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These are all red herrings from the most immensely important technology we must regulate.... We must put carbon capture technology on all coal plants as the im

These are all red herrings from the most immensely important technology we must regulate.... We must put carbon capture technology on all coal plants as the immediate high impact stop-gap solution to CO2 emissions. I think the only way this happens is regulatory. The general utility verdict on solar/wind is that it's good for displacing natural gas peaking in a small way.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago
As the headline says, solar is already breaking even with coal and the projection is for it to continue to drop for some time, even without further big breakthroughs. If you add carbon capture to coal, you decrease efficiency and increase costs to the point that it simply isn't viable. It's simpler to just regulate coal out of existence directly and replace it with a mix of gas/solar/wind/hydro/etc. The only people who care about carbon capture for coal are those invested in coal. Everyone else sees it as pointless (though it may have applications for other carbon producing processes like concrete). Solar and wind are ready for prime time, displacing peaker plants is just the beginning, solar will wipe out all contenders during daylight hours and then the stuff they displace into the off-peak hours will start getting eaten by storage that shifts solar into the evening.