In May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed 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 “green hydrogen.”
Yet it would be cheaper to replace America’s more than 200 coal-fired plants 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 NIMBYism, long-term energy contracts 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.