We know the democrats are at war with the coal industry. This is one reason WV Senator Manchin has distanced himself from the democrat party. Heck, Manchin comes from a small coal mining town. I didn't know about the "amount of coal fired plants taken off line though in the last 5 years" though. This would have cut into Trump's administration. I'll have to check this out. I can envision Biden doing this though. My question is what is replacing these plants?

Germany not too long ago scrapped all of their nuclear power plants. In the US, there have been a few I'm aware of that were finally taken off line. Nuclear energy is 'dirty' in the sense that there is no real solution for the spent fuel rods. which end up being stored on site. The NRC reports that there is over 71,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in more than 30 states. Illinois has 9,301 tons of spent nuclear fuel at its power plants, the most of any state in the country, according to industry figures. It is followed by Pennsylvania with 6,446 tons; 4,290 in South Carolina and roughly 3,780 tons each for New York and North Carolina.

Most all of this is stored on-site at nuclear power plants across the nation either in cooling pools or dry casket storage. None of these storage methods is a solution to long-term storage. Cooling pools require a constant supply of fresh water. It should be no surprise that 'fossil' fuels run the pumps for constantly moving fresh water. The Fukushima disaster occurred because the "fail-safe" backup power for the pumps lost power resulting in the several cooling pools to evaporate exposing the spent fuel rods to air.

I've gotten heat in the past for saying the following, but to me it indicates the amount of nuke-heads and government commentators are at GAW. Here it is:

Nuclear power is heavily subsidized by the government and without it could NEVER be profitable. There is far more to nuclear power than its expensive energy. The integral byproduct of this energy is radiation that causes "aging" to the containment vessels themselves. This means the containment vessels become fatigued and brittle well before the normal life expectancy. This is why the Hanford site and the Diablo Nuclear power plant alarmingly found cracks and leaks in the units. Science has no solution to this. Yet, the NRC keeps extending the life of existing nuke plants well beyond their life expectancy. Tick, tick, tick.........

In thinking about your statement above, removing the public from 'fossil' fuels and nuclear would mean relying on alternative forms of energy. The democrats really don't have a plan except for the plan of destruction and returning us to the dark ages. Wind and solar energy is fickle and not reliable. Electric cars have to be energized by some source of energy that is not at an economy of scale. 'Fossil' fuels as much as I believe is a primitive energy source and we have the ability to do so much better, we won't see it as long as the financial cabal's continues its rein over greed and controlling every aspect of our lives.