We rewrote this page. The old version leaned on an industry-association study that disputed renewable energy costs; this one uses current cost data from IRENA, the IEA, the EIA, and Ember instead. Bracketed numbers point to the list at the bottom.

Claim 1: “Solar and wind are unreliable and require constant backup, so they are far more expensive than coal.”

The facts: The reliability part is fair. Solar and wind depend on weather, and grids do need dispatchable resources, storage, and demand response to manage that; coal plants are dispatchable, and you can stockpile fuel on site. But “far more expensive” doesn’t survive contact with the numbers. By 2023, the global weighted-average cost of new utility-scale solar PV was USD 0.044/kWh, 56% below the weighted average fossil-fired cost by country or region; new onshore wind was USD 0.033/kWh, 67% below it. Around 81% (382 GW) of all newly-commissioned utility-scale renewable capacity in 2023 beat the local fossil price, and all 104 GW of new onshore wind that year did the same. [1] Between 2010 and 2023, a further 1,690 GW of renewables were deployed at a levelized cost below the weighted average fossil-fired cost. [1]

Claim 2: “Utilities are usually replacing coal plants at great cost because anti-coal policies force them to.”

The facts: Policy was a factor, not the whole story; economics did most of the work. The EIA’s analysis of coal retirements puts it this way: “lower natural gas prices, higher coal prices, slower economic growth, and the implementation of environmental rules all play a role in the retirements.” The units most at risk were older, less efficient plants (many without flue-gas desulfurization equipment) competing against cheaper marginal generation. [2] Since then the cost gap has widened. In 2024, wind and solar together generated 17% of US electricity, overtaking coal for the first time as it fell to an all-time low of 15%. [3] The 2025 US mix was about 58% fossil fuels (natural gas on top at ~41%), with coal third at about 17%; solar made up 81% of all new annual capacity additions in 2024. [4] [3]

Claim 3: “The American coal industry provides the best power for millions — destroying it means going backwards.”

The facts: “Going backwards” is a value judgment, not an observation, so here are the observations. Since US coal generation peaked in 2007, it has fallen by 68%, and power-sector emissions have dropped 32% over the same stretch; wind plus solar now outproduce coal in 24 states. [3] Globally, solar PV is the single largest source of growth in energy demand (more than a quarter of all demand growth), low-emissions sources together account for nearly 60% of it, and clean deployment since 2019 avoids roughly 8% of global CO2 emissions; the avoided coal demand alone is bigger than India’s entire annual coal use. [5] Nothing is lost from the reliability side, either: dispatchable gas peakers, battery storage (a record ~10 GW of batteries in the US in 2024 alongside a record 31 GW of new solar; in California, which crossed 30% solar share, installed battery capacity was 20% larger than that year’s solar), and demand-side options have all grown while coal’s share shrank. [3]

Assessing the benefits: what was true about coal in 2018, and what has changed since.

To see where coal actually stands today, you have to separate the durable engineering advantages from the cost claims that haven’t aged.

• The dispatchability point was right. Coal plants can be run on demand, fuel sits in on-site stockpiles, and output isn’t weather-dependent. That’s a genuine reliability advantage over raw solar or wind; the original page got this physics correct.
• The cost argument didn’t age well. It leaned on studies finding wind and solar far more expensive than existing coal, and that is no longer defensible: new utility-scale solar ($0.044/kWh) and onshore wind ($0.033/kWh) now undercut the weighted average fossil-fired cost by 56% and 67% globally, because equipment and installation costs have kept falling. [1]
• “Coal remains dominant in many regions” is still right for parts of the world (global greenhouse gas emissions from fuel combustion are still dominated by coal at 44%), [6] but that’s no longer a cost story: US coal generation has fallen 68% since its 2007 peak, leaving it third in the mix at about 17% of 2025 generation, and wind plus solar overtook it domestically in 2024. [4] [3]
• The plants aren’t being forced out at “great cost,” either. Retirements track fuel prices, plant age and efficiency, and demand growth; that’s the EIA’s own framing. [2] Where renewables have displaced coal, they’ve done it on price: solar was 81% of new US capacity added in 2024. [3]

What this means for “the best power for millions”

• Cheap, reliable electricity is a real public good, and coal did deliver it; that history deserves acknowledgment, not spin.
• In many markets the cheap new firmness now comes from dispatchable gas plus fast-growing solar and storage. California and Nevada each topped 30% solar share in 2024, made possible in part by batteries moving daytime sun into evening demand. [3]
• So the policy question isn’t “coal or nothing.” It’s which mix keeps bills low, grids reliable, and air quality improving, and the cost data have been answering that one for years in favor of low-carbon expansion. [1] [5]

The best policy?

Let communities choose energy sources by real-world cost, reliability, and health outcomes; all three can be compared with published data. By the latest IRENA and IEA numbers, new solar and wind are cheaper than new fossil capacity in most markets [1]. There’s no longer a credible affordability argument for building coal where alternatives exist.