Quicker coal power

In January, an 18-wheeler truck was scheduled to pull into Mexico City, nearing the end of an international road show spreading the gospel of General Electric´s nimble new gas turbines. A key message was that GE´s FlexEfficiency natural-gasfired power plants can complement fluctuating wind and solar energy far better than their coal-fired brethren. The latter clearly need their own PR road show to shake their reputation as laggards when it comes to boosting or throttling back electric power generation. That´s because engineering firms are improving the agility of coal-fired power plants, and the best are hot on the GE model´s heels.