Cost of wind keeps dropping, and theres little coal, nuclear can do to stop it

[Finishline42]

6. Hardly any better than coal?

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"Nimble gas power plants in combination with solar and wind energy may be profitable in the short run, but they are hardly any better than coal, especially in expanding fossil fueled economies."

Gas power plants have a couple of fundamental advantages over coal.

1) Smaller footprint - a storage tank replaces the area needed for on-site coal storage.

2) Transportation - coal is brought in either by truck, train or barge. NatGas comes in via pipeline.

3) Currently NatGas burns without the need for scrubbers that coal plants require. What those scrubbers remove from the exhaust is stored on-site in a containment pond. The insurance on those ponds has to be considerable since the catastrophic breach in East Tennessee that TVA spent over a $1 Billion to clean up. There are over 400 of these containment ponds in the US. Duke Energy is having a lot of trouble with seepage from ponds in NC.

Why do power companies use NatGas for peaker plants and not coal? I think there is a functional difference in the type of turbines each requires. I have heard that the turbines for coal plants require long warm up periods before they are ready for a load and as a result they are typically kept on during off peak periods - mainly overnight. Using coal to keep them spinning without producing any power.