Bismarck, ND
In the power pools in the USA they're curtailing wind to allow for older coal contracts to still produce power. all thermal units are highly subsidized, not just wind cr LTC and solar cr PTC. Power pools curtail a good percentage of wind to allow for old coal contracts to run. Heat rates/start up times of older coal plants are terrible and a new CC gas plant cost is over a billion dollars. have a google search of the costs to keep burners hot in coal plants and get for a rude awakening. I'm all for any solution that has a reliable base load. everyone should become a bit more educated on heat rates, start up time, ramp rate, and economical dispatch stacks in the power pools. lastly, coal sequestration and carbon capture are way more expensive options than renewables. any coal plant over 20 years old and producing less than 400MW is at risk of being early retirement/end date. there's gonna be sunk costs because of this however, if we want to have a reliable baseload into the future the time to start moving to a NG CC baseload with wind and solar resources to take off the peaks is coming soon.
(Topic ID: 310586)
