COAL MAKES WAY FOR SOLAR ENERGY IN U.S.

Washington, March 25: Coal is making way for cheaper solar and wind energy providing electricity to US households, a new study has found.

Coal is increasingly more expensive than cleaner alternatives. Today, local wind and solar could replace approximately 74 per cent of the US coal fleet at immediate savings to customers, it says.

By 2025, this number grows to 86 per cent of the coal fleet. Half of US coal mines have shut down over the past decade.

“Even without a major policy shift, we will continue to see coal retire pretty rapidly,” The Guardian quoted Mike O’Boyle, the co-author of the report for Energy Innovation, a renewables analysis firm.

“Our analysis shows that we can move a lot faster to replace coal with wind and solar. The fact that so much coal could be retired right now shows we are off the pace.”

The authors used public financial filings and data from the Energy Information Agency (EIA) to work out the cost of energy from coal plants compared with clean energy options within a 35-mile radius and found that 211 gigawatts of current US coal capacity, 74% of the coal fleet, is providing electricity that’s more expensive than wind or solar.

The study found most US coal plants contaminating groundwater with toxins. –Agencies