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The only place where new coal plants are being constructed is Asia. This article from DW explains it doesn’t make economic sense there either: https://www.dw.

• willis936 4y ago
  I wasn't asking about coal. That's obvious/non-controversial. Provide a source or your own analysis for this claim: >If the plan for energy conversion is a steam turbine, it’s never going to be economically competitive.
  • rgmerk 4y ago
    This is old data but comprehensive and illustrative: The key point is that only roughly 20% of the capital cost of a coal plant is related to coal handling and pollution control. https://esmap.org/sites/default/files/esmap-files/TR122-09_GBL_Study_of_Equipment_Prices_in_the_Power_Sector.pdf https://esmap.org/sites/default/files/esmap-files/TR122-09_G... So even if the fusion reactor reduces all of those costs to zero, the capital costs would only be 20% cheaper than new-build coal. As I mentioned earlier, coal isn't economically competitive with renewables pretty much anywhere, even places with very cheap coal resources that can't be traded on the global market. There's heaps of lignite in Texas, for instance, but nobody's building new plants to burn it. As such, it's hard to see how fusion reactors turning steam turbines are going to be economically competitive either.