How the AI data center boom is breathing new life into dirty, old coal plants

How the AI data center boom is breathing new life into dirty, old coal plants

When the Homer City power plant—the largest coal-fired facility in Pennsylvania—shuttered in 2023, it marked the end of a dirty era for the coal plants that dominated America’s electric grid for over half a century. Now, in a whirlwind turnaround, many of them are being revived to fuel the AI era. Earlier this year, developers announced they would take the coal plant’s corpse—and its invaluable grid interconnections—and resurrect it into the Hom…