The preliminary EIA estimates for US electricity use in October point to even deeper carbon dioxide emission reduction than I reported last week. The data are presented in their Electric Power Flash. Although the data will be refined in the weeks ahead, these estimates have big implications on our fossil fuel consumption and thus our greenhouse gas emissions. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Electricity’
October EIA data point to rapid fall in US emissions
Saturday, December 20th, 2008EIA Announces Climate Progress in 2030 Outlook
Thursday, December 18th, 2008
The US Energy Information Agency (EIA) released a preview of yet another exciting energy document yesterday, their Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) to 2030. This year’s AEO 2009 showed dramatic shifts from last year that can help us achieve carbon emissions reduction toward stabilizing our global climate. But it also shows we have more (more…)
Electricity Use Falls a Huge 5% in September
Monday, December 15th, 2008I wrote a few months back how amazingly resilient natural gas inventories were in September despite the hurricane outages. The EIA just published an explanation in their electric power monthly data for the month. Electricity consumption fell more than 5% in September from 2007, sending natural gas demand for electricity down a staggering 15.5%! Demand for coal fell 3% and oil 19%, while hydroelectric generation (more…)
China power generation falls record amount, keeping climate hope alive
Friday, December 5th, 2008
Globalcoal.com reported today that Chinese power generation fell 7% in November from last year! Huge cuts in energy-intensive manufacturing (of aluminum, steel, etc.) and warmer than usual weather resulted in this record contraction in electricity production. The reduction in thermal plant output (mostly coal) fell an even more dramatic 14% from 2007. Thus greenhouse gas emissions in the 4th quarter of 2008 will probably be significantly below the year-ago level. This development brings hope that China, the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter, may be able to (more…)
Solar Price Falling Slowly, Natural Gas Continues Slide
Thursday, December 4th, 2008
Over at solarbuzz.com, they post module prices on a monthly basis. And while the prices of fossil fuels have fallen dramatically over the past few months, the tough economy has yet to dramatically lower solar prices. For December, US prices from last month are unchanged and prices in Europe fell less than 1%. When will prices fall significantly due to supply catching up with demand?
Solar prices have fallen dramatically over the past few decades, but they have actually increased since late 2004. US prices currently sit almost (more…)
Energy shortages creating change worldwide & US oil report
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008A number of stories today report fuel and electricity shortages changing business as usual around the world. Some of the biggest difficulties exist in Asia, where demand is growing fastest. China is facing some of its biggest coal supply difficulties since 2004 as national electricity rates are capped, preventing utilities from getting the revenue to buy more expensive supplies. Their main utility company reported that 46% of their stations have coal supplies below the “caution line” and (more…)
Gore sets ambitious target & Texas wind gets a fresh boost
Friday, July 18th, 2008So, if you haven’t seen it yet — Gore gave an excited crowd some serious goals to chew on yesterday. He proposed our country take the climate and energy crisis more seriously — and transform our electric infrastructure from being fossil fuel dominated to being 100% carbon neutral in ten years! This can definitely make headlines, and is inspiring. Is such a lofty goal the right one for America?
I’ve been advocating climate neutrality on campuses for a long time and want us to move to wind and solar as quickly as possible – but 100% carbon-free in 10 years may be too (more…)
Daily Recap: Solar Predicted to Achieve Cost Parity in Coming Decade, and more
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008A new study released today by Clean Edge, Inc., and Co-Op America projects solar power achieving grid parity by the mid-2010s. It lays out a plan for solar to reach 10% of our nation’s electricity if utilities, investors and policymakers are proactive in the effort. They predict economies of scale and learning by doing can cut costs of solar electricity generation from the current ~22 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) to less than 10 cents per kWh by 2020. And the reality is price parity may be achieved as early as 2010 if natural gas prices continue to rise at their current rate for another two years.
In other energy news, (more…)
Daily Recap: Natural Gas Prices Sky High Too
Monday, June 16th, 2008As discussed before, all fossil fuels are at historic highs currently. Natural gas is the only major fuel that is not at an all-time high in the US — but that record could be broken this winter, if not before. The key reasons emerge from both supply and demand.
On the demand side, our consumption is rising swiftly. After a 6.5% leap in consumption in 2007 (almost half of global demand growth), the EIA predicts another 2.2% of demand growth in 2008.
On the supply side, (more…)