A review of why new coal plant construction has slowed to a crawl in the US
Dan Lashof compiles findings from some studies analyzing why the utility industry in the US has shown little recent interest in building new coal plants. The main causes relate to market forces, not EPA’s recently announced new source performance standards (although those will have some effect if natural gas prices reverse their recent decline and coal becomes economically competitive for generating electricity again). These reasons overlap strongly with the reasons why utilities are now retiring many very old coal plants.
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