The coal power plants survived “on the backs of ratepayers, despite their inefficiencies,” said Tom Irwin, a vice president at the Conservation Law Foundation. “They are effectively subsidized.”
I listened to a recent Planet Money about the US steel industry yesterday, and it was largely the same story. Failure to modernize left them wide open to others that were willing to evolve, experiment, and invest, and no amount of government protection will sustain them forever.
Wind power in my area is almost at parity with most non-renewable sources at this point, so even though my state is rich in natural gas, it’s not going to be the future.
Not to even mention that solar is pennies on the dollar compared to basically ANYTHING else.
A mix of wind and solar should absolutely be the backbone of the energy grid. They have essentially complimentary production times, so with a good mix and some short-term energy storage (tech that ALREADY exists and is rapidly getting better), similar spends on these renewables to what we previously were putting on fossils should get us all the energy we need and then some.
Industrial buyers are already aware of this and are starting to build quasi-off grid facilities in conjunction with tech like heat batteries simply because it saves them money and makes them look like climate heroes in the process.
People will tell you how they can only use X and that Y would never work, but as soon a Y is cheaper, all of a sudden those issues disappear like they were just made up the whole time…
My dumbass township even got in on a solar farm to power the police and township buildings years back. It was after it was in the paper they’d literally been letting the heat in one half the building fight it out with the AC in the other half for like 3 years solid, and the guy who sold the panels was in cahoots with the township supervisors, but I guess at least it’s a win environmentally.
Ahh, local government… 😮💨
