LCOE is based on total operating costs of new electric power generation station over a 20+ year operation life. There are obviously a lot of assumptions in these sorts of analyses but Nat Gas is projected to become cheaper than Coal over the life of a new project, which some of that is expected to be due to carbon taxes.
LCOE has some flaws as a comparable number when comparing wind and solar to fossil fuels, but is good for understanding what will be cheapest to build of fuel based generation.
And you are correct, price is specific to geography and availability of each. My blanket statement of “coal being the cheapest fuel” is over generalized and not universally correct.
For current existing power stations, coal is cheapest of the fuels. The EIA numbers are here and here’s Statista research here on the historical cost of nat gas vs coal specifically
Using USA-only statistics in a thread about Slovakia and the UK is disingenuous at best.
We’re both correct.
LCOE is based on total operating costs of new electric power generation station over a 20+ year operation life. There are obviously a lot of assumptions in these sorts of analyses but Nat Gas is projected to become cheaper than Coal over the life of a new project, which some of that is expected to be due to carbon taxes.
LCOE has some flaws as a comparable number when comparing wind and solar to fossil fuels, but is good for understanding what will be cheapest to build of fuel based generation.
For current existing power stations, coal is cheapest of the fuels. The EIA numbers are here and here’s Statista research here on the historical cost of nat gas vs coal specifically which is frustratingly why coal phase outs have been so slow. Keeping existing coal plants operating is cheaper than building new almost anything.
And you are correct, price is specific to geography and availability of each. My blanket statement of “coal being the cheapest fuel” is over generalized and not universally correct.
Using USA-only statistics in a thread about Slovakia and the UK is disingenuous at best.