The “emegency” was not enough profits for the fossil fuels industry, rather than a need for the electricity an ancient coal-burning power plant might generate, and the Trump administration plan has been to prevent all coal-burning power plants from shutting down — even if they’re already broken, don’t work, aren’t needed, or are simply more expensive than wind, solar, and utility-scale batteries.
I didn’t say wind isn’t viable. I said it was cheaper than coal. I just think the explanation of the costs here is wrong. And then I went on to briefly mention some of the big costs that are missing. There are others, such as modernizing the transmission system, but I didn’t want to get too technical. For those that don’t know, regulation is the term they use for the flexible energy that is needed to match energy supply to demand at the sub-hourly level. Also, sorry I realized that comment was condescending and regretted it immediately. I thought I had deleted it right away but I guess not. I also edited my comment to try to make it more clear that I am saying wind is cheaper, even though I don’t really see how that was ever read the other way. I have a lot of experience in energy market analysis and am just trying to drop some knowledge here.