There’s a funny misconception hanging around that coal provides almost all of the electricity for the USA, or at least most of it. Those who love to hate on electric vehicles are fond of saying that EVs are powered by coal. A decade or two ago, yes, that was much … [continued]
Looking at official figures from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and adding in a CleanTechnica estimate for small-scale solar power additions, we conclude that 71% of new power capacity additions in the United States came from solar power and wind power in October. Month-to-month variations in new power additions can … [continued]
We forecast the U.S. energy sector to emit about 4,790 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2023, a 3% decrease from 2022. Much of this decline results from lower electricity generation from coal-fired power plants due to higher generation from renewable sources such as solar power. We expect … [continued]
Operators have scheduled 14.9 gigawatts (GW) of electric generating capacity to retire in the United States during 2022, according to our latest inventory of electric generators. The majority of the scheduled retirements are coal-fired power plants (85%), followed by natural gas (8%) and nuclear (5%). Coal. After substantial retirements of U.S. … [continued]
Coal stockpiles at U.S. electric power plants totaled 80 million tons at the end of September, the lowest monthly level since March 1978. As U.S. coal plants have retired and remaining plants are used less, the country’s total coal stockpiles have declined. In addition, increased electricity generation by coal plants … [continued]
Renewable energy’s contribution to United States electricity supply has been growing for years. In just the past three years, renewable energy’s share of US electricity generation in the first quarter of the year has grown by more than three percentage points, from 18.4% in Q1 2019 to 21.6% in Q1 … [continued]
Following our US Power Capacity Report for the first two months of 2020, which showed that 99.7% of new US power capacity came from solar and wind, we’ve got a US Electricity Generation Report that is much less uplifting. Aside from the fact that 11% is a lot lower than … [continued]
How has US electricity generation from solar power, wind power, coal power, natural gas, and nuclear shifted in the past 11 years? Let me show you.
2020 US electricity generation data are in from the US Energy Information Administration. Crunching the numbers, renewable energy accounted for 20.6% of US electricity generation last year. That was led by wind power, which accounted for 8.3% of US electricity generation, followed by hydropower at 7.2% and solar power at … [continued]
In 2019, the Navajo Generating Station closed. Decades earlier, it was blamed for hazing up the views of the Grand Canyon, and causing other environmental ills. While they worked to clean up the plant’s emissions, it still became a posterchild for the ills of coal power generation and even pollution … [continued]
