4 ms·

This is great news, but people should understand that this is largely being driven by fracking, not renewables, so it's not without environmental consequence.

This is great news, but people should understand that this is largely being driven by fracking, not renewables, so it's not without environmental consequence. (Fracking lowered the price of natural gas in the US tremendously, which has made it more cost effective compared to coal.) Also, as the US moves away from coal and towards natural gas, we haven't exactly left our coal in the ground -- we've just increased exports so it is consumed abroad.

catawbasam 11y ago
US coal exports are dropping. According to the EIA, we exported 97,256,746 tons in 2014 but only 73,957,888 tons in 2015, a drop of 24% source: https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/pdf/t7p01p1.pdf https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/pdf/t7p01p1.pd...
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  China's coal imports have fallen off a cliff: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/new-china-energy-data-coal-imports-down-a-further-10-30570 http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/new-china-energy-data-coal-i... http://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-trade-coal-idUSL3N14X1TC20160113 http://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-trade-coal-idUS... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/china-coal-imports-crash-as-economy-slows-amid-clean-power-shift http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/china-coal... China is also going head long into renewables: http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/06/china-renewable-growth-soars-fossil-fuel-use-declines/ http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/06/china-renewable-growth-s...
- nostromo 11y ago
  Zoom out a bit and look at the broader trend. Coal exports were at record highs for several years, but have indeed come down a bit since China's economy slowed.
NickM 11y ago
Increased efficiency is definitely a contributing factor as well. It's very inspiring to see that our population and economy have both grown, yet demand for electricity has remained flat.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
It's extremely hard to find unbiased reportage on fracking, but Wikipedia has a total of four* groundwater incidents, none of which seem to be slam-dunk conclusive one way or the other. And even if they're all due to fracking, coal is a whole lot worse. Coal companies are failing left and right. *most of which appear to be peripheral to fracking proper; fracking possibly enabled the activity which led to an incident in most cases. It doesn't help that the film "Gasland" is chock fill of disinformation. It may be that remotely deployed water treatment at frack sites is the answer to both fracking effluent and injection wells. But this is one of those cases where when somebody does have accurate information, they're suspected of flackery because of who they are. We all knew ( or should have known ) that fracking was to be used to enable gas as a bridge between coal and alts. It's not going to be perfect, but it's doubtless an improvement.

catawbasam 11y ago

US coal exports are dropping. According to the EIA, we exported 97,256,746 tons in 2014 but only 73,957,888 tons in 2015, a drop of 24% source: https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/pdf/t7p01p1.pdf https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/pdf/t7p01p1.pd...

toomuchtodo 11y ago
China's coal imports have fallen off a cliff: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/new-china-energy-data-coal-imports-down-a-further-10-30570 http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/new-china-energy-data-coal-i... http://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-trade-coal-idUSL3N14X1TC20160113 http://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-trade-coal-idUS... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/china-coal-imports-crash-as-economy-slows-amid-clean-power-shift http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/china-coal... China is also going head long into renewables: http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/06/china-renewable-growth-soars-fossil-fuel-use-declines/ http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/06/china-renewable-growth-s...
nostromo 11y ago
Zoom out a bit and look at the broader trend. Coal exports were at record highs for several years, but have indeed come down a bit since China's economy slowed.

NickM 11y ago

Increased efficiency is definitely a contributing factor as well. It's very inspiring to see that our population and economy have both grown, yet demand for electricity has remained flat.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

It's extremely hard to find unbiased reportage on fracking, but Wikipedia has a total of four* groundwater incidents, none of which seem to be slam-dunk conclusive one way or the other. And even if they're all due to fracking, coal is a whole lot worse. Coal companies are failing left and right. *most of which appear to be peripheral to fracking proper; fracking possibly enabled the activity which led to an incident in most cases. It doesn't help that the film "Gasland" is chock fill of disinformation. It may be that remotely deployed water treatment at frack sites is the answer to both fracking effluent and injection wells. But this is one of those cases where when somebody does have accurate information, they're suspected of flackery because of who they are. We all knew ( or should have known ) that fracking was to be used to enable gas as a bridge between coal and alts. It's not going to be perfect, but it's doubtless an improvement.