Shutting down fossil fuel electric plants

[Amarok]

Ain't gonna happen until we have a replacement power source. My guess is that we'll need to step up the nuclear dance.

Fossil fuel power plants fulfill a vital need of the electrical power grid, that is for the ability to rapidly adjust power output on command in response to changes in load on the electric grid.  This is necessary for maintaining voltage and frequency stability of the lectric power grid.    If voltage and frequency stability are not maintained, bad things will happen to many heavy duty electrical equipment in commercial and industrial applications.

Nuclear does not address this need.  Nuclear power tend to be very stable and uneconomic to vary in output once the station is on-line.  So they have very limited ability to vary their output on command to compensate for rapid changes in system load.   At the moment nuclear is also far from price competitive purely from all-in cost of energy perspective.  

Existing or perspective renewable generation technologies do not address this need either.   In fact they make the need much greater because output from renewable technologies tend to fluncturate uncontrollably at the whim of wind and weather, thus increasing the need of the power grid for other resources to rapidly change in output on command to compensate.

Hydro-electric and pumped storage power plants can at times address some of this need, but they are subject to limited availability and other constraints.

At the moment, To completely replace fossil fuel fired power plants while still maintaining power grid stability requires sizeable breakthrough in other energy storage technologies.

But were going to have to do it or suffer the consequences