Coal is terrible in terms of load following. What are you even talking about? If anything, coal plants are economically unsustainable. They don't respond to short term changes in electricity prices and therefore still produce electricity even when they are losing money.
> wind and solar because those are unreliable energy sources
They are unreliable but not unpredictable. Weather forecast provides adequate production estimates 48 hours, and precise ones 12 hours into the future (especially when averaged over large areas). Enough time to fire up standby power generation.
Also while wind and solar are unreliable by themselves, they become a lot more reliable once you combine them. That is because when there is little wind, it is usually sunny, and when there is little sunshine it is usually windy. At night, when there is neither, the power consumption is low.
The major problem that needs to be addressed with substantial amounts of energy storage is overcast winter days with no wind, when power consumption is high.
> Coal isn't economically unsustainable I don't know where you have that from.
According to a 2018 report[1] of the German Environment Agency (UBA), the economic cost (health and environment) of coal power is an additional 0,19 €/kWh over the generation cost. This makes it unsustainable compared to other energy sources and only profitable because the public bears this cost.
> Wind and solar covers less than 1% of the worlds energy needs even push forward to 2040 and it might do around 3%.
Someone should tell the Chinese, because they are already at 5% from wind alone.
Being predictable doesn't really matter. Denmark had a great summer in 2018, that meant the wind didn't blow which means they had to import energy from Germany. Germany has plenty of solar yet they ended up using coal to provide that energy. The weather was amazing in Germany too yet they didn't actually provide Denmark with solar energy.
I don't think you done any serious research into this to be quite honest.
Then there is capacity factor wich is a whole other problem (look it up)
To claim that coal isn't economically sustainable is absurd. It's more or less the cheapest we have.
With regards to China thats 5% electricity NOT energy. Again I don't believe you actually did any fundamental research here or you wouldn't throw out these numbers that does not support your position.
