
US emissions fell 2.1% in 2019 - prostoalex
https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-2019/
======
acidburnNSA
This is largely because we are replacing coal plants with fracked natural gas
plants, which we are doing because fracked gas is cheap and plentiful.

Fracked gas is way better from an air pollution point of view and a little
better from a direct carbon emission point of view. But when you consider the
methane leaks from wellheads and pipelines and facilities it is roughly as bad
as coal for climate. This is overall not a good story for climate as we lock
in gas plants for decades.

Renewables and nuclear deployments did not factor in much to this decrease.

~~~
lacker
Natural gas is not at all "roughly as bad as coal for climate". There is a lot
of research indicating this, so I will just point to one article:

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/natural-gas-
re...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/natural-gas-really-
better-coal-180949739/)

Natural gas isn't the ultimate solution, of course, but it's a mistake to
treat it the same as coal.

~~~
acidburnNSA
The subtitle in the article you link is exactly my point. At the moment, we
are just now getting better at tracking methane leaks. No one knows for sure
how much is leaked from the infrastructure. It may easily be just as bad or
worse than coal, and is absolutely "roughly" as bad as coal.

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/12/climate/texas...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/12/climate/texas-
methane-super-emitters.html)

Take the average IPCC meta-analysis numbers [1] at face value: 820 gCO2-eq/kWh
for coal, 490 for gas. Those are both extraordinarily high. This is because
they both combust carbon in the presence of oxygen to form energy and CO2.
They're both very high-carbon fuel sources. If we are trying to reduce carbon
emissions, we need to build things that do not combine C + O2 to make CO2 +
energy. Options with less than 50g CO2-eq/kWh (in decreasing order of
emissions) include solar (41), geothermal (38), hydro (24), tidal (17),
nuclear (12), and wind (11).

[1]
[https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5...](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-
iii.pdf)

Given this situation it makes no sense to switch from coal to gas for the sake
of the climate. Both endpoints have wholly unacceptably high carbon. If you
build a bunch of $2B shiny new gas facilities, as we are doing today,
utilities will want to run them for decades. And gas companies are portraying
themselves as climate heros, and people are believing them because emissions
are going down (again, towards an unacceptable final destination). To me it
seems crazy.

~~~
scarmig
The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Natural gas is roughly half as bad as coal, and it's an easy win, compared to
the alternatives. It's also better in terms of particulates.

If we sit around waiting for reduction of energy use and increase in
renewables to save us, we are screwed. Gotta take what we can get for now, and
continue fighting for even better solutions.

~~~
acidburnNSA
> The perfect is the enemy of the good.

In this case, high-carbon (coal and gas) is the enemy of low-carbon
(wind/solar/tidal/hydro/nuclear/geo).

I said this in another thread, but switching from terrible to awful is not
something we should take as what we can get. The starting point and the end
point are unacceptable in a coal to gas transition. No point celebrating that.

For example, fracked gas is so cheap that it's starting to cause near zero-
carbon nuclear plants to close early. Unlike gas, nuclear plants are actually
low carbon (12 gCO2-eq/kWe vs. 490 for gas). Thus, fracked gas being cheap and
not considered the high-carbon fuel it is is preventing us from reaching our
climate goals.

This is really serious stuff.

~~~
naiveprogrammer
What you say makes perfect sense but when you transpose to the real world the
story changes. See how the most vocal and powerful climate activists work day
and night to stifle nuclear energy as a perfectly good solution to fight
climate change, by far the best solution out there to reduce emissions. Maybe
gas is the second best solution to reduce emissions while we develop other
solutions in the meantime.

~~~
scarmig
> See how the most vocal and powerful climate activists work day and night to
> stifle nuclear energy as a perfectly good solution to fight climate change

I don't think that conforms with reality. Off the top of my head, I looked up
McKibben and Greta, and both see a role for nuclear power in decarbonization.

The bigger issue is that it's not prioritized because it'd split the
environmental movement, but that's a far cry from "work day and night to
stifle nuclear energy."

~~~
kortilla
Greta is irrelevant in the US, which is what we are talking about. In the US
you need to look at people like AOC and other GND advocates. You’ll find a
stark lack of support for nuclear.

~~~
the_gastropod
Check out this tool created by MIT to see how big of an impact nuclear power
has on CO2 emissions. [https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7....](https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6) (hint, it ain't much).

The enthusiasm behind nuclear as a climate solution seems pretty misplaced.
With heavy subsidies, it can play a tiny tiny tiny role in solving the
problem.

~~~
acidburnNSA
That seems to assume that it's physically impossible to make cost effective,
widely popular nuclear power plant that can be built quickly.

In the USA, more than half of the carbon-free electricity comes from 100 GW if
nuclear. Globally it has prevented more than 70 GT of carbon emissions. Is
there any other low carbon energy source that has approached this yet? I don't
think so. Maybe hydro, but it's somewhat hard to wholesale expand.

~~~
worik
> That seems to assume that it's physically impossible to make cost effective,
> widely popular nuclear power plant that can be built quickly.

That is the experience so far. As well as waste that must be stored for
generations. Not a lot of waste but even a little bit of some thing that must
be stored for more than 10,000 years is a impossible prospect

------
Panino
This article is very short but (some) early commenters appear not to have read
it, and most subthreads at this moment started from them. Here are some of the
important points from the article:

> This was due to a decrease in coal plants

> Further, renewables were up 6% in 2019

> Emissions rose from buildings [2.2%], industry [0.6%], and other parts of
> the economy

I'm supposed to take delivery of solar panels at my house today. It shouldn't
be long before they're operational. I'm so excited!

To people in general, what improvements are _you_ making (not your country,
but you personally)? Not something you've always done - what's your latest new
eco-project, big or small?

~~~
uptown
For those interested in exploring solar, Google has a tool which provides some
specific metrics around your home's roof based on satellite photos:

[https://www.google.com/get/sunroof](https://www.google.com/get/sunroof)

~~~
weberc2
Genuine question: why should we put solar panels on our roofs versus investing
in a solar coop or buying solar power directly? I would think the latter
options would be more cost-effective/efficient (it's more efficient to service
one solar farm than the equivalent number of panels on roofs scattered across
a community, etc).

~~~
harikb
At least in California, PG&E charges a disproportionate amount as "delivery
cost" even if the energy comes from a cheaper and greener alternative coop.
For me more than half my total cost is PG&E fees and I am subscribed to a CC
Coop.

With your own solar (I don't have yet), the idea is that you can transition
more of your usage to electric (say change water heater from gas to electric)
without paying a cut to someone else.

------
melling
“ This was due to a decrease in coal plants, which resulted in an emissions
drop of 190 million metric tons”

Yep, coal is one of the biggest problems.

[https://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal-
with-...](https://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal-with-climate-
change/)

~~~
VBprogrammer
Coal is abundant and cheap and well suited to day and night base load power.
The emissions are awful but there is no suitable replacement right now which
fits those criteria (nuclear falls down on the cheap point). Sure, we can keep
burning natural gas like it's going out of style but at some point demand is
going to push up supply again.

Until grid level storage is well proven (and not geographically constrained
like pumped hydro) that is the reality.

~~~
peeters
That's why you put a price on carbon emissions. The free market isn't going to
solve it. There's an abundance of clean energy out there (e.g. Ontario sells
the U.S. massive amounts of electricity at a loss), the problem is that coal's
price doesn't reflect the damage it does to the planet.

~~~
nightski
I am not opposed to this, but I am curious how a government would arrive at a
"price" of carbon emissions. How is the tax rate decided upon? Is it a
political game of just enough to make renewable energy more attractive? Or is
it as high as we can make it? It just seems like it would have no basis in
reality.

~~~
imtringued
>I am not opposed to this, but I am curious how a government would arrive at a
"price" of carbon emissions

The conventional approach right now is that you have a limited number of CO2
certificates that give a company the right to pollute. The number of CO2
certificates is reduced every year to meet a defined goal like avoid warming
beyond 1.5°C. Companies are handed a certain amount of certificates depending
on their size (prone to corruption). If they don't have enough certificates
they must buy additional certificates. If they have too many they can sell
them for a profit. Supply and demand determine the price.

The problem is that too many certificates are being handed out until now the
price in the EU market was in the single digits and shot up to 25€ per ton.
Because people are allergic to revenue neutral carbon taxes that are offset by
redistributing the tax income the latest approach is to simply set a minimum
price for CO2 certificates. People think they understand taxes but they
certainly don't understand CO2 certificates. The end result is that there will
be very limited redistribution.

~~~
lkbm
> Companies are handed a certain amount of certificates depending on their
> size (prone to corruption).

Seems like it would make sense to replace the "hand them out based on size"
step (I've heard "based on historical emissions" before as well) with "auction
them off to the highest bidder".

This isn't revenue neutral, but you could make it so by then simply cutting
some tax (personal income tax, most likely) until it is, if that's the goal.

------
pcarolan
How much of this is due to the fact that we're exporting pollution in the form
of plant outsourcing to countries willing to absorb those externalities
(China)?

~~~
spectramax
What do you mean by "exporting pollution in the form of plant outsourcing"?

~~~
matthewaveryusa
seems pretty clear to me: you used to manufacture X in the US, now you import
X from the US. The pollution that X used to generate in the US is off the US's
emissions sheet.

~~~
spectramax
The _entire_ world has made China its manufacturing hub. I advise you to go to
Germany and walk into a hardware store, just inventory the number of items
that are made in China. Or Australia, Switzerland, Canada, pick your favorite
nation.

Furthermore, US has been importing X for over 20 years. It is not like US
started importing last year.

This argument makes no sense. See the top comment - the reason is decrease in
Coal plants.

~~~
ben_w
“Other people are also outsourcing emissions” is an irrelevant point,
especially in an article about how the U.S. emissions have fallen in the last
year and when the conversation is about _why_.

That the U.S. started 20 (ish) years ago is a pertinent point, especially as
the article points out that the preceding year saw U.S. emissions increase.

------
exabrial
This is a nice win, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to China's increase
and they already own 1/3 of total emissions.

Source:
[https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/](https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/)

~~~
heavyset_go
Per capita greenhouse emissions in the US are still more than double than
emissions in China.

~~~
exabrial
While unfortunate, this is sort of irrelevant in terms of actual climate
effects.

~~~
heavyset_go
It matters as our populations increase.

~~~
therealdrag0
US is almost down to 0.5% pop growth so that's helpful.

------
jes5199
I wonder if 2020 is the year that global emissions start to fall. In some
sense, that's too little too late, but I still think it would be a victory.
It's really up to China, who was mostly recently estimated to peak in 2022,
but who knows really

~~~
WizardAustralis
Will be interesting to see, the last time there was a decline was during the
2008 GFC. As we continue moving to decouple GDP from CO2 emissions eventually
we can have a drop without an economic disaster to do it.

------
darksaints
I agree with the view that we'll see a rapid change when new renewables are
cheaper than continued operation of existing fossil fuel plants. However,
where is that threshold? We're seeing solar and wind with LCoE as low as
$0.03/kWh. How much further do we have to go?

~~~
ben_w
I don’t think we need to get cheaper, rather that we need to continue to scale
up production of PV/wind and batteries. Even with current cost of batteries we
can eliminate 100% of coal while saving money; doing so will reduce energy
costs enough to eliminate fuel oil, which in turn will reduce the cost enough
to eliminate gas.

~~~
darksaints
Batteries, while very efficient, have some pretty harsh scaling problems, and
are very expensive for the tail end of availability needs. There are plenty of
energy storage options that are comparably inefficient but scale much easier
(such as hydrogen storage or thermal storage), but lower energy production
costs can mitigate the expense of inefficiency.

------
CivBase
It surprises me that emissions from the transportation industry seem to be
_increasing_ despite mainstreaming of EVs.

I understand EVs are not a prefect solution because they just pass the
emissions to the power plants, but considering the documented improvements in
our power infrastructure, I thought that would have at least a slight knock-on
effect for transportation. I figure the rate should at least be _decreasing_ ,
even if it's very slow.

Is it just too soon to see the impact of EVs? Is it related the rise in
delivered goods? Is there just more travel within the US in general?

~~~
perfunctory
FWIW, "Surging SUV demand is canceling out the environmental benefit from
electric cars"

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/17/surging-suv-demand-is-
cancel...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/17/surging-suv-demand-is-canceling-
out-the-environmental-benefit-from-electric-cars.html)

~~~
CivBase
I reckon that most of the demand for SUVs is driven by interior space, carying
capacity, and 4WD. I bet there's opportunity in the market for an affordable
EV that offers those features. The Model X is cool, but it isn't "affordable"
like the Model 3.

~~~
therealdrag0
Kia Niro EV seems pretty legit to cover those factors. Also Rav4 and Subaru
Crosstrek hybrids. Ford Escape and Rav4 PHEV is coming this year. (Rav4 Prime
looks dope)

Another aspect of SUVs is just the feeling of sitting "high", it's hard to let
go of after you've tasted it. And personally, I think sedans are harder on my
back after long drives. Also I'd speculate that SUVs kinda replace the mini-
vans of previous generations since now we're having less kids (and maybe
they're being less social?).

------
chiefalchemist
If net importing was up then it means we've "outsourced" our polluting.

Also, the type of emissions matters, with some pollutants being more
greenhouse-y than others.

------
bamboozled
It’s a a start, it’s excellent news. I wonder if the people of America can
significantly beat this figure in 2020?

~~~
perfunctory
I guess this can be considered excellent news by current standards. In the
country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king after all.

According to the latest UN emissions gap report we need to reduce global
emissions by 7.6% every year starting now to meet Paris agreement. And given
US position in the world, it should probably do more than global average.

------
ryanmercer
I wonder how much of that is a result of the fairly mild fall/winter we've had
so far.

------
option
we need more Nuclear power to drop emissions faster and by bigger % while
allowing energy production and consumption to increase at the same time

~~~
acidburnNSA
To qualify your statement I'll claim that nuclear is the only low-carbon
energy source we know that can run 24/7 in a wide variety of locations. Hydro
can run all night too, but is geographically limited.

This matters because filling in gaps of intermittency requires the production
and maintenance of "nonproductive" equipment (like batteries) which takes
energy to make, install, maintain, recycle at a scale that may challenge the
energy return on investment in many renewable situations.

~~~
TheCoreh
On the scale of a large solar power plant, pumped water storage has superior
durability and much easier maintainability than batteries. Besides, the water
that's pumped up hill can actually be "productive", e.g. suppling water to a
city or to farms

~~~
acidburnNSA
Yes, but pumped storage requires a certain geography, takes up vast amounts of
land, and may cause serious biogenic methane emissions.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5023102/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5023102/)

------
newguy1234
Emissions are dropping but what about carbon sinks? Are we doing anything to
plant more trees?

~~~
Mangalor
We are making some progress. Here's a couple projects to check out:

[https://www.fastcompany.com/90329982/these-tree-planting-
dro...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90329982/these-tree-planting-drones-are-
firing-seed-missiles-to-restore-the-worlds-forests)

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/21/carbon-engineering-
co2-captu...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/21/carbon-engineering-co2-capture-
backed-by-bill-gates-oil-companies.html)

------
newguy1234
What about carbon sinks, are we planting more trees?

------
sebastianconcpt
How is China doing?

------
asdf333
great!!! lets keep it up!!!

------
dang
Url changed from [https://electrek.co/2020/01/08/us-emissions-
drop-2019/](https://electrek.co/2020/01/08/us-emissions-drop-2019/), which
points to this.

------
rwem
Because we’re all idiots and waited too long, we need to cut emissions by 15%
annually, not 2%. 2% does not even offset the increase in US emissions in
2018. 2% is a disaster.

~~~
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
We don’t need to do anything. We’re responsible for only 15% of worldwide
emissions, but nearly all of the new green energy tech and research.

If anything I expect us to increase in CO2 while we retrofit buildings with
better technology, build clean power generation and grid tech, and continue in
our research.

There are nations that need to drastically cut CO2 but it’s not the United
States.

~~~
frenchyatwork
> We’re responsible for only 15% of worldwide emissions, but nearly all of the
> new green energy tech and research.

That's like trying to sell someone a $10 carrot by saying it's 50% off, or an
over-weight person thinking it's okay that they're eating a bag of chips
because they went to the gym.

~~~
ta999999171
It's more like an overweight person looking around at the 70% of morbidly
obese people in the population, and saying "Meh, few chips won't hurt".

They're wrong...but not nearly as wrong as everyone else.

~~~
oblio
The world population is 7.8 billion people. The US population is ~330 million
people. So the US has ~4% of the world population.

The US pollution being "only" about 15% of the world pollution wouldn't be
something I'd pat myself on the back, if I'd be American ;-)

~~~
eerrt
Fair, but the US also produces 15% of the world's GDP [1]

[1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/270267/united-states-
sha...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/270267/united-states-share-of-
global-gross-domestic-product-gdp/)

~~~
isoskeles
I get this point and am mostly in agreement with the intent. However, the US
is also more of a service economy, which would lead me to believe we should
tend to have lower emissions/productivity compared to other countries that
mostly produce goods instead.

So I am curious if there's a way to associate emissions to different
categories of productivity and see if we're more wasteful, on average, when it
comes to specific parts of our GDP (e.g. using personal automobiles).

I'm not saying this in the self-hating way that I think is trendy for people
in the US, but I am curious in the way that, if we want to improve, we could
focus on specific parts of the economy that are more wasteful than others.
(Driving would be an obvious one, hence the example.)

------
nsriv
Never thought I'd see natural gas shills on HN.

------
C14L
Congrats.

But its still a long way to go to even approach OECD average:

[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-
capita](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita)

------
m0zg
It's as if the Paris Climate Accord was a bullshit piece of paper that didn't
really do anything and cost the US money that could be better deployed right
here in the US. The only way to address emissions is by making alternatives
not only economically viable, but economically _advantageous_. I think we're
at the point in the curve where you won't really even need carbon taxes or
additional regulation for the "greener" alternatives to hockey stick. As the
prices drop it eventually won't make any sense to use anything else. I'd like
nuclear to be a prominent part of this solution in the interest of reducing
CO2 emissions faster though.

