Originally Posted by SideStickMonkey

Well China is leaning heavy into renewables. No one is claiming renewables are cheap, just renewable.

Nuclear is a great option (as I've been advocating for) but also very expensive to build. While microreactors are coming, they aren't here yet and really are only a good idea in remote areas. Besides that the traditional plant makes sense but those take name and money while not even discussing nimbyism. You're obviously a Navy guy so you've been around nuclear power. There's still drawbacks but the goods outweigh the negatives.

We had solar panels on my house in Florida in the 1980s. California is putting solar farms over aqueducts which provide a double win: no extra land required and the microclimate from the cool water helps keep the cells more efficient.

And no matter how you burn coal, it's not clean, has nasty by products. The entire world has moved on from coal. China has even realized they need to move on from coal.