[melling]

Nuclear power is 20% of electricity in the United States.

If you could replace it all in 3 years, wouldn’t we be better off replacing 20% of coal power over 3 years and wait a little longer on the nuclear power?

If your math is right, half the grid would be zero carbon in 5 years.

[toomuchtodo]

Yes, you would absolutely want to stave off nuclear generator retirements as long as (safely) possible to displace carbon producing generators. I use the example only to demonstrate the ease of renewable deployments versus nuclear. You could go do a green bond offer (or PPA contract), bid out the construction project, and build a solar generation facility next to a nuclear power plant to replace its capacity. You cannot do this to build a new nuclear plant.

Coal power is going away, full stop, due to the cheap cost of natural gas and renewables. It is not cost competitive. Natural gas throttles fast; it's why California can have such a steep Duck Curve [1] and support GWs of solar generation capacity. It is a great stop gap until batteries catch up.

Utility scale generating plants coming online over the next year (green = wind, yellow = solar) https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c...

Utility scale generating retirements over the next year (gray = coal) https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_d...

[1] https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2018/10-years-duck-curve.h... (Ten Years of Analyzing the Duck Chart: How an NREL Discovery in 2008 Is Helping Enable More Solar on the Grid Today)

[graeme]

China started building coal again, and global coal production is rising.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/years-afte...

[toomuchtodo]

Use economic sanctions if necessary to encourage better behavior from participants in the world economy. There will be some bumps on the energy transition journey. We fixed the Ozone hole [1], this is no different.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Public_policy