The Secret To Successfully Closing Down Coal Plants
Close down coal-fired power stations. Do not replace them with gas-fired electricity. That would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the USA by 15 percent. That’s a big number. Those plants are old and will close eventually. So why not sooner rather than later? The answer, of course, is money. We figure that investor-owned utilities and public power agencies have, between them, close to $70 billion worth of coal-fired generators still on their books (in rate base). Those utilities will not give up those money-earning assets without compensation. They stalled the Obama clean air program in order to keep those assets operating. They didn’t have to do anything during the Trump years to keep pumping out those greenhouse gases.
If Biden wins, we can expect the plant owners to employ dogged delaying tactics in a federal court system stacked in favor of business interests to keep the plants running. And herein lies the problem. By delaying what appears inevitable - that coal in the U.S. is finished as a power generation boiler fuel - the utility industry continues to miss a step. So policy makers may have to decide whether they want endless delay or figure out how to buy out the utilities in the most cost effective manner.
But first, how did the industry get into this unenviable position of having so much money tied up in facilities whose future is so uncertain?
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