coal doesn’t have to compete with wind and solar.
It just has to sit there idling, waiting to to go, for all of the times that wind and solar put out doodley squat.
Coal only has to compete with politics
I should have used a /s tag.
That's not entirely true ... underground mines in particular must be maintained continuously, or they will flood, possibly collapse in some spots. If truly shut down, they are very (sometimes prohibitively) expensive to re-open. Obama probably doesn't know this, but there are likely people in his traitorous administration who do.