What’s the “environmental” cost of building double the infrastructure to back up “intermittent” sources? We all know the answer.
Indeed we do, but there are some deaf ears not listening.
It can make a lot of sense to spend $500 million on the gas plant and $500 million on wind turbines next door. The wind will be intermittent, but if it defers only half the fuel cost you’ve broken even in a year.
If instead one built a coal or nuc plant, you wouldn’t have the problem of fluctuating gas prices to begin with.
Energy suppliers have been hamstrung for decades by environmental actions that have resulted in the destruction of the coal industry and coal fired power plants in the idiotic pursuit of man is harming the planet BS. The very reliability of the electric grid is now being compromised by such “thinking”.
We know what works, and if we refuse to stick with it, we will be the ones suffering in the cold. God provides and only man can screw it up with brainless “thinking”.
At this moment coal really doesn’t make sense. It a more expensive fuel that NG, and plants are more expensive to maintain.
Instead of a $500 million dollar NG plant burning a $1 billion in fuel per year, for coal you will need a $2 billion plant that burns $1.5 billion in fuel each year. Everything about it is more expensive than NG.
That may change, cheap gas can’t last forever, but right now the fuel costs are enough higher than NG that the costly conversion of a coal plant to NG will break even in only a few years.