This topic came up the other day, I’m not sure exactly how or why. The question proposed: What was the most prominent source of electrical power generation in the United States? Someone said nuclear power and I disagreed. I couldn't name the biggest source (I know Dad, I should know this) but I knew it was some sort of fuel that burned to turn a turbine.
I thought because coal was so bad for the environment that it would not account for 50% of generation. Surprise surprise. A diagram of electrical generation output:
Is that diagram about right? What do you see as being the biggest source in the decades to come?
3 comments:
no surprises here. in large part, coal has only become the bad boy of energy production in the last couple of years. surely, it's always had it probs with particulate matter, mercury, acid rain and criteria pollutants. But it's been plentiful and cheap (1/3 the cost of most other resources except hydro). Now, with climate change becoming the new "in" thing, coal has become public enemy #1 since it emits more than twice as much CO2 per megawatt hour than natural gas-fired generation. due to its minimal cost, and the fact that coal-fired plants are long-term capital investments, these plants will keep running for many years to come. R&D activities are exploring cost-effective ways for "carbon capture and sequestration" (CCS) in which the CO2 will be extracted from the emissions and pumped underground for permanent storage. Meanwhile, many states (including Cal) have legislated that electric utilities must serve their load with a certain percentage of "renewable" resources. Cal has a 20% by 2010 standard and is heading toward a 33% by 2020 standard (compare this to the 2% slice in your pie chart!). Renewable resources are wind, solar, small hydro, tidal, biomass, biogas, and a couple others. Wind is actually the cheapest form of renewable energy and you'll see a lot more of that in the future. On the fossil fuel side, natural gas will be the most plentiful fuel used in the U.S. Unfortunately, China is still building coal plants at the rate of one 500 MW per week or so. Now, to the nuclear. France generates about 70-80% of its power from nuclear. The U.S. Navy has a significant portion of its large fleet powered by nuclear. But, ever since the accident at 3 mile island and with the help of Hollywood, the U.S. public has been afraid of nuclear power. too bad! because our resources are virtually unlimited and it doesn't emit any greenhouse gases (GHG). Nuclear plants take a very long time to build, but you may see some utilities starting to consider this resource as they are faced with paying the high "cost of carbon" for using fossil fuels as they are forced to participate in the prospective GHG cap-and-trade programs.
Thanks for the info BCM, thats exactly what I was looking for. It seems like with that 2010 mandate solar should get a bounce!
Well, the solar mandate has been around for a while. Here in Cal, we have a law that "encourages" electric utilities to install 3000 MW of solar over the next ten years (that's a lot!). But, solar is the most expensive form of generation and folks are slow to catch on. Nonetheless, i'm a huge solar fan and i'm working with several electric utility clients to get them to install some large solar generating systems.
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