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.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Friday October 19 2018, @02:30AM
According to the Wiki, world energy usage [wikipedia.org] was around 9*10^9 tons of oil, or 109,000TWh - that's TERA-Watt-hours - in 2015. Divide that by number of hours in a year, and that's 12-13 terawatts of power demand on average.
In comparison, only ~12,000TWh of renewable energy was used in 2015. We need to step up our renewable generation by a factor of 10 before it can replace our fossil fuel usage.
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