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1. Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Feb-2023 03:31:09 JST Sean Casten

   Every year or so I update this chart and it never ceases to amaze me. On an annualized basis (so adjusted for seasonality) renewables contribute more to our grid than coal. And that's about to be true even for more variable non-hydro sources.

   • Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Feb-2023 03:31:07 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     Indeed, way back in 2008 I predicted that coal was going to fall off a cliff & CO2 emissions were going to fall because of those economics and because we'd built out so much gas/CCGT power during the prior decade. https://grist.org/article/beyond-coal/

   • Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Feb-2023 03:31:07 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     To be sure, I did not anticipate the surge of new renewables which (thankfully!) allowed us to reduce GHG emissions faster than we would have if we relied only on natural gas. But that transition was also market-driven. Cleaner is cheaper, and markets like cheap.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Feb-2023 03:31:07 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     This isn't a victory lap. For all the progress we've made, we aren't decarbonizing fast enough. But there is optimism to be taken in the fact that markets work and innovators innovate once you get rid of distorting fossil fuel subsidies. And we have *a lot* more to get rid of.

   • Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Feb-2023 03:31:08 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     Meanwhile, virtually all of the progress that the US has made to lower our CO2 footprint is because of coal's demise. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45453

   • Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Feb-2023 03:31:08 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     Related: when you hear people say that transportation is the biggest source of US GHG emissions. That's true. But only because the electric sector has gotten so much cleaner. Again, because of coal's demise. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45836

   • Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Feb-2023 03:31:08 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     The irony / tragedy is that this DID NOT really happen because of environmental laws (or at least none subsequent to the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act). Investors haven't been able to justify new coal investments for decades. The fleet is old.

   • Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Feb-2023 03:31:08 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     The big driver was the 1992 Energy Policy Act and the subsequent market reforms through FERC 888 that - for the first time - gave the electric industry an economic incentive to profit from low cost generation. Freed from monopoly regulation, they stopped building dumb stuff.

   • Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Feb-2023 03:31:09 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     There is an entire political economy analysis to be done here. King Coal reigned supreme for so long that they extracted massive subsidies from state, local and federal government. They would have died much sooner without it. But they still punch way above their weight.

   • Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Feb-2023 03:31:09 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     Consider how many boondoggle coal-with-carbon-capture projects still get built. What other industry that lost 30% market share in just over 10 years still convinces politicians that they'll be fine if they can just get one last fix?