You've convinced me. Complaints about regulations and coal are a distraction and a dodge. There's no future in which newly-constructed coal generators are profitable, except for niche applications. I think that complaining about coal regulations is just a way to avoid facing reality. The large coal companies have already gone bankrupt recently; they will continue to go through restructuring for years as the sector shrinks massively.

For natural gas, and for oil (transportation), we will see similar death throes as the carbon-free alternatives become cheaper than natural gas and oil. That's probably 15 years out, but the time will come, with or without the carbon tax.