Okay, so now you need to build not only vast quantities of wind and solar plants in your ten year plan, but also energy storage.

Bear in mind that in the past twenty years, in the US, renewables have gone from providing a negligible portion of the total grid power to providing 20%, and that includes hydro power, which provides about 8% of that total.

So you’re looking at building out 4 times (being generous) what was built in the last twenty years in the next ten, plus massive amounts of storage.

Now I don’t disagree with that as a goal, but it’s probably going to be quicker to divest coal power by building nuclear plants, which can actually be built in five years, not ten. Small modular reactors could potentially be built in an even shorter time frame.

The main barrier to building them is backlash from the public due to misinformation about risks and pollution. So like I said at the start of this, advocate for nuclear power. It needs people championing it if we’re going to get off coal before we all burn.

But by all means, advocate for renewables also.

Wind and solar are not baseload. Unless we replace fossil fuels with hydro, geothermal, or biomass, we’ll still need to burn coal. Nuclear is the only viable large scale alternative to coal for baseload power. Wind and solar should absolutely be built, but they are not a total solution.

Do. Fucking. Both.

Then advocate for nuclear power. The popular fear of nuclear energy is why we’re still so dependent on fossil fuels.

Come on and kick me