Rick Perry went looking for a reason to bail out coal and came back empty
When Energy Secretary Rick Perry ordered a study back in April to examine the “premature retirement” of “baseload” coal and nuclear plants, the writing seemed to be on the wall: presumably, the administration would use the study to claim that renewable energy is undermining the reliability of the grid, justify the rollback of incentives and environmental protections and then prop up coal.
But now the report is out, and it does not provide much support for that conclusion. The study reveals some essential facts: Cheap natural gas is the primary force driving the retirement of coal and nuclear plants. Many coal plants are retiring because they’re neither efficient nor competitive. And the nation’s power grid has become more reliable as it has become more diverse with more renewables and natural gas.
In the face of these powerful market realities, making a case for coal is difficult and attempts by the Trump administration to prop up the industry won’t find a foundation in these facts.
On the central question of reliability, the Department of Energy study found that a diverse portfolio of generation resources can provide the complex set of functions needed for reliable and resilient grid operations. For instance, wind generators, solar systems with invertors and ‘demand-response’ systems provide many of the “essential reliability” services required to keep the grid balanced.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/349665-rick-perry-went-looking-for-a-reason-to-bailout-coal
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