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Killing coal to make coal history
- onecommentman 6y agoThere is as little need to “kill coal” as there was to “kill nuclear” because of safety or proliferation fears (that never arose in the US as measured by actual fatalities). The market will work its magic at its own pace. Since the US is the Saudi Arabia of coal, (https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2008/jan/25/rudy-giuliani/us-is-saudi-arabia-of-coal/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2008/jan/25/rudy-giuli... But see https://archive.thinkprogress.org/usgs-were-not-the-saudi-arabia-of-coal-fb1e369097af/ https://archive.thinkprogress.org/usgs-were-not-the-saudi-ar... as well for a counterpoint) there are good reasons to keep the coal option around at some level for portfolio management robustness in the US for the middle term. If renewables and battery tech scale as promised, the cost pressures will gracefully erode coal’s market share for those who hate those sort of things. Politically driven decisions about primary technologies smell a bit like the political direction for backyard steel furnaces under Great Leap Forward strategies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward That found, ummm, limited success.