Despite 30 years of climate bedwetting, coal is the second most installed generation of the past decade. Even though new solar capacity beat coal by about 100GW, new coal is providing much more generation than new solar.
Coal trends
Yale: Why it’s premature to declare coal dead
Americans’ energy use surges despite climate change concern
Emissions are never going down… as long as the economy is healthy and growing, anyway. Fossil fuels accounted for 80% of Americans’ energy use. Even so, Americans are actually 100% dependent on fossil fuels. Nuclear, hydro, wind and solar are NOT possible without coal, oil and gas.
UN: Energy-related CO2 emissions hit new high in 2018
Great for plants and life on Earth. Bad news for utilities pretending they are ‘combatting climate change’ by exiting coal. “Coal-fired electricity generation accounted for 30% of global CO2 emissions. The majority of that generation is found today in Asia, where average plants are only 12 years old, decades younger than their average economic lifetime of around 40 years.”
EIA Energy Outlook 2019 has coal fading to 17% of US electricity generation by 2050
Global coal-fired power projected to increase 1% per year between 2019-2023
“A key factor driving the growth of the market is the rising urbanization. This is due to the rise in population, improved standards of living, and the availability of better infrastructure and facilities in urban areas compared with rural areas. The growth in urban population is driven by emerging economies such as China, India, and Nigeria due to their rapid economic development. With the growth in the urban population, the need for basic facilities such as commercial and residential infrastructures is increasing. Urbanization directly boosts activities in industries such as construction and automotive, thus increasing the demand for power, in turn, propelling the growth of the global coal-fired power generation market during the forecast period.”
Source: Business Wire
