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Coal. Coal should be over as a fuel, no ifs ands or buts. Arguing for coal right now is like arguing that whale oil is still a viable fuel.
The US has been completely eclipsed by other countries who are now making more or less free electricity from wind and solar. All arguments against them have been debunked to hell, if they were at all true we wouldn't see China now mostly running of of renewables. While we listened to fossil fuel lobbyists push propaganda they were getting ahead.
The issue with wind/solar is that they lack consistency, they are fantastic when the wind blows and it is sunny, but you can't count on the output.
Nuclear on the other hand is highly consistent and way more environmentally friendly, the waste storage is a solved problem, and far easier to manage than the ash from coal plants.
It is insane how energy dense uranium is, and while the waste is dangerous, it is a tiny amount when compared to the ash from coal plants.
So yeah, get rid of coal/oil/gas power generation, replace it with nuclear, use the interim period until nuclear material has run out to build out the wind/solar capacity, and add battery storage facilities to enable consistent output.
Solar plus battery is much cheaper than nuclear. And it adds immediately. Nuclear takes years and doesn’t come online til the project is finished. Solar comes online incrementally and can be anywhere.
True, however I live in northern Europe, even with huge batteries and large solar infrastructure, I have doubts that it will be enough during winters.
Also I am annoyed at the anti nuclear crowd who for decades prevented nuclear power from being built, and increased our use of fossils.
I shouldn't let it cloud my general judgement of solar however.
Iceland pretty much runs on thermal energy. You can also use hydroelectric dams, tidal energy and wind energy. And a lot of countries are using that instead of fossil fuel. Of course, there's lunatics like Merz, who wants to literally replace renewables with nuclear, but the less said about that b-st-rd the better.
Well planned hydroelectric dams are fantastic, but they do disrupt ecosystems quite badly.