US coal 'biggest contributor by far' to rise in global emissions(thechemicalengineer.com) |
US coal 'biggest contributor by far' to rise in global emissions(thechemicalengineer.com) |
This is all we want.
Not sure where this fixation on new nuclear comes from?
I think people like nuclear because, over the last half century, CO2 emissions per capita have been drastically lower in the places nuclear has a larger energy share, like France.
Ignoring the enormous cost, and long build times, plus the fact that when it gets hot they have to be turned off like last Summer.
Yeah, they have their place, but renewables are the real hero here.
It made them feel much better, so now they need to desperately avoid learning anything about either renewables or nuclear power because their ego will collapse if confronted with reality.
I'm not anti-nuclear (if it's "done right"), but the economics of it are not very competitive. I think it's a technology we should not abandon (I'd love to see SMRs find a way to be viable and secure).
Iceland on the other hand....
> US scraps limits on emissions from coal and gas power plants
https://openenergyhub.ornl.gov/explore/dataset/eia-860-data/...
U.S. coal-fired generating capacity retired in 2025 was the least in 15 years - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67427 - April 13th, 2026
Planned retirements of U.S. coal-fired electric-generating capacity to increase in 2025 - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64604 - February 25, 2025
~182GW of coal generation capacity remains to be retired, as of this comment, per EIA's Form EIA-860 generator dataset. The DOE was illegally mandating must run for the below coal generators, which should now be able to close due to a recent judicial ruling.
Michigan coal plant [J.H. Campbell] set to close was illegally kept open - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49666023 - September 2026
J.H. Campbell Units 1, 2 and 3 in Michigan (1,331 MW)
Transalta Centralia Unit 2 in Washington (670 MW)
R.M. Schahfer Units 17 and 18 in Indiana (722 MW)
F.B. Culley Unit 2 in Indiana (90 MW)
Craig Unit 1 in Colorado (427 MW)And loosening pollution rules "because AI needs more power" should lead to torches and pitchforks.
Not many coal generators (~182GW) [4] and mines [5] in the US left to go. Keep going. Fossil gas gets pushed out next.
(If the US replaced all of the ag land it uses for biofuels, about the size of Oregon, with solar PV, it would produce more power than the entire country consumes while being wildly more efficient)
[1] https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/idaho-coun...
[2] https://www.datawrapper.de/_/vecRk/ ("755 counties have ordinances against renewables, and 61% of those counties are rural.")
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49644302 (citations)
[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49704064 (citations)
[5] https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=03b7a02fb9c24967918...
("Progress occurs one funeral at a time." -- Max Planck)
Map: https://www.nlr.gov/docs/libraries/gis/high-res-images/geoth...
There's plenty of geothermal in the US to be tapped into, we just need to invest more in it. It then becomes the perfect baseload utility.
I think the US is going to find itself with a bunch of stranded fossil fuel infrastructure (expensive but now worthless) and hyperinflation. Countries that ten years ago would see the US as an old ally which has fallen on hard times will instead see a traitor getting what was coming and turn a blind eye.
