> That may have been true a decade ago, but today renewables provide the cheapest electricity.

I think that depends on where you are. Certainly in the US I’ve seen articles claiming that new wind is cheaper than running already built coal plants, and fully believe it. That seems unlikely to be true everywhere, though. Why would China be building expensive coal burners if renewables are so cheap?

Planning processes from five years ago or ten years ago don't always get updated. And corruption is still a problem in China. Perhaps not as bad as, say, India, but still an issue. Which is to say, that not everywhere makes cost optimal decisions all the time.

Even the IEA, a huge skeptic of renewables, that consistently makes ridiculous claims limiting the potential for solar and wind, acknowledged that solar is cheapest:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-is-now-cheapest-electricit...

Decision makers often have huge biases from past data and cultural influences. The bias against renewables and storage in the energy industry is absolutely oppressive. And in most infrastructure decisions, decision makers don't have to answer to shareholders about getting outcompeted by a smarter decision maker that made a better choice.

electricity.

But it certainly isn't the cheapest way to heat houses, run cars, or make steel & concrete.

It is most definitely the cheapest way to heat houses and run cars. At least on raw economic costs; some utilities inflate electrical costs relative to natural gas costs in a way that makes a heat pump more expensive than natural gas heating, but that's just a distortion of the underlying economic costs, and only for some people.

We don't yet have electrically driven steel or concrete production methods, but this is a great opportunity for startups and new technology.

Steel will be more straightforward to decarbonize, but even if decarbonized steel is 50% more expensive, it will have negligible impact on the cost of downstream projects. And the industry can then apply their profit margins to a higher base cost. It's likely that either electrolyzed hydrogen, or with more direct electrical application with new methods that are more like aluminum refinement.

For concrete, it will be far more difficult, as a base chemical reaction to produce concrete releases carbon. However, there's significant room for improvement and new chemistries other than Portland cement, but worst case we will need to do carbon capture and sequestration. This will be more expensive, but it remains to be seen by what factor.

In any case, the extra expense of these most difficult to decarbonize areas will be offset by new opportunities from abundant, cheaper electricity.