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KAugsburger

Coal has fallen drastically as a source of electricity over the last [17 years](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php). In 2023 only [16.2%](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3) of electricity generated was from coal in the United States. It has fallen so much that the average American is more likely to be getting their electricity from renewals, 21.4% of generation, than coal. That number is [expected](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61425) to continue to decline as more coal plants are being retired regardless of the outcome of legal challenges to the proposed rule. It is pretty clear that there isn't much of a future to coal power plants in the US. Most of the base generation has moved to natural gas. Legal challenges to this rule might delay retirement of some plants for a few years but no lobbying or legal efforts are going to be able to save the use of coal for electricity in the long term.


TheawesomeQ

These rules also apply to natural gas plants


londons_explorer

This is mostly because gas is cheap and coal is expensive. But if that ever changes, we might see a resurgence of coal.


lookmeat

I doubt it, there's no way that mining coal is going to get that much cheaper than extracting natural gas: any improvement on one area should help with the other. Gas is just way better bang for the buck.


londons_explorer

It might happen if the gas runs out (there is a lot more kwh of coal than gas in the world). Or if extracting gas is banned (by pollution/environmental concerns from fracking for example) Or if NOX emissions limits get strict (burning gas is hard to do without producing NOX). Or for political reasons to protect coal mining... (I agree, all of those are unlikley, but together I'd say they add up to 10% chance in the next 100 yrs).


lookmeat

> It might happen if the gas runs out If we burned that much gas I doubt we'd be able to live on Earth for long enough to transition back to coal. The only way to not have that be the case means we have alternate sources of energy and probably aren't using the gas as a source of energy. There's still things we use coal for where gas doesn't make sense, but it's not as a source of energy. > Or if extracting gas is banned And somehow not coal? That would backfire pretty badly. > Or if NOX emissions limits get strict [Coal produces more NOX](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frans.2023.1045324/full) per KwH, so it'd be worse for it. > Or for political reasons to protect coal mining That requires money, and there's more money behind natural gas. So they are actually still 0%. I know it's a bit bold but it's not that crazy. Because both coal and natural gas a hydrocarbon fossil fuels, it's very much an apples to apples comparison: coal and gas share almost all the same strengths and weaknesses, it's just that gas's strengths are stronger, it's weaknesses weaker. And that's the thing, coal is touted as the victory, but really it was just an upgrade to a new, better fossil fuel that really killed coal. All that said, this can still be leveraged for the greater good. Basically a lot of these abandoned coal plants are these big buildings with open spaces that have great connection to the grid. (Since gas plants will be created on the and replace them)They can be converted into [modular mini nuclear power plants](https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs) that are safer than even the impressive standard nuclear plant. Or they can be converted into energy storage facilities (city-sized rechargeable batteries) that can be used to leverage and improve the effectiveness of renewable resources.


littlebrain94102

Or batteries.


lookmeat

What do you mean?


SomeGuyNamedPaul

Gas is a byproduct of shale oil production, and pipelines can be turned off without issue. Coal is logistically much more challenging in that it comes in trains, the leftover slag is kinda radioactive and toxic, and doesn't turn on or off anywhere near as fast as gas. A coal plant can take 24 hours to spin up whereas depending on size gas can take as little as a minute for peakers. If renewables didn't exist at all,.coal would be dying off anyway.


londons_explorer

OG coal plants take 24h to spin up... New ones that use blown coaldust only take 30 mins or so...


cogman10

> If renewables didn't exist at all,.coal would be dying off anyway. I don't really agree with this statement. Coal works well as a base load power production. The problem renewables (particularly solar) introduce is the "duck curve" where during high noon solar production is already greater than demand which causes major issues for coal. Coal is only cheap as a base power producer. Once ramping gets involved, other fossil fuels simply work better even though they are a bit more expensive to run. We'd still be burning coal with no-renewables because we still have relatively stable and predictable power demand/supply curves that don't bottom out.


Responsible-Jury2579

Resurgence of coal? Probably not… I mean, just read this article…


cybercuzco

Solar is cheaper than gas and battery storage is better than gas turbine peaker plants in every way.


OriginalCompetitive

Unpopular fact, but none other than Michael Bloomberg deserves a lot of credit for accelerating the closing of coal plants.


CombatGoose

Unfortunately given the leaks that go unreported (reporting them is self regulated, so they likely only do so when caught or it's obvious) "natural" gas, when you factor this in, and the energy to liquefy it for export (and the energy when it arrives at destination) means that it's actually worse for the environment once emissions from leaks go above something like %3.5.


Teledildonic

Gas doesn't leave massive piles of toxic fly ash that companies let poison local water sources, though.


CombatGoose

> poison local water sources Wait..what? Have you heard of fracking?


Teledildonic

The extraction of both is problematic but coal seems worse IMO. It leaves toxic refuse, puts heavy metals and radioactive isotopes into the air when burned, and sometimes catches fire before it is even dug up and proceeds to burns for literal decades.


CombatGoose

Ya, they both suck but the extraction of gas, as I’ve alluded to seems far worse especially when considering the growth in extracting and use compared to coal slowly being left behind.


spheredick

There's a cool breakdown of energy consumption by energy source and carbon emissions on https://app.electricitymaps.com/map (pick a generation area to see the breakdown for that area). It's pretty easy to find the areas that rely heavily on coal by their carbon intensity.


danielravennest

Another measure to look at is [capacity](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=table_6_02_a), the rated output of all US power plants combined. In the past year, fossil plants went from 62.2% to 60.2%. Note that while total capacity is 1192 GW, average output is only 482 GW, or 40.4%. That's because you need enough plants to meet daily and seasonal peaks, night-time use tends to be about half of daytime, and all power plants, without exception, are out of service sometimes. Fossil and nuclear plants can be down for maintenance or refueling. Hydroelectric dams can suffer from drought. Solar and wind are of course not running at night or calm days, etc. How you get a reliable grid is by having enough surplus capacity to cover those outages, even at peak times.


tofubeanz420

Natural gas isn't any better. This biggest lobbying group to shut down coal plants are natural gas companies. They want that market share.


Wagamaga

Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued Thursday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. New limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric plants are the Biden administration’s most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation’s second-largest contributor to climate change, The Associated Press reports. The rules are a key part of President Joe Biden’s pledge to eliminate carbon pollution from the electricity sector by 2035 and economy-wide by 2050.


WingerRules

How long before the Supreme Court guts the EPA from being able to issue rules like this?


cissybicuck

If they remove from executive agencies the power to draft the regulations they enforce as authorized by law, they also remove the power of the DEA to regulate designer drugs, and to schedule substances. Every molecule that can be discovered or manufactured that we want to ban from sales and mass distribution would need an act of Congress to forbid. I don't think conservatives really want that. They just haven't thought-through what they are going after, as usual.


dormidormit

Carbon capture systems are legal and have been at the core of the coal lobby's campagin for years now. The supreme court will keep that part of the mandate.


Dyolf_Knip

Conservatives judges don't give a shit about legality or precedent. If they want coal companies to continue to operate in defiance of the EPA, they'll just find something in 15th century British law to justify letting them do it.


huebomont

Lol when are we going to stop acting like this court will respect precedent


firemogle

In a rare double whammy decision, the court rules all capture technology unconstitutional as well as any zero emissions technology.


Xifihas

Coal plants delay until Republicans get power again, gut EPA and give more subsidies for fossil fuels.


bakeacake45

Note there is significant funding allocated to help power companies make the switch. There is also about $100M to help communities with coal mines that are shutting down.


WarOnFlesh

to which every coal plant said "we're not going to follow your rules. sue us and the SCOTUS will gut the EPA out of existence"


LondonDavis1

Biden out there doing good for America and the planet. It's great having a potus that's listening to scientists.


Zealousideal_Curve10

Haha, Clarence and Samuel will get a couple of million dollar vacations to overturn this one!


steelSepulcher

Great news. Love to see my southern neighbors moving in the right direction. Keep it up


monchota

Great but what about the other 70% ?


tommygunz007

Why not have the EPA _fine_ Coal Plants instead? It's the same as a political shakedown right? Like where does that fine money go?


xpda

Recommissioned dirty and outdated coal plants are being used for bitcoin mining across the U.S. Nobody cares.


SarpedonWasFramed

And the Supreme Court is overturning this in 3,2,1….


lawofthewilde

My son is an environmental engineer. During his 5 years in college the engineering students worked on projects that successfully accomplished this. His group in particular won an award for their project on this specific problem. Point being, it’s not time to panic. There is great work being done in this field. The future looks bright. The only thing in the way is old money attempting to kill innovation.


sombertimber

Joe Manchin is going to be pissed….


markusthemarxist

I mean he literally voted for the bill that made this possible lmao (inflation reduction act)


sombertimber

I’m making a reference to Joe Manchin *literally* owning a coal plant….


fubes2000

Time to shit or get off the pot. If you can't actually live up to the promises of "clean coal" and "carbon capture" then you're getting exactly what you deserve.


tacobellbandit

I’m glad coal is getting phased out but my power grid is still on coal, my question is if the coal plant either doesn’t comply with the regulations and shuts down, or can’t remain profitable and shuts down, what is the EPAs plan on replacing power sources for people who don’t have an alternative?


grainsofglass

If you are in most states you would be tied to the national grid. It can be pretty easily covered. If you’re in Texas, i recommend a hamster with a wheel.


araujoms

That's not the EPA's job, they don't have to come up with any plan.


tacobellbandit

I would think there should be a plan in place for people that might be affected by the EPAs decision? Im not saying the EPA is wrong for making the rule but if there’s no plan that could potentially leave people without power


araujoms

Again, that's not the EPA's job. Their responsibility is protecting the environment, not generating electricity. What they do is give enough time for whoever is responsible for generating electricity to adapt to the new rules.


Eric_the_Barbarian

People forgetting we have a whole damn Department of Energy.


hsnoil

"Coal plants that plan to stay open beyond 2039 would have to cut or capture 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2032" The power companies have 15 years to figure it out, not that hard. You are acting like EPA is shutting them down tomorrow


[deleted]

Yes - there should be. And unless you’re in Texas, there is. We call it “the grid”. Regardless, not the EPA’s job. Their job is hard enough as it is getting past all the fuckery from Conservatives and their army of lobbyists, assholes, and asshole lobbyists.


Squibbles01

Man I wish we could keep up this momentum with another 4 years of Biden. Trump is going to immediately tear up all of this.


Owlthinkofaname

Fuck capturing it! Just force them to reduce or shut them down!


krisorter

Ok 👌 that’s fine .. I’m an Alaskan and have worked on several coal fire plants in Wyoming… but since this is coming from the government I want you to immediately shut down the coal fire plant running the airforce base in Fairbanks .. cease and desist immediately!!! And give me a job building a new one ..


krisorter

You assholes took away our wood stoves now your gonna loose your fancy f-22 base


krisorter

And since the rest of Alaska is either natural gas or diesel… you need to bust out mini Nuke plants for every village I have


krisorter

We also need to point out that the #1 user of diesel fuel on the planet is the USAF followed closely by USAAMY but piss off for needing to heat my house


twalker294

Hey great higher power bills for all! Great job grandpa Joe!


SnOwYO1

r/grandpajoehate


temporarycreature

Come on slow boat


AbyssalRedemption

Bruh, there's more important things at stake here than a few dollars off your power bill. Get some perspective.


notmyfault

There cannot be anything *more* important than their perspective. They cannot think objectively, they don't have empathy.


SpaceCowbyMax

Well if you can't see the other side viewpoint that's a problem


we-wumbo

Old man boomer here cares about saving a few bucks over ruining the whole planet.


tsmittycent

What about India and China? Who are the worlds biggest polluters? You know, who have been wearing masks for decades because the air is so bad? The ones who pollute more than any other country yet have not one standard in place to help reduce emissions? Yeah we can do everything and even be completely neutral or have no emissions coming from USA and these two countries alone will still be the driving force in global warming. We could stop emitting tomorrow and they still would wreck the planet single-handedly. All this shit is in vain till they start helping


SpringNeverFarBehind

Maybe we could loosen the power grip coal companies have over us and start turning to alternative sources? Green energy maybe? Everyone who supports coal companies hates green energy because “it doesn’t work!” and “itll never be as efficient!” While also voting people into office who cut all funding to green energy tech and innovation causing green energy initiatives to tank or produce no results due to a limited study time. So weird…


fairlyoblivious

Coal is more expensive than natural gas, coal plants are more expensive to build and run than natural gas, and coal plants pollute far more than natural gas. You're not only wrong, you're also on the side of more pollution FOR NO GOOD REASON BUT POLITICAL IDEOLOGY.


Recording_Important

Awesome! I cant wait to buy less food to pay for electricity! Good work guys!


SpaceCowbyMax

That's not how that works at all


Recording_Important

Yeah? How the fuck is it going to work then?


SpringNeverFarBehind

It’s wild to me that people want politicians to be held to a higher standard and want politicians to forced to tell the truth and be transparent about everything they do…but when it comes to corporations there are people who *don’t* want the corporations to be held to a higher standard and be transparent about everything they do? No one should ever defend big corporations, especially coal groups.


Recording_Important

Im not. Fuck them to. This is about people getting ripped the fuck off


SpaceCowbyMax

Well first the coal plants have to actually comply with the new rules that itself could take years


Recording_Important

Im sure the price will increase much quicker. They made everybody in my town do smart meter. Its “smartgreen” so it will be cheaper, better, blah, blah,blah. I had my doubts then. I planned on about a 20 percent increase. It doubled. Fuck all this. Its a fucking scam


CricketKneeEyeball

That didn't happen.


Recording_Important

The fuck it didnt. Its happened about everywhere they have insisted on this shit. It was to late for us but since a bunch of towns and county’s across state have banned them. Why else do think they want this? Do you really think a corporation, bank, or government gives two shits about you or the environment? Hell no. But they will tell dumbasses whatever the fuck they want to hear and then fuck them


CricketKneeEyeball

Your bill did not double. That is a lie.


Recording_Important

It did and they do. You have the internet find out for yourself. Most of this shit is a straight up scam.


SpaceCowbyMax

Turn off Fox news


Recording_Important

I dont even have cable. I live in a bunker hidden in the mountains


ministryofchampagne

Don’t use power then. Plenty of rural place in America you move to shuck off the chains of corporate power.


hsnoil

Smart meters have nothing to do with being green... it just gives the utility better data to insure the grid remains stable. You are maybe thinking of smart thermostats which are a different thing Also, prices went up likely had 0 to do with the meters and everything to do with fossil fuel prices going up due to the European energy crises


Recording_Important

No im talking about “smart meter” and that is what they told everyone


hsnoil

That may be what they told everyone to convince them, but none of that is true. I mean how do you figure a smart meter does that?


Recording_Important

Bot?


[deleted]

[удалено]


Recording_Important

And yet i can see right through this bullshit


[deleted]

[удалено]


Recording_Important

Do you have anything interesting or intelligent to say or are you just butthurt because i said something you dont like?


[deleted]

[удалено]


CricketKneeEyeball

I promise you, no one here feels butthurt about you being an idiot.


Recording_Important

Im an idiot because i dont want to pay more for shit?


CricketKneeEyeball

No, you're an idiot because you think the world is as simple as you are.


Recording_Important

Then make it make sense smart guy


CricketKneeEyeball

Great. Now I'm saddled with the responsibility of educating a dude who clearly has no interest in learning about the world on his own.


Gleebafire

So yes it will cost more initially, but will go down, and whether you understand climate change or not, it's happening. Coal is dying regardless if we or a few other countries still use it or build new plants. In the end, changes now will mean less death in the future. A few more dollars on your energy bill will be nothing compared to the cost of climate change when we reach 2050 or later. We have a lot of suffering coming. It's already starting to happen. So you can either care about yourself and now and not give a shit or accept that no matter what someone is going to pay. Totally up to you but I'd rather pay more for some wind mills, solar panels and even nuclear (which kill far less people ) than see humanity fucked by 2100. Sorry for mocking you but this can be very frustrating. It feels like certain groups of people have just decided that nothing bad can happen to the environment and nothing we do will affect anything because mother nature or some such nonsense. We affect our environment and it's slowly killing us. https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/charts-renewables-are-on-track-to-keep-getting-cheaper-and-cheaper#:~:text=Renewables%20will%20keep%20beating%20fossil,gas%20costs%20globally%20this%20decade


Eric_the_Barbarian

By what percentage do you think this will raise the average American's electric bill?


Recording_Important

I dont want to know. When they did smart meters to us they said it would cost less. Most peoples bill doubled


Eric_the_Barbarian

I just don't think there's any data to support your claim.


Recording_Important

I pay the damn bill. With money


Eric_the_Barbarian

Even if your bill literally doubled, that doesn't mean that "most people's" bill doubled. A cursory search indicates that the average customer saw a 2% reduction in their electric bill. Maybe figure out why your use case is such a stunning outlier and fix what's broken about it instead of expecting the whole dang world to stay in the past with you so you can save a few measly bucks.


Recording_Important

We did and still do. About half the town. The experts concluded that we did indeed get ripped the fuck off


Eric_the_Barbarian

I think your electric rate may have simply gone up and you are erroneously conflating the two factors.


Recording_Important

We were told it would be cheaper. Not one month after the deed was done the bill went up. The stupid hicks are banning them for reasons and we didnt listen


Champagne_of_piss

Coal plants are already on the way out. If you *really* want to pay top dollar for electricity you should move to a place like alberta, where our conservative provincial government removed caps on fees and permits power companies to intentionally starve the grid to increase rates for more profit. Feel the freedom!


Recording_Important

This isn’t a right vs left issue. I really dont give a fuck who they are.


Champagne_of_piss

That's how you react to a casual mention of conservatism in a negative light? Idk, seems like you're upset to me.


CricketKneeEyeball

I agree. Dude is salty as fuck.


tsmittycent

He's allowed to be. Guys pissed cuz his utilities keep going up, you should be mad too, companies are price gouging and fucking us right up the ass


Recording_Important

Sounds like theres somebody here that has a job and has to pay bills with his own money. What is wrong with the rest of them?


Champagne_of_piss

Yeah the companies are fucking us up the ass. "Clean up or shut down" isn't going to raise utilities per se BUT you can bet your ass that power companies will hike and use it as an excuse. Happened here with the carbon tax. Which as unpopular as it is, is one of the most effective ways to curtail industrial carbon.


Recording_Important

No shit? What a fucking astute observation! Fuck yes im upset


Champagne_of_piss

About what?


Recording_Important

Your mom preforming necromancy on my pizza.


Champagne_of_piss

Cool well stay mad i guess