mmm... could you name a most significant one?
> But the idea that somehow energy experts are slapping their foreheads thinking 'OMG how did we miss this' is slightly insulting.
well, let me remind you how this conversation started - coal production is GROWING. Not because someone is just evil, but this is what customers demand - reliable supply of cheap electricity
Where I live right now, the farmers are building things like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/20... The green things are more or less balloons, because it pays to store the gas until peak time and burn most of it then.
yeah, the only problem is how to apply this model to, say, south of US - California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada etc. Not a lot of hydro around
> The green things are more or less balloons, because it pays to store the gas until peak time and burn most of it then.
not sure how it is applicable to electric storage
Data not yet out, but yes, I believe so. There is a prediction it would rise till 2022 though not yet reaching the peak of 2013.
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/03/20190306-coal.html
> I assume that coal plants become unprofitable once they need considerable maintenance because they're not being built any more
mmm... not sure this is true about coal plants not being build. China and India I believe still building them.
> Further, because the price of solar and wind power is dropping.
well, while they are dropping, coal production is gorwing three years in a row (and potentially another three years in making).
> hen in a few years, building a new solar plant becomes cheaper
and what people supposed to do by night?
You recognize, that even if you saturate your grid by solar electricity from, say, 11 to 5, there are still 18 hours left...