Today the US Energy Information Agency reported that for the first quarter of 2012 carbon emissions in the United States fell to 1992 levels.
For those keeping score at home, the Kyoto Protocal had wistfully asked countries to set emissions targets by 2008 in reference to 1990 emissions levels. The target for the US was to get CO2 emissions in 2008 at 7% below 1990 levels. We are the only country even close to doing it, and not a single tax or cap-and-trade program implemented to do it. By the way, read the rest of the report. It tells us that emissions of CO2 from coal in the United States are now at … 1983 levels.
So let’s keep pushing for a ban on fracking. Extra credit to students who can demonstrate how many tons of CO2 emissions have been avoided from all of the solar and wind installations in the US combined over the previous decade.
I don’t get extra credit, but I’d say about 0.05% of the yearly output, when taking into consideration additional CO2 output produced by backup sources for wind and solar (which are generally less efficient then traditional generation sources). Natural gas, on the other hand, produces about half of the CO2 of an equivalent unit of coal-produced energy. The slow-down in coal is also due to other technology factors besides just the reduction of gas prices; many coal plants have reached their end of life and the technology for natural gas plants has developed considerably in the past decade. When it comes time to phase out old coal plants, it just makes more sense to switch to natural gas rather than upgrade to more modern coal (which still remains the most efficient power generation source, just far less flexible)
But, lets not fool ourselves. The Enviros and Leftists will credit this to EPA regulations, and greater “investment” into “green energy”. There is no event that happens in the world that these people do not credit to some government agency! “You didn’t build that! Somebody else made that happen!”
This all of course matters if we assume that CO2 is a negative, somehow. (which I don’t)
Personally, I remain a fan of coal plants. I took this picture a couple of weeks ago in Arizona of the Navajo Generating Station. http://www.flickr.com/photos/83020300@N05/7619572292/sizes/l/in/set-72157630689554942/