Cost of solar energy dropped 30% in year; Trump’s coal plan won’t work
What will happen to Trump’s promise to revive the coal industry as the price of solar energy continues to drop?
From Computerworld:
“Not only did solar create almost 2% of all new U.S. jobs last year, those hires were concentrated in the states where solar is booming primarily because of market-friendly policies,” said Amit Ronen, director of the George Washington University’s Solar Institute.
Trump has also threatened to pull U.S. support for the Paris Agreement, which last year saw voluntary pledges by 195 nations to lower CO2 emissions. But the impact of such a move would be negligible at best in helping the coal industry, analysts said.
“Even if he did all those things…, which would require legislative hurdles, the economics still favor gas more as an energy generation source,” said Colleen Kennedy, an oil and energy analyst with at Lux Research. “The economics just don’t work out in favor of coal.”
