> why are new coal-fired power plants still being planned and built?
Because digging holes is all that some people know how to do for a living apparently.
Because digging holes is all that some people know how to do for a living apparently.
I feel like, lately, there's been a big effort to keep these things going in spite of greener energy options being more and more affordable just so we don't put a lot of people out of work.
For people involved in the energy sector, but only really know coal, the only way they can comprehend maintaining and expanding business is to maintain and expand coal operations. The industry may pivot, but the dinosaurs (har har) of coal will often just maintain their current course until they become extinct (har har again).
This is a very old and popular meme. But as an "armchair epistemologist", who also happens to be growing rather weary of endless armchair economic and political critics "telling it like it is", whenever I encounter memes like this, my first question is always: "To what degree is this meme actually true?"
It seems like not just a fair question, but an important one.
> For people involved in the energy sector, but only really know coal, the only way they can comprehend maintaining and expanding business is to maintain and expand coal operations.
"the [only way] [they] [can comprehend]" seems like a rather extraordinary claim (and you know what "they" say about extraordinary claim), that would require rather intimate knowledge of the thoughts of of multiple people.
I'm curious, how did you come to possess this knowledge? By what mechanism?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Li...
https://earthfirstnews.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/narm_aeri...
It turns out that the biggest competition for coal jobs is more efficient coal mines- in this case the strip mines of the Powder River Basin.
It's all the more astounding that solar is cheaper than coal.