Why has the world started to mine coal again?

https://lemmy.ml/post/4373489

Why has the world started to mine coal again? - Lemmy

With climate change looming, it seems so completely backwards to go back to using it again. Is it coal miners pushing to keep their jobs? Fear of nuclear power? Is purely politically motivated, or are there genuinely people who believe coal is clean?

Because renewable energy and nuclear energy require significant capital investment, which the private sector and governments in the age of ‘fiscal discipline’ are not willing to make.

Renewables (solar and wind) are actually the cheapest forms of electricity generation (see Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy report). This has been true since at least the 2016 version of the report, and it is true even when the cost of generation is not subsidized with government funding.

This is why Texas is investing so much in building new wind turbines, even though they’re not politically inclined toward “green energy” - the cost per MWh is lowest.

yea but the report also mentions energy storage which is necessary for solar and wind because of its intermittent nature.