A Widening Gap: What is going to Replace Coal?

Flip on a light switch. Press the power button to your TV. Plug your cell phone charger into the wall. Are you expecting something to happen? If the answer is ‘yes’, congratulations, you remembered to send in last month’s electric bill. But the real reason you can be confident that when you want power – you get it, is because somewhere amidst the complicated web of the “power grid” there is a baseload power plant generating a constant supply of electricity, available for your consumption anytime. In the United States, however, we are facing a growing gap between baseload power supply and demand, and both the power generators and their bankers are nervous about putting money into new power plants

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