Solar cheap as chips

In 2009 solar power was 3.2 times as expensive as coal.  In 2018,  it's the other way round: coal is 2.4 times as expensive as solar, and by next year will be 3.3 times as expensive (unsubsidised costings.) 

In the space of 11 years, the cost disadvantage of solar has completely inverted.  In 2009, we would only build solar for environmental reasons.  Now we will build it for economic reasons, whether we believe in global warming or not.   And by 2020, the lowest operating cost of coal power stations will be above the total cost of a brand-new solar farm.  There will be no point in running any existing coal power stations, no matter how "young" they are.  By 2020, 12 hours of storage will add just $14/MWh or less to the cost of solar, allowing the production of "firm" power without using fossil fuels, far more cheaply than we could build new coal power stations, or, for that matter, new gas-fired power stations too.

This is why I am convinced that in 20 years there will be no working coal power stations.  Not because of global warming (though that will be a factor), not because mining, transporting and burning coal is so filthy (though there is that too) but because solar plus storage will be so cheap.

Reason for optimism about global warming on a day when I am depressed and oppressed by another record-hot Ozzie summer and a right-wing government which not only denies the reality of climate change but also thinks coal is the way forward.