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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.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday October 18 2018, @05:55PM
Scientifically, he's an idiot in the first place, scumbag in the second (maybe as a consequence of the first).
Synthetic fuel comes with a high energy cost, reducing the overall efficiency of directly burning that coal.
On top of that, large coal electrical plants will be able to squeeze more efficiency than an ICE.
Even if you'd use the energy produced by a coal plant to reduce alumina to aluminium and then "burn" that aluminium back to oxide into an aluminium-air battery [wikipedia.org] you'll be better off in energy efficiency and environmental cost than going from coal to synthesis fuel to ICE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0