But those numbers being moved around are not equivalent. A centralized power plant is vastly more efficient and clean than thousands of little gasoline engines. This is true even for coal.

Not to mention it allows us to make policy decisions about where our energy comes from at the source without changing anything at the consumer side. If we find out that <energy source> is unhealthy, unsustainable, running out etc... We can change one power plant rather than millions of autos. If OPEC turns the taps off, we aren't all suddenly paying twice as much to drive to work.

Still, it is cheaper to add emissions monitoring and control on a single power plant than a few hundred thousand moving power plants.

This is no longer true in most of the USA (and many other countries) [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_tailpipe

My roof is covered in solar, enough so that I'm net negative on electricity. No coal power here.

We are moving from fossil fuels to renewables. There are a number of different parts in the ff system, and we can't replace the whole thing all at once, so we are working on different parts, and over time. And it's working.

But I bet you already knew that.