US Carbon Emissions Hit 20-Year Low

Freddybear writes "A recent report from the U.S. Energy Information Agency says that U.S. carbon emissions are the lowest they have been in 20 years, and attributes the decline to the increasing use of cheap natural gas obtained from fracking wells. Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said the shift away from coal is reason for 'cautious optimism' about potential ways to deal with climate change. He said it demonstrates that 'ultimately people follow their wallets' on global warming. 'There's a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources,' said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate expert at the University of Colorado."

Comments

It just moved

[Anonymous Coward]

About 1/3 of carbon emissions comes from manufacturing, and most manufacturing is now done in asia.

Re:It just moved

[AK Marc]

Nah, they build Three Gorges and such. The US is about where London was when everything was covered in soot from coal stoves everywhere, while China is creating work projects like the US only did for a short period, and have been bashed ever since by "capitalists", though the results of those projects still stand and provide failure. Our modern bailout was billions for billionaires. The New Deal was millions for the unemployed (leaving behind thousands of completed projects still in use today). Apparently the conservatives prefer the former.

not exactly a new insight

[Trepidity]

"There's a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources"

Sure, that's what everyone's been saying. The disagreement is over how to get there. Should we offer insurance guarantees for nuclear power plants? Should we mandate feed-in tariffs for household solar? Should we loosen restrictions on fracking? Should we increase science funding for alternative energy R&D? Should we institute a carbon tax?

Re:not exactly a new insight

[Trepidity]

The market doesn't really care about lowering pollution, though, since pollution is an unpriced negative externality. Sometimes it'll favor more-polluting energy sources, and other times less-polluting energy sources, due to completely unrelated factors. So if you're waiting for the market to lower pollution without pollution actually being priced, you're just hoping for luck. Sometimes it does come along; the current cheapness of natural gas vis-a-vis oil is one of those instances. Other times it doesn't; the cheapness of coal is one of the other kinds of instances.

Re:not exactly a new insight

[BlueStrat]

"There's a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources"

Sure, that's what everyone's been saying. The disagreement is over how to get there. Should we offer insurance guarantees for nuclear power plants? Should we mandate feed-in tariffs for household solar? Should we loosen restrictions on fracking? Should we increase science funding for alternative energy R&D? Should we institute a carbon tax?

So far, the strategy has been to cause all energy costs except those from "green" energy sources to, as Obama is famously quoted as saying; "necessarily skyrocket".

That's where I have a problem. Making "green" energy cheaper and more practical is a win and something I'd applaud, trying to force it by instead making everything else too expensive is stupid and hurts people, especially the poor, and the economy in general.

Strat

Re:not exactly a new insight

[SomeKDEUser]

Yes to all! But for the fracking, heavy monitoring would be good, too. The point being that gas is bad, fracking dirty, but all in all a much better choice than coal.

But nuclear plants? Yes: it is the only carbon-free large-scale dense energy producing plant you can deploy anywhere. Feed-in tariffs for solar? Yes, you want as much solar as you can, because that forces the upgrading of the grid, and improves resilience. It is clean, too. Science funding? How can there be a debate. Is there any case of science funding which is a bad idea?

I don't understand how there is a disagreement: all of theses are possible, they don't contradict each other, and could be done simultaneously.

Just the type of pollutants have changed!

[parallel_prankster]

Now instead of burning coal we are using shitty methods to create natural gas that will pollute our waters.

Why not fix the market failure?

[Ichijo]

What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources

Or you could simply fix the original market failure by adding the cost of emissions (a negative externality) into the price of energy. To prevent this from burdening the poor, return an equal share of the revenue to everyone.

Re:OR

[93 Escort Wagon]

Except if you'd looked at the graph in TFA, you'd see that CO2 emissions by the US were pretty level for a good bit of the past decade, and appear to have started trending downward prior to the 2008 economic crash.

I'm sure the state of the economy has a role in this, but it's certainly not the whole story.

Additionally, the summary quote from Pielke may be a bit misleading when taken in isolation. In the article he also states that "Natural gas is not a long-term solution to the CO2 problem". I only mention this because most people won't bother to read the article.

Re:It also means...

[PopeRatzo]

... that the economy is still in the shitter.

No, not at all.

If you look at the article (it's not that long, won't take that long), they discuss whether the level of economic activity has changed because of the state of the economy. It makes it very clear that this has nothing to do with the state of the economy being in slow-growth.

And it's not the state of the economy is bad for everyone, you know? Luxury cars, yachts, diamonds, high-end houses and condos aren't doing all that badly, and in some cases are doing very very well.

Re:OR

[evilcoop]

Except that the reason it is cheap is because of shale gas. Of which there is at least a 100 year supply. It is just not going to run out for decades, even with massive increases in usage.

Re:Kyoto Protocol

[jayveekay]

Kyoto was never about saving the Earth. It was about holding the US back so the rest of the world could catch up economicly.

You're half right. Kyoto was never about saving the Earth. Kyoto was about politicians pretending to care about saving the earth to improve their reelection chances by making promises that would be delivered far enough in the future that those making the promises could not be held accountable.

Re:Imaginary Numbers

[buybuydandavis]

Or you could simply fix the original market failure by adding the cost of emissions (a negative externality) into the price of energy.

It's bizarre to claim you can "add the cost of emissions" to a product. How would you honestly come by such a figure, when there are myriad sources that can cause health issues (including people who smoke!)?

The fact that you can't price perfectly (particularly since there is no market here) doesn't mean you can't price at all. Right now, we price CO2 emissions at 0. For those who agree on the basic premise that CO2 emissions are a problem, 0 is obviously too low a price.

If you agree that CO2 is a problem, pricing CO2 emissions is the right answer.

Re:Just the type of pollutants have changed!

[the eric conspiracy]

Oh poppycock. Fracking is an old (over 100 years) well-proven technology. If it weren't any good we would have known it 50 years ago.

Re:BS

[ColdWetDog]

Nothing is 100% safe and effective. Been that way for 50,000 years.