People still compare nuclear power to coal but they quit building coal plants circa 1980 for the same reason they quit building nuclear plants You can see a gr

People still compare nuclear power to coal but they quit building coal plants circa 1980 for the same reason they quit building nuclear plants You can see a graph of coal capacity added by year here: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30812 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30812 The US built coal plants in the 1990s and even in the 2010s. These last ones started construction in roughly the years 2003-2008, when US natural gas prices were elevated and (many thought) due to go up even more: https://www.macrotrends.net/2478/natural-gas-prices-historical-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/2478/natural-gas-prices-historic... Coal's brief renaissance was halted by a triple-whammy of lower gas costs (from shale), lower wind costs, and lower solar costs. It's soon to face another whammy: falling grid scale battery costs. I don't think that the continental US will ever build another coal generating station. But that happened more recently than 1980.