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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

The incremental roll-out possible with solar, and the simpler project management, give it a huge advantage.

The coal roll-out is alarming but as soon as it was pointed out that Vietnam has large coal reserves it was unsurprising. This is where the richer nations need to step up and find a way to pay to leave resources in the ground rather than extracting them. It's the cheapest form of "carbon capture".

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Do you mean like the United States or Germany which are increasing or fighting a reduction in coal?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/epa-is-set-to-roll-back-restric...

Germany is still planning a phaseout: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-coal-regulator/ge...

The United States is currently under the control of the faction which does not believe in anthropogenic climate change, which is a big problem.

You can say that as a headline, however the results on the ground are what actually matter: the US has massively reduced its coal use. Coal use is not climbing in the US and isn't going to no matter what the Trump Admin tries.

US energy generation from coal has gone from 52% in 1998 to 30% today (surpassed by natural gas). Nuclear is at 20% energy generation as a share. Coal will continue falling and drop below nuclear in the next 10-15 years, at which point non-hydro renewables will also have surpassed coal.

"US Coal Continues to Decline Under Trump"

http://mikerazar.com/chart-it/2018/01/30/uscoal2017/

"Coal industry mired in decline despite Trump pledges"

"New projections from the Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimate that Americans will be less dependent on coal, that coal production will fall, and that coal capacity in the nation’s power plants is likely to decline in coming years, according to an annual report released last month."

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/376522-coal-industry...

Coal jobs are this bizarre holy grail of right-wing politics in the USA and Germany. It really makes very little sense in a macro view, because renewables are cleaner for the local populace's air and water, and renewables add some 5X-10X more jobs than coal. Coal extraction and processing is increasingly automated, the ole' miner with his pick is a thing of the past - these jobs are stagnant or decreasing in numbers over time. It's an industry in a steady decline, and yet the electoral college, and the coalitions built for Angela Merkel's party in Germany, prop up coal.

Coal jobs are usually available in areas with few alternatives. Whole regions depend on mining. It's hard to tell people that their whole city needs to change jobs when there are none available.

West Virginia has more renewable energy jobs than coal jobs.

> Coal jobs are this bizarre holy grail of right-wing politics in the USA and Germany.

It's far more than a right-wing politics issue in Germany. The most dedicated supporters of coal are within the social democrats and even the left party has some vocal coal supporters in some areas.

Sssshhh. You'll ruin the narrative.

It seems to me that the easiest way for a Germany to cut on energy needs is simply by having less people live there. I expect they would have been at negative population growth without shipping in a scad of people.

Well duh, the only other ways are “be more energy efficient” (hard because they’re already good at that) or “get everyone to do less” (I’d approve of that, but most people don’t seem to).

Likewise, the cost of less people living there (or in any defined region) is less taxpayers, less people making stuff, and less people supplying stuff.

I can't say that an economic model built on continuous population growth makes any sense. The piper will get paid at some point. Even the current notion of driving down the average age via mass immigration will only last so long.

In any case, what really matters is the per capita wealth, not total.

All growth has to stop at some point, not just population. But if we want population to grow as much as possible, we can add a few more digits before we hit the planetary limits of anything other than stupidity and political short-term-ism.

(On the other hand, stupidity and political short-term-ism are exactly why we now have problems with loss of biodiversity, antibiotic resistance, a disrupted nitrogen cycle, phosphorus waste, a quarter of the CO2 in our air being artificial, boom-and-bust economic cycles, etc.)

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