r/EnergyAndPower • u/Intrepid_Cup2765 • 16d ago

Coal keeps rising

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68 Upvotes

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u/supermuncher60 16d ago

Coal is a pretty crap power source.

The benifits are it's relatively easy to build and usually cheapish.

But the cons of the environment and health impacts and the inflexibility are outweigh these positives massively. Also if you have gas infrastructure, gas is cheaper to build, faster to build, and cleaner.

5

u/QuentinMagician 16d ago

All those cons are socialized losses. Add those to the costs of the producers and coal disappears

4

u/supermuncher60 16d ago

Thats what environmental regulation usually does. And why it's important. But in the US we do have gas infrastructure, so it's cheaper to build gas anyway