Comment by russellbeattie

I was honestly surprised that Hawaii even had a coal plant. A 500Mwh plant uses 4,500 tons of coal per day - 45 train cars of coal per day. That all had to be shipped in by boat. But just looking it up, apparently a single "capsize" ship can haul 180,000 tons, so only about a dozen could supply a powerplant for a year.

Every time I think of how much coal is used in generating power, I shudder. Have you ever seen a photo of the coal going into a plant? The train cars stretch for miles. All that carbon just going into the atmosphere. We can't switch to renewables soon enough.