Soaring solar and a surge in hydro push more coal off the US grid

The first data from 2026 seem to indicate that last year was an oddity.

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[poke 532810]

Drought combined with the fact that basically all of America's hydro dams were thrown up within a 30 year time span...and all of them are reaching EOL, as structures, at the same time consequently--and there's no money to systemically rehabilitate or replace the thousand or so presently critical-rated structures now--never mind the thousands of others soon to be in the same status.

Nothing lasts forever, and dam failures will start to become more common, as a lot of those structures were privatized and handed off to groups that just defer maintenance to infinity. And even if they were kept up--man-made rock, AKA concrete, doesn't last forever. Even the genuine article doesn't.

Practical Engineering made a video about this - All Dams Are Temporary. One issue with dams is that they silt in over time and it isn’t feasible to remove all that silt. They’re also generally terrible for the environment. The sooner we can shift away from fossil fuels and dams, the better.