Development and Resource Program, which designs coal-education materials and curricula for schools.

Junior Walk of the anti-coal watchdog Coal River Mountain Watch agreed that the coal industry has a strong hold on the hearts and minds of West Virginia residents.

“Over the past 130 years or so the coal industry has used their immense wealth ... to control the narrative around coal mining here,” Walk said.

“At the end of the day, there’s going to be no good change for southern West Virginia as long as the coal industry can exist and exploit people."