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posted by chromas on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-do-I-do-with-all-these-burner-inserters? dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

U.S. greenhouse emissions fell in 2017 as coal plants shut

Greenhouse gases emissions from the largest U.S. industrial plants fell 2.7 percent in 2017, the Trump administration said, as coal plants shut and as that industry competes with cheap natural gas and solar and wind power that emit less pollution.

The drop was steeper than in 2016 when emissions fell 2 percent, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said.

EPA acting administrator Andrew Wheeler said the data proves that federal regulations are not necessary to drive carbon dioxide reductions.

[...] While Wheeler gave the administration credit for the reductions, which mainly came from the power sector, the numbers also underscore that the administration has not been able to stop the rapid pace of coal plant shutdowns.

[...] Natural gas releases far less carbon dioxide when burned than coal and a domestic abundance of gas has driven a wave of closures of coal plants. In 2017 utilities shut or converted from coal-to-gas nearly 9,000 megawatts (MW) of coal plants.

[...] The trend of U.S. coal plant shutdowns is expected to pick up this year, with power companies expecting to shut 14,000 MW of coal plants in calendar year 2018.


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Thexalon on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:48PM (8 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:48PM (#750524)

    And here I was thinking the "temporary domestic abundance of gas" to have something to do with the various gasbags running this country!

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:56PM (7 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:56PM (#750529)

    The good news about fracking is the production rate increasing slope is higher than anything ever seen before, the bad news about fracking is the decline rate slope is higher than anything ever seen before, so in at most a couple decades when everything that can be fracked has been fracked and extracted, we'll be making methane out of coal...

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday October 18 2018, @05:02PM (4 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Thursday October 18 2018, @05:02PM (#750531)

      the bad news about fracking is the decline rate slope is higher than anything ever seen before

      And here I was thinking that the bad news about fracking was the earthquakes and water supply contamination.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 18 2018, @05:16PM (3 children)

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday October 18 2018, @05:16PM (#750536) Journal

        And here I was thinking that the bad news about fracking was the earthquakes and water supply contamination.

        Earthquakes are caused by wastewater injection, not fracking. Although, they are related because the injection is used to displace and extract extra gas out of the frack site. You could stop that practice without stopping fracking, though, you just get less gas.

        Water supply contamination is still largely hypothetical. Most methane infiltration into groundwater is actually natural and largely harmless. People in PA have been dealing with it just fine for decades before fracking was even invented. You do get contamination from spills and whatnot in the area surrounding fracking since it's oil and gas handling but that's not really caused by the fracking, either.

        So on the one hand fracking is good because it makes natural gas cheap enough to displace dirtier coal. But on the other, it makes natural gas so cheap we're going to keep burning it when much larger than 20% reductions become necessary.

        • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday October 18 2018, @05:35PM (1 child)

          by Sulla (5173) on Thursday October 18 2018, @05:35PM (#750551) Journal

          Any idea on the numbers for percentage increase for gas output from injecting wastewater?

          --
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          • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 18 2018, @06:30PM

            by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday October 18 2018, @06:30PM (#750578) Journal

            Any idea on the numbers for percentage increase for gas output from injecting wastewater?

            They're called enhanced recovery wells and they make up about 80% of the injection wells in the country. (20% of the injection wells in the country are disposal wells that don't recover any additional oil/gas)

            Of those 80%, you get 20-40% extra oil out.

            There are alternatives to liquid injection for enhanced recovery wells that don't have the associated earthquake risks they're just more expensive. Using C02, for example, doesn't induce earthquakes (*I seem to recall, not going to look it up though).

        • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday October 18 2018, @06:48PM

          by bob_super (1357) on Thursday October 18 2018, @06:48PM (#750585)

          > Earthquakes are caused by wastewater injection, not fracking. Although, they are related because the injection is used to displace
          > and extract extra gas out of the frack site. You could stop that practice without stopping fracking, though, you just get less gas.

          So, what you mean is that earthquakes are caused by more efficient fracking.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 18 2018, @05:09PM (1 child)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday October 18 2018, @05:09PM (#750534) Journal

      ...so in at most a couple decades when everything that can be fracked has been fracked and extracted, we'll be making methane out of coal...

      Nine decades, according to the eia.

      How much natural gas does the United States have, and how long will it last? [eia.gov]

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 19 2018, @11:28AM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 19 2018, @11:28AM (#750862)

        Unproved resources of crude oil and natural gas are additional volumes estimated to be technically recoverable without consideration of economics or operating conditions

        Yeah good luck with that.

        A good SN automobile analogy is I could rebuild the engine in my car, but I don't have the experience, tools, or money to do so. But its not been proven that I can't, so ....