US coal 'biggest contributor by far' to rise in global emissions

39 pointsposted 10 hours ago
by softwaredoug
(thechemicalengineer.com)

12 Comments

exabrial

8 hours ago

Take all of the ethanol subsidies and build nuclear, cover parking lots with solar.

This is all we want.

ViewTrick1002

2 minutes ago

Or build renewables and storage and get massively more energy, in a few years rather than in the 2040s.

Not sure where this fixation on new nuclear comes from?

pstuart

7 hours ago

Geothermal needs to enter the chat as well.

I'm not anti-nuclear (if it's "done right"), but the economics of it are not very competitive. I think it's a technology we should not abandon (I'd love to see SMRs find a way to be viable and secure).

exabrial

6 hours ago

I would love the idea geothermal, I'm just not aware of a lot of places in the US that can take advantage of it :/

Iceland on the other hand....

pstuart

6 hours ago

There's a lot of development in leveraging fracking tech, Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), as well as some other wild shit like using masers: https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-newberry-volcano-marble-f...

There's plenty of geothermal in the US to be tapped into, we just need to invest more in it. It then becomes the perfect baseload utility.

toomuchtodo

10 hours ago

https://www.sierraclub.org/coal/coal-plant-map

https://openenergyhub.ornl.gov/explore/dataset/eia-860-data/...

U.S. coal-fired generating capacity retired in 2025 was the least in 15 years - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67427 - April 13th, 2026

Planned retirements of U.S. coal-fired electric-generating capacity to increase in 2025 - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64604 - February 25, 2025

~182GW of coal generation capacity remains to be retired, as of this comment, per EIA's Form EIA-860 generator dataset. The DOE was illegally mandating must run for the below coal generators, which should now be able to close due to a recent judicial ruling.

Michigan coal plant [J.H. Campbell] set to close was illegally kept open - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49666023 - September 2026

  J.H. Campbell Units 1, 2 and 3 in Michigan (1,331 MW)
  Transalta Centralia Unit 2 in Washington (670 MW)
  R.M. Schahfer Units 17 and 18 in Indiana (722 MW)
  F.B. Culley Unit 2 in Indiana (90 MW)
  Craig Unit 1 in Colorado (427 MW)

mc32

8 hours ago

The increased demand in coal was, uhum, fueled primarily by data center energy demands. Along with coal, there was also an uptick in solar installations to meet DC energy needs. Given solar is cheaper, it stands to reason more solar will be built to meet DC energy demand.

pstuart

7 hours ago

The increased use of coal was, uhum, dictated by the Trump administration. They are rabidly anti-renewals (too woke), and all in on fossil fuels.

And loosening pollution rules "because AI needs more power" should lead to torches and pitchforks.

AuthAuth

8 hours ago

a drop in the bucket

readthenotes1

7 hours ago

They gave numbers for the increase in coal, but not the increase in CO2. It's hard to know what the impact is

AuthAuth

3 hours ago

The impact is a drop in the bucket emissions wise.