Is coal the cheapest energy source?

Answer 1

From a practical standpoint, there is no cheaper source of dependable energy then coal. This ignores environmental impacts and mining accidents though.

Wind and solar have very high up front costs and require other sources of energy to maintain the steady stream supply, thus they are still not practical for more then small portion of power. Many of these systems never return the initial investment of the generators.

Nuclear energy is actually very cheap, from a operating standpoint, but ecological and waste storage costs increase the overall costs. Adding the cost of creating massive waste lands is hard to quantify, but is certainly expensive/

Oil is also a possible energy source, but major deposits in the United States have no been exploited as of yet and political stability in other regions raise transporting costs and creates wars.

Answer 2

Coal has traditionally been considered a cheap energy source due to its abundance and low cost of extraction. However, the overall cost of coal energy production, including environmental and health impacts, is often higher than renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. In recent years, the declining cost of renewable energy technologies has made them competitive with coal in many regions.