This is John Batchel, conversation with colleague Bud Weinstein, retired from the Maguire Energy Institute at the SMU,

talking about, writing about baseload, that is the power, baseload power that you have 24-7,

unlike renewables that are intermittent, unlike some aspects of the natural gas chain

that are very expensive and vulnerable as they were in the winter of 2021 in Texas. Texas, I learn,

is a very large renewable state, number one or number two in both solar and wind. So what we're looking at is

they've tried that model. They need base load power for the moments of crisis, especially because

the predictions are of a very hot summer and outages. Texas needs lots of energy in all directions. Here's Bud to

explain about coal as a transition to the day when we have enough renewables and backup base load

to carry the ever-increasing the large demand on electricity outage in the U.S.

Bud Weinstein.

More of this later.

Coal has gotten a bad rap, and some of us deserved.

I mean, coal plants do produce more particulates, more carbon dioxide, than natural gas,

and other types of power generation.

But I think there's a growing recognition that we need to keep the nations remaining coal plants online.

I say remaining because in 2010 there were about 500 coal-fired power plants operating across the United States, and today there are only 200.

So we've lost thousands of megawatts of power generation, and importantly, baseload power generation.

By baseload, we mean generation that's available 24-7, unlike renewables that are intermittent.