> The war to have solar plants over more coal is falling back to coal thanks mostly to AI.

Also, due to solar not panning out at scale.[1]

More seriously, coal is just cheaper and, with incentives being removed for green energy, it's the cheapest and fastest option to deploy. It's dead simple and well understood reliable power.

[1]https://apnews.com/article/california-solar-energy-ivanpah-b...

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dalyons 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Wild take. New coal is not cheaper. There have been no new coal plants built in the US since 2013.

That solar plant you linked is an obsolete experimental technology. Obsolete because regular PV became so much cheaper.

	▲	parineum 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> New coal is not cheaper. I see yow it can read that way but it isn't what I said. Coal plants exist, either shuttered or running low loads due to financial incentives (not favoring them). Studies show solar is cheaper but businesses continue to choose coal. I think the entity who's entire existence depends on them making the correct financial choice is a much better indicator of economic reality than a study made by people who have zero stake (at best) in the game. I'm all for green energy but I also don't think people are stupid.

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outside1234 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The example you chose is of a mirror based Solar system, which yes, is an obsolete technology.

Direct solar continues to be installed at greater amounts every year and coal is economically uncompetitive with basic anything (which is why it is collapsing), and especially against natural gas.

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glenstein 14 hours ago | parent [-]

You're exactly right and it raises a question for me. Why do energy generation topics bring people out of the woodworks who cite some very idiosycratic one-off and use it to make out-of-proportion declarations about the utility of a given technology? This is the second one I've seen suggesting solar is doomed when they mean mirrors.

On twitter I saw someone claim PV is useless for heat because non-PV solar water heating is just so much more efficient. Not even true (I think it's a approximately a wash, different advantages in different applications), but very strangely in the weeds on a specific topic. Much too narrow a factual context to substantiate general level claims about solar as an energy writ large.

I think for whatever reason the missing the forest for the trees trap is really potent in energy discussions.

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marcosdumay 10 hours ago | parent [-]

> Why do energy generation topics bring people out of the woodworks who cite some very idiosycratic one-off and use it to make out-of-proportion declarations about the utility of a given technology?

They either have only read propaganda pieces from fossil fuel producers or are trying to create some of those.

I would expect the number of people that honestly don't know anything but propaganda to be way higher than the number of people creating propaganda. But there's probably a selection bias due to HN being a somewhat large site with some influence on SEO and AI training.

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parineum 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I brought up the mirror plant because the molten salt crucible is an example of an attempt to make solar work after hours. It wasn't viable.

Solar+storage is not a solved problem. The storage problem gets continually hand waived away in the conversations about how cheap solar is.

As I said in a sibling comment, I don't think the people running energy companies are stupid. If solar really was cheaper as a baseline power supply, what it needs to be to replace fossil fuels, they'd be doing it.

	▲	marcosdumay 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> If solar really was cheaper as a baseline power supply, what it needs to be to replace fossil fuels, they'd be doing it. So, you haven't looked at what energy companies are doing for the last 3 years...