[dangerlibrary]

For about a century, coal has been the cheapest, most reliable fuel for utility-scale power generation. For most of the eastern seaboard, coal has only been supplanted by natural gas (slowly) over the last ten years. Competing fuel price fluctuations dictated the change. Natural gas prices before fracking were both higher and much more volatile. There have been periods of ebb and flow that many workers and their families have managed to "wait out" in the past.

Further, if you've lived your entire life in a coal town, the sheer scale of the plants, mines, railroads, and other infrastructure can make them seem permanent, reliable. It is very difficult to imagine so much specialized infrastructure simply ... going away.

Imagine if you had spent your entire life as a datacenter tech, as had your father. You knew the business inside and out, understood the network of suppliers, the customers, the hardware, everything. You've gotten into arguments about different rack configurations and which you prefer to work on. This is your career. You got into this business because it would provide a stable life for you and your family, and you were damn good at it. Then people started telling you that we would no longer need datacenters - at all - in 5 years because there were now cheaper, better alternatives. You wouldn't believe them.

[shuntress]

Why shouldn't I believe them? Assuming they are pointing to the datacenter equivalents of wind/solar/nuclear energy as the reason why datacenter use is shrinking.

Edit: Did you mean to imply that Coal is not actually going away because the 'cheaper alternatives' are fake?

[uxp100]

Mainly Natural Gas.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/0?agg=2...

[cubano]

The EIA needs to work on responsive web design.

[dangerlibrary]

Wind and solar are non-starters. They're more expensive than coal and they can't cover base load.

Nuclear could cover base load but is orders of magnitude more expensive (up-front) than coal. Huge investment, huge regulatory burden, huge political risk. Until recently, we hadn't built a new nuclear plant in the country for decades. [0] Coal is cheap and reliable. Always has been.

What's killing coal is low, non-volatile natural gas prices from shale fracking.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...

[smohare]

Coal has vast negative externalities. The toll on health and lost productivity alone are large, not to mention its affects on the climate.

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?Rec...

[dangerlibrary]

That's true, and unrelated to the conversation at hand or anything I said. If those externalities were priced in, much of the relative cost description I gave would be wrong.

But they aren't. That's not to say they shouldn't be - just that right now the fact is that they aren't.

[ZeroGravitas]

If I worked in an industry, and a new competitor came out that was initially more expensive, but killed less people, I'm not sure I'd be that surprised if my work started to dry up in favor of the less deadly alternative(s).

If at least one of the alternatives was cheaper too, then I would surmise the game was up.

[dangerlibrary]

If you were an arms manufacturer you would be thoroughly unconcerned.

[matt4077]

Coal production hasn't actually changed that much over the last decades. It has just moved west, and become muh more efficient.

(Unfortunately...)

[rybosome]

So disgusting that the biggest threat to coal is natural gas, yet it's being blamed on environmental regulation. Do Scott Pruitt et. al really believe they're going to juice the economy, or are they cynically handing political favors to their wealthy friends?

[jartelt]

If coal is so great and cheap, then why is no one building new coal plants? Over the past few years wind and solar account for ~40% of new generation capacity and natural gas makes up the rest. Based on your comment, one would expect to either see only natural gas capacity being built out or some mix of natural gas and coal. That is not what is happening and it's because wind and solar are cheaper than coal in several areas of the country.

[dangerlibrary]

I feel like you and I don't disagree, but for some reason you think we do. Natural gas is replacing coal for base load generation because it is cheaper.

from wind-watch.org:

> "How does wind power affect base load? Wind power has no effect on base load.

https://www.wind-watch.org/faq-electricity.php

[jartelt]

Well, you said wind and solar are more expensive than coal and I am saying they are not (hence why they are being built out like crazy). You seem to be arguing that wind and solar cannot replace coal since there are intermittent. I think that is wrong.

[dangerlibrary]

Okay, cool.

When power generation companies demonstrate that you are correct and replace their base load production capacity with solar and wind I will (joyfully) eat crow. That isn't really happening right now, though. Natural gas is replacing coal and non-hydro renewables make up a very small fraction of overall capacity.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cf...

[stale2002]

Solar power is currently following Moore's law.

Prices are cutting in half every 2 years.

There is not a whole lot more price cuts that need to happen before Solar is at grid parity, and cheaper than coal.

In places like Hawaii it is already way way cheaper than any other available power solution.

[dangerlibrary]

In order to cover base load solar + utility scale battery deployments need to be cheaper than a coal plant in terms of TCO.

You're not wrong, and of course things like a carbon tax could change the economics substantially, but base load generation is not going to be solved by cheaper panels alone.