Market pressure can accomplish as much as regulation. That's the current situation with coal. The president called it a war on coal, but regulation has little to do with the demise of that fuel. Cost is the real driver, especially the shift to natural gas. But gas is NOT a clean alternative. Fracking, which has brought down natural gas prices over the last 2 decades, also releases untold volumes of methane, uncontrolled, into the atmosphere, and methane is considered 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2. Some sources say 80 times as much. Luckily, methane does not persist for a long time in the atmosphere, but the CO2 conversion product does...essentially forever. But I suppose if you swallow the White House rhetoric, then you would have called the invention of the automobile a "war on horses" and the invention of the electric light a "war on candles." The progressive demise of coal is evolution, but what will be needed to change our headlong rush to global annihilation is a revolution.JohnH wrote:I read that NIPSCO (Northern Indiana Public Service Company) which serves the northern third of Indiana is going to phase out coal burning plants in favor of renewable energy as the projected costs with renewable energy is going to be less than coal. I also read there might be a time for fossil fuel for transportation might have to come down to $9.00/barrel of crude to be competitive with electric vehicles.
The Saudis - MBS - are warning that if the US doesn't become their mercenary army against Iran, then oil prices will explode. But that's exactly what is needed to get us moving away from a carbon energy economy.