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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat<br><br><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>>…As to coal being cheapest, that has not been the case for a while - at least, not for new plants (which China needs to worry about given its growing demand):<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity#/media/File:20201019_Levelized_Cost_of_Energy_(LCOE,_Lazard)_-_renewable_energy.svg">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity#/media/File:20201019_Levelized_Cost_of_Energy_(LCOE,_Lazard)_-_renewable_energy.svg</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Levelized-cost-components.png">https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Levelized-cost-components.png</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://www.freeingenergy.com/the-market-has-spoken-clean-energy-just-became-the-cheapest-source-of-electricity/">https://www.freeingenergy.com/the-market-has-spoken-clean-energy-just-became-the-cheapest-source-of-electricity/</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Adrian what isn’t clear in any of these charts is if they mean the cost of generation in the USA or everywhere. China can generate coal-fired power more cheaply than the USA because we have a lot of environmental regulations they don’t have. They can burn really low-quality coal and are generally not required to deal with mitigating acid rain and other bad stuff that belches out of the stacks.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Another thing that isn’t clear is how they take into account the intermittent nature of the renewables. A power company can use a few percent renewable energy so long as they have plenty of capacity to generate peak power without any wind or sun. We still don’t have the energy storage capacity to compare these sources on level ground.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In the scenario I can’t get out of my mind, China doesn’t need to go to war against the USA, but rather would just buy the place.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></div></body></html>