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U.S. Greenhouse Emissions Fell in 2017 as Coal Plants Shut

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

upstart writes:

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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Original Submission

• Re:1/3 of US Emissions are from coal (Score: 2) by Spook brat on Friday October 19 2018, @03:00AM

  by Spook brat (775) on Friday October 19 2018, @03:00AM (#750777) Journal

  Molten salt reactors, despite apparently being "really hard to do", have a failure mode of *shrug* molten salt drains into holding tank causing automatic shutdown. That, plus, they could bring about that "greenhouse gas reduction" just as easily, make me wonder what the "reasons" are for the paucity of investment and exploration into their use.

  The military has a reason for wanting traditional fission reactors: fuel supply for the Nuclear arsenal. The U.S. Government's refining process for Uranium results in three main products: weapons-grade Uranium (U235), depleted Uranium (U238. AKA DU), and fissile uranium (mix of 97% U238 + 3% U235). Conventional fission reactors are then run in a "breeder" configuration, producing Plutonium (Pu239) for use in fission bombs.

  From the perspective of the U.S. Military, molten salt reactors that don't produce DU as a byproduct of fuel production and that don't produce Pu239 as a byproduct of energy production are harmful to military readiness. As a result, you won't see much support for them from the war hawks in Congress (mostly the Republicans these days, but it's bipartisan).

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