Over the past decade the electric power industry has seen a dramatic drop in the usage of coal and its replacement by NG and renewables. Coal represented 1,847 TWh of generation in 2010 and dropped all the way to 966 TWh in 2019. Because of this CO2 from the electric sector has also dropped dramatically from 2,270 MMT in 2010 to 1619 MMT in 2019. This is a remarkable average of about 70 MMT per year.
Why don't we hear more about this remarkable transition.? Do people think it is a short-term blip and we will go back to "normal" anyday now? Maybe part of this skepticism come from the annual EIA reports which every year show a miraculous recovery "coming soon" for the coal industry and therefore a flattening of CO2 decline.
What's gonna happen in the real world - where will US CO2 emissions be in 2030? Well, if we continue with the same average drop that we have seen for the last 9 years (70MMT/year) then US CO2 emission will drop by 770 MMT over the next 11 years. This would mean that US CO2 emissions in 2030 would be 1619MMT - 770MMT = 850MMT. Wow! Well on our way to having a carbon-free electricity sector by 2050.
Some might say - you are just extrapolating a trend - we have been lucky over the past 9 years - that's not gonna continue. How do we squeeze 770MMT out of the US CO2 Electricity market over the next 11 years? By continuing to replace coal. Plus replace slightly more of it with renewables than we did in last decade.
Coal generated 973 MMT of CO2 in 2019 vs 619 MMT vs NG. So, we need to replace almost all of this coal by 2030 and not add a lot of new NG generation. In other words, replace most of the coal generation with renewables. We do the same thing that has been done for the last decade. Keep shutting down coal plants and keep building renewable projects. Nothing miraculous - just steady progress.
We are now 4 months into 2020. How are we doing so far?
Although the Covid shutdown starting in March will make this an unusual year we do have normal Jan-Feb data. Coal usage thru is down 33% Y-Y and CO2 emissions for January were down 30MMT Y-Y. Way ahead of schedule!