[Climate Change] Power Plant CO2 Emissions at 27-year low

Cohete Rojo · Aug 8, 2015

Much the reduction in CO2 from power plants comes at a time when natural gas is replacing coal generation at such a rate that at times it generates more electricity than does coal.

Furthermore, I find it odd that the people yapping about the obvious and imminent dangers of CO2 (which never require sources for those claims because we all "know" that it is so gonna happen) seem to be at times the same people yapping about how fracking has ruined every aquifer in the country (which again is a claim that requires no source because we all just "know" that it is true).

Monthly power sector carbon dioxide emissions reach 27-year low in April

The electric power sector emitted 128 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MMmt CO2) in April 2015, the lowest for any month since April 1988, according to the most recent estimates in EIA's Monthly Energy Review.

In any year, April is typically the month with the lowest carbon dioxide emissions from the electric power sector, mainly because of mild weather, as low heating and cooling demand are reflected in low overall electricity demand. Two fuels, coal and natural gas, account for almost all the carbon dioxide emissions from the electric power sector. In April 2015, electricity generation from both coal and natural gas fell from their March values, but because coal fell more than natural gas (18% versus 6%, respectively), generation from natural gas surpassed generation from coal in April.

The consumption of the primary fuel, not necessarily the amount of electricity generation, is the appropriate metric from an emissions perspective. Because natural gas plants are now about 25% to 30% more efficient than coal plants (in terms of heat rates, or the energy content needed to produce a unit of electricity), coal's share of coal and natural gas energy use for power generation exceeded its share of combined generation. Despite lower generation, use of coal for power generation exceeded use of natural gas for that purpose in April.

The two fuels also have different carbon dioxide emissions intensities. Generating electricity from coal produces 71% to 79% more carbon dioxide emissions than generation using natural gas. In April, consumption of natural gas in the electric power sector accounted for 36.4 MMmt CO2, while coal use accounted for 89.4 MMmt CO2

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Major · Aug 8, 2015

So you're saying Obama started a war on coal, coal production started dropping post-election, natural gas continued increasing, CO2 emissions dropped, energy prices didn't soar, and it didn't destroy the economy? Sounds like one party was right and the other was wrong.

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[Climate Change] Power Plant CO2 Emissions at 27-year low

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