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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2906 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Coal is dead, because nobody wants to build coal-fired power plants.

Kentucky is converting many of its coal plants to natural gas. Turns out a pipeline from Texas is easier to maintain than a ton of rail cars from Western Kentucky and Tennessee. Also turns out that LNG is cleaner, less solid waste to deal with (translation none with gas) and coal slag/dust/ash is radioactive so you cannot even use it as landfill and fertilizer.

All these coal guys in the state are not looking forward ten years to a new reality of life, for if they were they would be in full on CONDITION RED freakout mode. And with cars getting more and more efficient, I'd not be shocked at all at super high-efficiency gas/diesel burners making a comeback. My dream would be thorium nuke plants, but those are 20ish years out.





WanderingEng  ·  2905 days ago  ·  link  ·  

My anecdote is small, critically located coal plants are getting converted to natural gas. Small, non-critically located coal plants are getting shut down and utilities are building new combined cycle gas plants. The biggest coal plants aren't threatened yet, but their utilization is going down. They'll definitely run during pretty warm and pretty cold periods, but they might stay off for weeks in the mild periods. Meanwhile the combined cycle plants will run nonstop until they have to come down for routine maintenance.