Reversing a Trend of a Dozen Years, Emissions in U.S. Rose in 2018

Market conditions are forcing the shuttering of coal plants, which are being replaced by natural gas and renewable energy.  So why do we have a reversal of the trend towards lower emissions that began in 2005?

In this podcast, my colleague Stephen Lacey of Greentech Media fame speaks with Brad Plumer, energy and environment reporter at The New York Times.  The answer is an interesting and complicated set of things.

2018 was anomalously cold causing a spike in natural gas consumption.

Though most new energy plants being built today are solar and wind, getting mass amounts of power from these sources will take some time.

A new GW of solar or wind is going to have less output than the same amount of natural gas, due to the higher capacity factor of the latter.

Electrifying cars and trucks will be wonderful, and we’re headed in that direction; that’s happening both on its own, and its being pulled along by autonomous vehicles.  Yet passenger cars and trucks are only about one-quarter of the entire emissions package associated with transportation (which just surpassed industrial consumption as the greatest emissions contributor).

Unfortunately, we haven’t decoupled energy emissions growth from economic growth, and that won’t happen until fossil fuels are largely out of the equation.

New buildings, especially in progressive states, are built according to strong energy consumption standards, but the turnover in buildings is far longer than cars, appliances, industrial equipment, HVAC systems, or any other entity relevant to the discussion.

Led by California, the large states are doing a good job in crafting and implementing policies that lower emissions, but without help from the federal government, they are powerless to get us on track to meet our goals set in Paris and other places.

This discussion goes on for some time, culminating with some answers to the question: “If you were king of the U.S. vis-a-vis energy, what is the first thing you would attack?”  I don’t want to give that away, and it’s worth waiting for.  Great job.