This article is misleading. Many of the coal fired plants being taken off line are a result of political and regulatory pressure, not economics. Natural gas has mitigated the effects in some areas where it is plentiful and cheap, but natural gas plants were never designed to be main line plants. Without the natural gas plant, companies would be losing money and we would be experiencing brown outs, but they are not the cause of coal plant shut downs.
We are losing modern, low emission coal plants that burn low sulfur coal from Wyoming because the EPA has declared war on CO2. Trees and corn love CO2, its the breath of life for them and completely harmless to us. Anthony Watts blockbuster revelation of today (WUWT) destroys the global warming rationale that drove us to criminalizing CO2.
Have you seen a list of the plants to be closed? I am somewhat familiar with the plants here in GA, and would be very curious to see which ones are slated for closure.
A liberal, scientist friend who fully believes in global warming told me that the damage is done; there’s no turning back and there’s no way to address the doomsday that we have set.
Personally, I think the whatever warming we’re seeing is from all the asphalt we have. It heats up the earth, even in winter.