Commenting on the EPA’s plan to curtail the use of coal for power generation, Robert Samuelson immediately goes to the numbers:
Let’s do the math. In 2005, power plants produced 2,402 million metric tons of CO2. A 30 percent reduction is 721 million metric tons. This is the target. But by 2012, CO2 emissions had already dropped to 2,023 million metric tons, a decline of 379 million metric tons. That’s 53 percent of the 2030 target. All of this has occurred without federal regulation of greenhouse gases.
The average coal-fired plant is 43 years old, says the Edison Electric Institute, the trade group for utilities. Many older plants have been retired, it says, for reasons “including plant age, fuel prices (i.e., low natural gas prices), decreased demand, and the projected cost of complying with pending EPA [non-greenhouse gas] regulations.” By the institute’s count, utilities have announced the closure of coal units equal to 20 percent of the coal total. Some have already shut; others will shut between now and 2022.
Obama would continue these trends. Coal’s share of electricity generated (including from nuclear and hydro power and renewables) has dropped from 50 percent in 2005 to 39 percent in 2013; in the same period, natural gas’s share rose from 19 percent to 27 percent. By 2030, the Environmental Protection Agency projects coal will fall to 31 percent and natural gas will increase to 32 percent. Renewables’ share, led by wind and solar, goes from 5 percent to 9 percent.
That’s something but the reality is that it’s not much. It’s not enough to have much environmental impact, to have a disastrous effect on the economy, or to impel China, for example, to follow suit.
The reality which I think those concerned about climate change should accept is that nothing effective will be politically acceptable. We should devote more energies to amelioration rather than avoidance.