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There aren't a lot of idled hydro, wind, or solar plants. Most of the idle plants are coal, with a small number of natural gas (higher construction cost per kw of capacity, previously more expensive fuel, but now natural gas is cheaper than the mitigated costs of coal, so they run gas and idle coal). So, you'd be adding coal to the operating mix. The dirtiest plants are the ones which were idled, too. In the 5 year timeframe, you could argue for building more natural gas, solar, wind, etc. to replace the nuclear, but as far as I can tell, wind and solar and being done as fast as they can, and the coal to gas transition is also happening. There also isn't "one grid"; it's basically 3, and it's not like it has infinite capacity everywhere. Putting a bunch of wind in the Midwest or Texas doesn't really help California. |