So what? What the US does makes no difference. China, India, and Africa will build and use coal fired generating plants at an ever increasing rate. American sacrifices are just meaningless.
In your last sentence you wrote: "it is the number of fossil fuel power plants that matters most." That is not quite right. It is the total CO2 output of all US fossil fuel plants that matters, but not all fossil fuel plants are the same. Some are much larger, with more capacity than others, and some burn coal while others burn natural gas. Closing small gas plants first, while preserving large coal plants for later is not the same as prioritizing large coal plants for closure.
So what? What the US does makes no difference. China, India, and Africa will build and use coal fired generating plants at an ever increasing rate. American sacrifices are just meaningless.
In your last sentence you wrote: "it is the number of fossil fuel power plants that matters most." That is not quite right. It is the total CO2 output of all US fossil fuel plants that matters, but not all fossil fuel plants are the same. Some are much larger, with more capacity than others, and some burn coal while others burn natural gas. Closing small gas plants first, while preserving large coal plants for later is not the same as prioritizing large coal plants for closure.
Man made CO2 has absolutely nothing to do with Climate change or warming.
Although contrails in metropolitan areas do actually shield the sun from warming in the afternoon. Also can help retain heat in the evening
How much natural gas increase is driven by the need to provide backup for intermittent renewables?
Isn't it obvious that the only way to move in the direction of net zero is a large increase in nuclear generation?