Bloomberg Is Throwing $500M at Efforts to Shut Down All U.S. Coal Plants

Re:Bloomberg Is Throwing $500M at Efforts to Shut Down All U... by forgetfreeman on Thursday September 21, 2023 @03:36PM (#37602993)

I dunno, seems pretty wild to me. If the thing isn't generating electricity you're sitting there with a huge labor bill and nothing to show for it. That this sort of thing might make sense from a purely technical perspective seems reasonable to me but I don't see how you'd fund it.

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Re:Bloomberg Is Throwing $500M at Efforts to Shut Down All U... by Dylan16807 on Thursday September 21, 2023 @04:37PM (#37603963)

If you're worried strictly about profits, and not a strong desire to avoid CO2 emissions, we can imagine a carbon tax. $100 per ton would cost a coal plant 10¢/kWh on top of operating costs. So if a carbon-free source gets even close for operating costs, then that's a lot of money to fund a backup plant and still come out ahead.

And this doesn't really require a tax. We could imagine an electrical company pricing out their aversion to carbon in cents per kWh out of their own volition or because of customer demand.

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Re:Bloomberg Is Throwing $500M at Efforts to Shut Down All U... by forgetfreeman on Friday September 22, 2023 @01:19AM (#37608182)

Given we live in a capitalist society that profit motive takes primacy isn't really in question.

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