Coal is the largest source of electricity in the United States. It will take decades to replace it on the most optimistic predictions (how long to build Natural

Coal is the largest source of electricity in the United States. It will take decades to replace it on the most optimistic predictions (how long to build Natural Gas or Nuclear plants? How long to solve the Solar/Wind peak capacity problems?). So what happens when it's illegal to mine coal? The only non-disastrous solution is that we import it from countries that don't have the ban, which is relatively pointless--it would probably cause a short time price jump, with all the attendant disruption, and no significant long-term benefits. Put that way, your solution sounds a lot better than I thought, but somehow I doubt that's what you mean. I think we should be doing a lot to move away from coal. A 50 year runway to eliminate coal burning sounds conceivable. But your original post sounds like an environmentalist Donald Trump speaking--no actual analysis of anything, just knee-jerk "it oughta be illegal!!!" If what you meant all along was a decades long reduction in coal to zero, you did a tremendous job of attacking your own credibility. P.S. Your citation of the perfect solution fallacy is off the mark. I was not arguing that it would be good, but not good enough. Rather, I was implying that it would be actively bad. China uses much more coal than us, as a proportion of their electric generation. If the US were to drastically drive up its electric prices, some proportion of industry would move overseas. The net effect might be increased greenhouse gas emissions, and certainly increased non-greenhouse pollutants. That's above and beyond the negative effects on the US economy.