Title photo above: Plant Bowen, Georgia, United States.
Figure 1
Figure 2
U.S. utility-scale electricity generation by source, amount, and share of total in 2023
Table 1
Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, February 2024;
Figs 1 and 2 indicate that the US is moving away from coal, both production and consumption, mainly towards gas but to a lesser degree, renewables. Table 1 reveals just how dependent the US is on gas.
But what of coal? Dennis Wamsted, an energy consultant, has been tracking US energy transition for 30 years. He believes that U.S. utilities have plans to retire or convert 68 gigawatts (GW) of existing coal-fired generating capacity to gas from 2025-2030. By 2040, he believes that all US coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) will be shut down. Dan Gearino, writing in Inside Climate News, points out: 'Coal, once the backbone of industrial power generation, is increasingly seen as an outdated and environmentally harmful energy source. Its decline is accelerated by stringent environmental regulations, competitive renewable energy prices, and a shift in investment toward green technologies.'
Figure 3
There is no doubt that the US renewable industry has taken off and increases in both wind turbine farms and solar arrays (Fig 3 above) are making a real impact on the US dependency on coal. Yet, the jury is out on whether or not the US will get anywhere near net zero (carbon emissions = carbon uptake) by 2050. Even if every one of their 204 CFPPs are closed by 2040, the fact is that many of them will be converted to gas-fired power plants (GFPPs). Gas releases both CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, the latter an extremely potent GHG. There are currently 987 GFPPs operating in the US, the largest number in the world.
Secondly, there is a new incumbent in the White House who pours scorn on the evidence for climate change. President Donald Trump has once again withdrawn the US from the Paris climate agreement despite the horrific destruction visited on the US in recent years by hurricanes, flooding, drought and wildfires, all of which were aggravated by climate change. The first Trump administration made a similar move in 2017, but that step was promptly reversed on President Joe Biden's first day in office in 2021. The US will now have to wait a year before it will be officially out of the pact. The White House has announced a "national energy emergency", outlining a raft of changes that will reverse US climate regulations and boost oil and gas production.
So coal may be increasingly out of favour in the US - even Trump realises that there's no future in coal - but despite this, the US is unlikely to get anywhere near the Biden administration's aim to cut emissions by 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030. The only light at the end of the Trump tunnel is that, four years from now, renewable technology will be so advanced and cheap that wind and solar power will expand massively in the US and replace the dependency on gas.
TITLE PHOTO: By Sam Nash - Own work,