People don’t think that’s what they’re arguing for, but that’s what happens when you go green too optimistically and aggressively. If you sacrifice reliability and robustness for being green, your grid becomes vulnerable.

From what I understand it seems reasonable to get rid of coal in the US over a reasonable time frame with appropriate replacements. I’m not arguing in favor of coal. I’m arguing in favor of going with cheap reliable energy and whatever the best and actually practical solutions are for a given area.

The fact that coal has fallen by half in 20 years doesn’t mean the other half is just as easy, either. You need a certain amount of supplemental power at night, during bad weather, during usage spikes, etc. The remaining percentage of coal use is going to be more and more concentrated in the supply areas that are harder to replace. That doesn’t mean it can’t all be replaced or that we shouldn’t pursue replacing all of it, all I’m advocating is for a sane transition that takes practical constraints like that into account and doesn’t get perfectionistic about solutions. Frankly I don’t often see considerations like that being made, I see a lot of hysterics and dogmatic assertions about how everything needs to be solar panels and wind turbines yesterday and everyone who wants moderation or other green solutions and more gradual phase in is a greedy oil shill.