This illustrates that a big part of the problem is political, not economic or technological.
We have the technology and money to get to nearly 100% renewables (we'd likely keep some non-renewable fallbacks in place) in a fairly short time... hell, we could be there already.
But the coal industry is a powerful political lobby -- both the executives and workers who don't want to lose their jobs -- and so coal sticks around.
The US coal lobby is fighting for more domestic infrastructure for shipping coal internationally. That would lower the price of coal, thus increasing demand and consumption.
After fucking over Canada on the Keystone XL pipeline, I hope the Biden administration sticks to their “principles” and shuts that down too. It will be interesting to see.
This illustrates that a big part of the problem is political, not economic or technological.
We have the technology and money to get to nearly 100% renewables (we'd likely keep some non-renewable fallbacks in place) in a fairly short time... hell, we could be there already.
But the coal industry is a powerful political lobby -- both the executives and workers who don't want to lose their jobs -- and so coal sticks around.