NEW YORK – In May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency new power-plant rules that would effectively require every existing coal- or gas-fired plant in the United States either to capture and store most its carbon dioxide emissions or to switch to burning low-emissions “.”
Yet it would be cheaper to replace America’s more than with new solar or wind facilities and then to do the same with its gas plants soon thereafter.
This claim will surely be met with cries of: “It’s not that simple! You also have to account for the Earth’s rotation, cloud cover and a lack of wind.” Indeed, one also must acknowledge ever-present , and other complexities that stand in the way of immediately swapping coal for solar. But nobody is seriously suggesting shutting down every fossil-fueled power plant everywhere all at once. The transition will take time.
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