The winners in the 2013 power markets in the first 6 months are solar, wind, and coal. Solar is up 94.4%; wind is up 20.1%; and coal 10.3%. Those percentage increases, however, conceal an important fact.
The amount of additional coal power in 2013 dwarfs the amount of combined additional wind and solar Coal has increased its output by 72 billion kilowatt-hours, while wind and solar have added 17 billion.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_es1b.
The big loser in 2013 power markets is natural gas. Gas is down 13.7% or 81 billion kilowatt-hours.
The big rise in coal, large fall in gas, and small boost in renewable production means that carbon emissions from electricity generation are going up in 2013.
Nuclear production is up less than 1% and hydro, the biggest renewable energy power source by far, fell 2.6%. Biomass too is down 2.7%.
Total generation is very slightly higher or basically unchanged in 2013 than in 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment