This chart shows total US greenhouse gas emissions—nearly all of it CO2 and methane—for the past two decades by sector:
Emissions peaked in 2007 and have fallen 12% since then, due almost exclusively to the fact that we've cut our use of coal-fired power plants in half.¹ These coal plants have largely been replaced by renewables, which are carbon-free, and combined-cycle gas-fired plants, powered by fracked natural gas, which emit about half as much CO2 per kWh of electricity generation as coal.
¹Industry has also gotten about 10% more energy efficient.
Now redraw the graph as per capita. It will look even better.
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Now, add a line at where the total needs to be…. The UN says something like 18 gigatons worldwide. We (the United States) are something like 5% of the population. So, 0.9 gt or 900 MMT to use the units of the chart. Only 6100 MMT to go.
It feels like we're on the verge of having to buy out the IP of SMRs and have an off the shelf reactor that can be purchased directly through the US government, built by private industry at cost-plus. Maybe do that with solar, too. A Marshall plan for Climate.
Yeah, instead of using cheap renewables, we could just use really expensive fission.
Transportation is down too, by about 9% from 2005. This is mainly because of passenger cars, which are down by 33%. Part of this is because of the shift to light-duty trucks, which are about the same, but part must be due to increasing mileage standards and the gains of hybrids, PHEVs, and EVs. There are big gains coming there as people realize that EVs are much better cars. They are faster, quieter, need less maintenance, and will soon be cheaper.
The big gains in lighting efficiency from the use of LEDs instead of incandescents are also phasing in. That change produces the 80% reduction needed to meet the goals of 2050. We need to make that 80% change everywhere, but the technology is largely there.
> Emissions peaked in 2007 and have fallen 12% since then, due almost exclusively to the fact that we've cut our use of coal-fired power plants in half.
Or, in other words, the low-hanging fruit has mostly been picked. We might get another 5-8% as remaining coal-fired electric plants are gradually retired. Then it gets hard. But we've got 12 years to make Biden's pledge of net-zero electricity by 2035!
Not at all. The ground-work has been laid and will roll out increasingly faster. We'll get another 12% as the remainder of coal plants are retired. Transportation and industrial improvements will start to accelerate, and we'll start seeing improvements in Gas.
How do I read this chart? Do residential, commercial, industrial and ag not use gas and coal? I know I use gas (directly and via electricity), and if I lived elsewhere, I'd be using coal (via electricity). The same goes for the other sectors. So what do those gas and coal numbers actually represent?
Even transportation is suspect, because electric cars use gas and/or coal to charge up.
I assume that 'Gas' and 'Coal' mean for electrical generation, 'Residential' means gas usage for heating, cooking etc. in homes. If we had only electric vehicles, then transportation would be 0 but then Gas and Coal would have to be much larger to compensate unless it's replaced with renewables or nuclear.