Never said coal was cost free. Economically coal flat out loses. Everyone knows that and it isn't relevant to the discussion of grid reliability/resiliency. A t

Never said coal was cost free. Economically coal flat out loses. Everyone knows that and it isn't relevant to the discussion of grid reliability/resiliency. A tiny fraction of grid capacity having battery backup would be nice. Well, technically they already have lots of batteries and auxillary power, but you're talking about really big batteries I assume. Regardless, the answer in the short term isn't get rid of coal and replace with batteries and more renewable. Indeed that will most likely happen in the long-term, but not in the ~5 year frame.