Nobody, anywhere, is building new coal power plants. Approximately all new power is wind and solar. Which is good. But there is still a lot of installed capacity. And until new solar is cheaper than existing coal (which will be awhile, maybe never) then coal only decreases as plants shut down.
reply> And until new solar is cheaper than existing coal (which will be awhile, maybe never) then coal only decreases as plants shut down.
replyWhy wouldn't "existing solar is cheaper than existing coal, and existing coal is not required to meet demand" result in coal plants shutting down?
You need a lot of batteries to store the energy needed overnight and you have to plan for (lots of) days without sun. At my latitude (45N) the difference in solar production between summer and winter is 5x. Even with batteries, you still need a backup for a week of bad weather; so you have to choose between increasing the solar production 20x to have enough power generated in cloudy days or have a backup coal/gas/something else plant.
replyChina is. [1]
replyI don't get why people feel the need to just start lying when talking about renewables. It's probably a large reason why people are always skeptical of 'rewnewables are cheaper than x' claims.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2026/02/27/ch...
China is.
replyand yet their coal usage has declined in the last two years, and is projected to continue declining.
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replyIn 2025, renewables generated more energy globally than coal (neck and neck tie, but renewables just edged out coal). This trend is likely to continue.
replyin large parts of the west! still good news
replyAnd gas is not going down either.
replyCoal is much cheaper than gas.
replyIs it cheaper per MW of generated power? I thought that the main reason use of gas has increased so much (for power generation) over the past 20-30 years is that gas became cheaper.
replyGas allows to use combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT) which is more efficient and it makes gas cheaper for electricity generation.
replyNot per-MWh in North America.
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