***what will replace it if the supply of Nat Gas or the other sources of power run short. Nothing. ***
Fifteen years ago the naysayers were running around in a panic screaming doom and gloom that we were running out of natural gas!
I had a copy of Power Magazine and it showed about fifty new power plants going in and only one or two would be coal. The rest natural gas. I wondered where they were going to get the gas.
In 2001 I went to California and passed two new natural gas power plants going up.
In 2002 I again went to California and passed those same half built plants shut down with weeds growing all around.
A few years later they began to develop new gas fields and fracking began to bring on the gas.
A quick look showed those abandoned gas power plants were now being built again.
We need a good backup for power plant fuel and coal is still the best available.
Well good. Because it is soon to be our only source of energy — nukes are off the table, hydro too. Fusion appears to be hopeless.
So we had better make sure that it can sustain us for the next 20-30 years or longer. That includes when everyone is forced to (or coerced into)driving electric cars and demand for energy increases dramatically.