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.