US Coal Power Plants Drop Below 50% Utilization For First Time Ever

[Economy 52,928]

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/insideclimatenews.org/news/07032020/coal-plant-closings-eia-clean-energy-transition%3famp

 

Coal being the most toxic of all the fossil fuels is the biggest target of environmentalists when it comes to the electric grid

 

On that note the US reached a new milestone last year... While every year Coal Plants are being shutdown, another reduction being seen is the utilization rate meaning for how many hours a day are the plants actually running

 

[/b]Of the 310 Coal plants still in operation the average utilization rate fell to 47.5% last year the first time it has dropped below 50%[/b]

 

In many jurisdictions the Coal plants still open are now only running during highest demand hours to fill in the gaps and then are shut off the rest of the day.

 

One obstacle to shutting the remaining plants even faster is that many plants are still have remaining mortgage payments left on them from their building and some from environmental retrofits meaning forcing companies to close them now means they would owe still be owing money on the plant as they close. Some States say they are looking for a way to address this problem

[Economy 52,928]

In my Country I think only 1 Province (Alberta) still has several Coal Plants

 

We have a lot of natural gas tho. Would be nice to reduce that as much as possible

[LilMonst3r 5,688]

Imagine if Trump never cut funding to the research and development of renewable energy. We would be closer to not needing coal at all. New jobs would have been available and the technology would be more advanced. 

[PartySick 173,154]

9 minutes ago, myluis617 said:

Imagine if Trump never cut funding to the research and development of renewable energy. We would be closer to not needing coal at all. New jobs would have been available and the technology would be more advanced. 

And the US would benefit from being a global leader in that industry.

But I guess burning 300 million year old trees to keep the lights on is cool too, whatevs

[Economy 52,928]

27 minutes ago, myluis617 said:

Imagine if Trump never cut funding to the research and development of renewable energy. We would be closer to not needing coal at all. New jobs would have been available and the technology would be more advanced. 

I mean... The effects of funding cuts for research take time to translate into actual trends

 

Whatever Trump did to reduce those budgets wouldn't have affected last year's Coal usage rates yet

 

Whatever he did when he came into office with those kinds of programs will only have a real major impact relative to what would have happened going into this new decade now

 

If Trump hadn't cut green research budgets it would still be about the same now...

 

Cuts to investment subsities for actual building, that on the other hand has an impact more quickly. That's where effects could have started to be felt by now if he reduced those budgets