Coal production in Appalachia emits 1 million tons a year of potent greenhouse gas. It isn't CO2.

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7. Yup

A combined natural gas plant in rough figures is $1B and can be run by 2 dozen workers. A comparable coal plant would be about $6B to build and need hundreds of workers. A nuclear plant would cost more than $20B and employ 300+ not counting the thousands or workers to change out the fuel rods. So if you were a bank or large equity company, knowing the price of electricity from each plant would fetch the same price, which would you give the loan to?

What will be interesting to see is what the development costs will be for the new off-shore wind farms. I think they will come in at the several billion dollar range. If they become cheaper to build than combined cycle plants then that market will grind to a halt just like coal has.