

US Carbon Emissions Hit 20-Year Low - neya
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jiAA4g1Rux_vlMhI1dxbazNbGneg?docId=da1399edab7b42ef9f0269ea5a3ca224

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j_baker
_Power plants that burn coal produce more than 90 times as much sulfur
dioxide, five times as much nitrogen oxide and twice as much carbon dioxide as
those that run on natural gas, according to the Government Accountability
Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Sulfur dioxide causes acid rain and
nitrogen oxides lead to smog._

You know, the more I read about it, the more I think fracking gets an
undeserved bad rap. Certainly there are some concerns over the environmental
impact drilling has, but the rewards seem to make perfecting the technology a
no-brainer: cheap, abundant, clean fuel that will at least slow global warming
down (if not cure it completely). Plus, we have enough of the stuff that we
could extract and refine it in the US.

~~~
astrodust
Coal is also extracted through mountain-top removal which is extremely
damaging to communities. Start with a mountain and a valley, end up with a
toxic wasteland.

That said, the consequences of fracking could be far, far worse. It's
understood what coal does. What natural gas extraction of that variety does is
still a new thing waiting to be discovered. It could literally poison the well
for hundreds of miles around, and with fresh water being such an important
resource these days, squandering it on natural gas extraction and further
contaminating the ground-water with chemicals may turn out to be a very bad
idea.

~~~
j_baker
The economist would claim that fracking is actually far less invasive than
other forms of mining: <http://www.economist.com/node/21558462>

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millerski150
The headline, while certainly nice to hear, doesn't fully capture the reality
that this is not all good news (while the use of "cleaner" fuels is). Global
warming has caused our winters to be warmer, which reduces energy demand (and
thus emissions) from the most demanding time of year.

From the source of the article:
<http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7350>

"However, CO2 emissions during January-March 2012 were low due to a
combination of three factors: A mild winter that reduced household heating
demand and therefore energy use A decline in coal-fired electricity
generation, due largely to historically low natural gas prices Reduced
gasoline demand"

~~~
h123b
I'm not a global warming alarmist, but where does that state that global
warming is the cause for less energy use?

~~~
millerski150
I'm reading between the lines a bit. The theory of global warming is that the
world's average temperatures are rising. The warming has been attributed in
part to rising C02 levels.

Because winters consume the most energy of any season (in the article) to
heat, we emit the most c02 during that season.

Given that the planet is warming, the winters are milder (quoted above) (see
this article on 13 of the hottest years on record have occurred in the last
15). Because winters are milder (because global warming), they require less
energy to produce for heating.

The section I'm referring to is: ""However, CO2 emissions during January-March
2012 were low due to a combination of three factors: A mild winter that
reduced household heating demand and therefore energy use"

~~~
mhb
The mild winter is an effect because of the time period at which they're
looking. Without additional data, one might expect that global warming implies
both warmer winters and warmer summers.

Total heating in winter uses more energy than cooling in summer because there
is a bigger difference between the outdoor temperature and the target
temperature in winter than in summer. Just based on this article, one would
expect the delta of warmer winters and warmer summers to roughly offset each
other.

So it doesn't seem sound to conclude, based on this article, that, if the CO2
emissions were looked at over a full year, that the warmer winter would result
in a net CO2 reduction.

~~~
bromley
Also, cooling systems are generally less efficient than heating systems, which
would increase summer energy consumption (and CO2) more than the reduction in
winter.

That's assuming the overall US climate (by which I mean population- or energy-
consumption-weighted degree days) necessitated similar amounts of winter
heating and summer cooling.

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chubbard
As we move away from coal burning the price will fall, but coal producers
within the US will simply export the cheaper fuel to countries like India and
China. Unfortunately, the overall picture hasn't changed because the coal that
was being burned within the US is merely being burned in other countries
without the US environmental restrictions. We might be actually worse off
environmentally due to the same amount of coal is being burned globally.

~~~
protomyth
The third world is going to use the cheapest, easiest, proven technology to
get to first world standards of living, just like the first world did. That is
just how its going to work. Look at China and India as case studies.

If people really want clean technology, then we need to develop cheaper,
easier to implement and deploy technologies than gas and coal. Anything else
will not get the job done.

~~~
chubbard
Problem with that is technology typically can't be both cheaper and yield the
same performance. It can be cheaper but yield less performance or more
expensive with higher performance. The more expensive technology typically is
a sustaining technology, but the problem here is that not enough people want
to pay more for a clean technology so we can't start to make it cheaper
without government funding. It almost doesn't matter what we do because we
will be dwarfed by the CO2 output of Asia if it uses conventional fossil
fuels.

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president
That's a benefit of having nasty manufacturing sent overseas. Oh, but then
jobs take a dip too. Now what's more important to us, the environment or our
economy?

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MordinSolus
This is a false dichotomy. On the whole, our economy isn't hurt by sending
manufacturing overseas. If it costs less to produce a product overseas than
here, then the price for that product will drop. Lower cost of product means
higher standards of living for everyone. Why do you think so many people have
smartphones? How many do you think would have smartphones if they were
manufactured here?

On top of this, the number of jobs is not a fixed number. The workers who lost
their jobs in manufacturing can be more productive in other jobs, which
benefits everyone. Also, money people save by purchasing cheaper products is
money that can be spent elsewhere, increasing demand for other goods and thus
supply, which means more workers in other areas. By only looking at the
smaller picture losses (manufacturing jobs), you're missing out on the larger
picture gains (greater productivity, higher standards of living).

~~~
ktizo
The problem in loss of manufacturing jobs is deskilling. You only have a solid
industrial design base if you have manufacturing communities, otherwise their
isn't a wide culture to draw on of people who understand these kinds of
problems. And so you might be able to compete on design for a while, but the
places you have sent your manufacturing to will learn really fast and will be
competing with you in design and research and have all the manufacturing base
that you no longer have, and all the skilled workers.

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jcampbell1
It is ironic that the "drill baby drill" attitudes of conservatives led to
fracking, thus cheap natural gas displacing coal, which drastically lowered
greenhouse gas emissions.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
There is not even a molecule of irony. They were saying to drill because
energy is prosperity and coal is dirty.

~~~
jcampbell1
The irony is that policies promoted by people who don't care about CO2
emissions and dimiss climate change have led to a significant decrease in CO2
emissions as an unintended consequence.

~~~
smashing
The word "irony" is frequently misused and doesn't mean "unintended
consequences" or "rain on your wedding day". Irony would mean that those who
supported drilling were actively trying to increase CO2 emissions and failed.
That was not the intention of the Oil Lobby.

~~~
jcampbell1
Drill in this context means to lift carbon baed fuels stored deep underground
and bring it to the surface where it will be converted to energy and then go
into the atmosphere.

Irony requires a reversal of expectations. The logical expected consequence of
drilling is increased greenhouse gas emissions. What in fact happened was the
reverse. This is textbook irony.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
Natural gas is a hydrogen based fuel.

~~~
amalcon
Natural gas is made up of hydrocarbons, mostly methane, so it's both hydrogen-
based and carbon-based.

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stretchwithme
Making things emits carbon.

Making big, expensive things emits lots of carbon.

Making too many of the most expensive thing most people ever own emits massive
of carbon.

That's what the housing bubble was. And its collapse caused much fewer big
things being made. And much less carbon to be emitted.

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morinted
It will be interesting to see if the "global warming" trend continues despite
lower carbon dioxide levels.

A note: The graphic shows the line moving FAR below '92 levels, and it marks
that this is "estimated." I'd go ahead and assume that the change would be
much more gradual than that spike... but I've been wrong before.

This is pretty nice to hear none-the-less. Some positive news on a global
scale isn't so common anymore.

~~~
jonknee
There aren't lower carbon dioxide levels, we're just adding less every year
than we were before. Also this is just in the US, other countries are adding
more than they have before (China is building a lot of new coal fired electric
plants for example).

