Generation from Coal-Fired Power Plants Dropped Nearly 3 Percent from 2016 to 2017 as Utilities Continued Shift to Cleaner Sources
Washington, D.C. – Despite President Trump’s efforts to boost “clean, beautiful coal” by eliminating environmental regulations, electricity generation with this fossil fuel continued to fall during his first year in office, sliding 2.8 percent between 2016 and 2017, according to new federal data.
Coal-fired power plants generated 1,288,633 gigawatt hours (gross load) last year, compared to 1,325,358 in 2016, as power companies continued to switch from the high-polluting fuel to cheaper natural gas, solar, and wind, according to EPA data.
The result of the continued drive of these market forces was that the electric utility sector released less greenhouse gas pollution during Trump’s first year, emitting 1,913 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2017, compared to 1,996 million tons in 2016, according to the latest numbers from EPA’s Clean Air Markets database.
“Coal is gradually being priced out of the marketplace because we have cheaper and cleaner ways to generate electricity,” said Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project. “Throwing out environmental laws will increase pollution but it won’t save jobs. We need to find better ways to help coal miners hurt by the transition to clean fuels.”
Under the Trump Administration, the EPA has proposed rolling back regulations for carbon dioxide pollution from power plants (the so-called “Clean Power Plan”), as well as rules for controlling the disposal of coal ash waste, the release of mercury and other toxic air pollutants, and the dumping of mining waste into streams.
The Clean Power Plan, issued by the Obama Administration in 2015, had a goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Although the regulations were put on hold by the courts and never took effect, even without them carbon dioxide emissions declined 25 percent between 2005 and 2017 because cleaner fuels — natural gas, wind and solar — all became cheaper. That means market forces, along with some federal incentives for wind and solar, have already driven the achievement of three quarters of the goals of the Clean Power Plan.
The Trump Administration in January took action to make solar power more expensive, by imposing a 30 percent tariff on solar panels manufactured in China and elsewhere overseas. But during most of his first year, renewable energy from solar and other (non-hydroelectric) renewable sources continued to rise, growing to 353,696 gigawatts in the period January through November of 2017, compared to 309,050 gigawatts in the first 11 months of the previous year, an increase of nearly 14 percent, according to federal data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Using that same data source, generation from coal-fired power plants declined 1.7 percent from the first 11 months of 2016 to the first 11 months of 2017. That’s slightly less than the 2.8 percent decline in the EPA Clean Air Markets data, with the difference likely caused by the fact that the EIA data covers 11 months instead of the full year covered by the EPA data.
You can find the results by EPA Clean Air Markets data here: https://www.epa.gov/airmarkets
The Energy Information Administration data can be found here: https://www.eia.gov/
The Environmental Integrity Project is a 15-year-old nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, based in Washington D.C., dedicated to enforcing environmental laws and holding polluters and governments accountable to protect public health.
Media Contact: Tom Pelton, Environmental Integrity Project, tpelton@environmentalintegrity.org or (202) 888-2703
