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A comment on Fossil fuels fall below 50% of US electricity for the first month on record. Parent comment

Re:Fossil fuels fall below 50% of US electricity for the fir... by jahnu on Monday April 21, 2025 @02:51PM (#43755173)
I think it was on Volts podcast where I heard that many of them are built as political insurance for regional governments who don’t want an angry population if they have an unusually cold winter and a lot of them are going to end up as stranded assets which the population gets way less mad about.
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Re:Fossil fuels fall below 50% of US electricity for the fir... by bryanlarsen on Monday April 21, 2025 @03:13PM (#43755403)
Ironically building coal plants probably helps wean China off coal. They use a lot of coal for heating. But nobody is going to want to switch to a heat pump unless they have reliable electricity.
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Re:Fossil fuels fall below 50% of US electricity for the fir... by dalyons on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @12:23AM (#43759050)
to add, given the governing structure in china, the coal plants don't have to make economic sense. one-party politics would thus prefer to overbuild as a hedge against the population getting mad at them.
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