Coal-fired power to steadily drop over coming decade
The database tracks greenhouse gas emitters from sectors releasing more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year in the form of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other heat-trapping gases. The 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act requires that large sources and suppliers of greenhouse gases report emissions.
Approximately 57 gigawatts of generation -- 16.8 percent of the 339 GW of total coal-fired generation in 2010 -- will be retired between 2010 and 2022, according to the Edison Electric Institute. Reasons for the closures vary from plant age to the lower cost of natural gas, decreased demand, consent degrees, settlements with EPA complaints and the projected costs of future regulatory compliance.
The top emitters have hardly changed from year to year, and seven of 2010's biggest carbon polluters are in the 2011 list. About 1,300 new facilities were required to report for the first time this year.
Last March, EPA proposed the first regulations to control carbon emissions from newly built power plants. The agency is expected to finish that rule this year and propose additional standards for existing power plants.
EPA must also propose a greenhouse gas rule for oil refineries, the third-largest emitters according to the most recent data. While the evidence from new sources is telling, EPA has yet to analyze the data in greater detail.
"It's still too soon to draw broad conclusion about this data," said Sarah Dunham, director of the Office of Atmospheric Programs at EPA.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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12 Comments
Add CommentWhat about all the methane being released by cattle? I understand it represents a substantial proportion of the total methane released to the atmosphere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe we should stop subsidizing oil and gas. Perhaps even tax them extra for these negative externalities; and from these revenues we could issue an annual check directly to each citizen. But seriously we need a clean energy revolution now!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMethane does not remain in the atmosphere it breaks down in a couple of weeks to CO2 and water. Much to do about nothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBull. The breakdown of methane is already included in the calculation, and it is over a period of a hundred years, not "a couple of weeks".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"What about all the methane being released by cattle?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure, that's a problem too. Methane emissions from fracking are in addition to cattle emissions and both require entirely distinct policies to reduce.
"It [methane] has a net lifetime of about 10 years,[38] and is primarily removed by conversion to carbon dioxide and water."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#Atmospheric_methane
Oh, and you should look at this too:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Although the methane GWP traditionally includes the methane indirect effects on the concentrations of ozone and stratospheric water vapour, it does not take into account the production of carbon dioxide from methane oxidation. We argue here that this CO2-induced effect should be included for fossil sources of methane, which results in slightly larger GWP values for all time horizons. If the global temperature change potential is used as an alternative climate metric, then the impact of the CO2-induced effect is proportionally much larger."
"The indirect global warming potential and global temperature change potential due to methane oxidation"
Boucher et al. (2009)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009ERL.....4d4007B
Yes, you are correct, the methane lifetime in the atmosphere is about 12 yrs, according to the IPCC, but the relevant number, of which I was referring is the GHG effect, which includes other reactions methane has in the atmosphere, is 20-25X that of CO2 over 100yrs, and 72x over 25 yrs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell if we summed up the CO2 released by members of Congress the total would go up astronomically.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no reason other than being cheapazz drillers, producers to leak or flare HC's from methane/NG, etc. Both it harms the air we breathe and wastes a resource for no reason other than the production company not wanting to pay the costs even if in the long run it would increase output and when NG pipelines came to the wellsite they would have it for sale to make money from.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey should be required to put them back in the ground where they would help produce more valuable oil they are on most cases actually going for.
I'll make them a deal, they can flare whatever they want to run through their home. Afterall they should get the first whack from their wastes before foisting it and it's costs on the rest of us.
"EPA published data yesterday for 2011, adding 12 new sources from the reporting program since last year's 2010 figures." Where's the link to the EPA data, and a short explanation of how the author arrives at conclusions? I want to look this up. (Also, I noticed the other links in that paragraph did not take me to closely related information. Links should be meaningful, or leave them out. Thanks.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdwbd:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo the calculations include emissions from surface & sub surface ocean volcanoes as well as the methane release from methylhydrates from the oceans.
I think that maybe the vast ongoing volcanic activity above and below the oceans surface is having the largest effect on global warming.
The effect of human action is therefore a minimum at best.
It is a matter of scale !