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United States Earth Science

Emissions From US Industrial Facilities Fell Nearly 5% In 2019 (bloomberg.com) 108

Posted by BeauHD from the pre-pandemic-plunge dept.
Greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants, manufacturing sites and other large facilities declined nearly 5% from 2018 to 2019, according to data released Monday. Bloomberg reports: The drop is consistent with a decade-long downward trend in greenhouse gas releases from large stationary sources, partly propelled by the power sector's ongoing shift away from coal to renewable sources and cleaner-burning natural gas. The new data reflect emissions from nearly 8,000 large, stationary facilities -- including cement plants, steel mills, oil refineries and landfills. The numbers do not cover small stationary sources that emit fewer than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. Nor do they cover the transportation sector, now the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

Large facilities in the reporting program emitted 2.85 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in 2019, down from 2.99 billion metric tons in 2018. Overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have been on a downward trend since 2005, a commonly used baseline. However, they increased 2.9% in 2018 over 2017 levels, after three years of annual declines, according to a separate EPA inventory, the last year for which data is available.
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Emissions From US Industrial Facilities Fell Nearly 5% In 2019 More

Emissions From US Industrial Facilities Fell Nearly 5% In 2019

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  • So the Paris agreement is ceremonial is it? Apparently the US didn't need to take part in that ceremony. How come Trump didn't put an end to marriage ceremonies as well? Obviously Americans didn't need to take part in them either.

  • How can emissions go down if we haven't even promises to send money to other countries in an accord that nobody even knows what it pretends to even do (if you're one of those, don't worry, someone is on wikipedia now writing what it does in a vain attempt to pretend that means everyone knows what it does (well they would be if slashdot had any traffic)) How much did emissions from PCA countries do in 2019? how much did china do in 2019? The evil tyranny of the "let's all come together and be nice and fix

  • Account for fossil fuel production (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KT0100101101010100 ( 7179190 ) on Tuesday November 10, 2020 @03:04AM (#60706760)

    "The numbers do not cover [...], nor do they cover [...]" etc.

    Well guess what, for radiative forcing it's irrelevant where the emissions come from.

    To have even the slightest chance of fixing climate change, we must switch from accounting for emissions to accounting, and limiting, production of fossil fuels.

    It is much easier to measure production of fuels (i.e., extraction from the earth). Also much fairer to limit production than emissions, where some sectors always seem to be 'more equal' than others.

    Nevertheless, good news. The 5% is just the start of the ramp down we need on a global and all-encompassing scale.

    • "The numbers do not cover [...], nor do they cover [...]" etc.

      Well guess what, for radiative forcing it's irrelevant where the emissions come from.

      To have even the slightest chance of fixing climate change, we must switch from accounting for emissions to accounting, and limiting, production of fossil fuels.

      It is much easier to measure production of fuels (i.e., extraction from the earth). Also much fairer to limit production than emissions, where some sectors always seem to be 'more equal' than others.

      Nevertheless, good news. The 5% is just the start of the ramp down we need on a global and all-encompassing scale.

      When we allow "The numbers do not cover [...], nor do they cover [...]" kinds of tactics when presenting data like this, the only thing we need to account for, is the corrupt accounting.

      Was it 5%, or was it sold as 5%? Did we factor for Greed that loves to warp statistics? Not trying to shit on progress, but I also wasn't born yesterday.

      • For starters, it is much more difficult for American businesses to lie. Too many paper trails, along with lots of measurements. OTOH, CHina is 100% based on what Chinese government claims. This is why we need to get shit-loads of gas monitoring sats in the sky and use that. They may not be as accurate, but they will be precise, which is what is needed to bring down total GHG.

      • The US federal government is the largest consumer of energy in the USA.

        It should be on the emissions reduction treadmill with mandatory multi percentage points cuts in energy consumption every year for many years to come.

        And these reductions won't come by swapping CF light bulbs for LED ones; they will come from cutting the number of functions and federal government employees along with the millions of people contracting directly or indirectly with the federal government via grants, research money, military

    • It is NOT 'production' of fuels that need to be concerned, but about USAGE of fuel.
      O&G have PLENTY of side uses that does not include fuel and absolutely will remain for centuries. Both are Black gold for a reason, and it is NOT fuel.

      • It is NOT 'production' of fuels that need to be concerned, but about USAGE of fuel.

        I stand by my claim that it is much easier to account for extraction.

        O&G have PLENTY of side uses that does not include fuel and absolutely will remain for centuries. Both are Black gold for a reason, and it is NOT fuel.

        Of course.

        If you're talking about plastics, how do you treat them after the end of life of the material? You either burn (recommended) it or put it into landfills. In the first case, the carbon enters the atmosphere right away. In the second case, depending on how degradable your plastic is, let's say it'll take something to the tune of 100 to 1000 years. Still a *lot* too fast for the carbonate-silicate cycle to take care of the resu

        • I stand by my claim that it is much easier to account for extraction.

          Not really. Lots of it is hidden esp. by nations that do NOT want others to see how much they consume. So, what is best? Simply monitor via sats all nations for GHGs. This is the ONLY real way to do it. WIth this, you then let nations decide how to get their CO2 down, while we simply tax consumed goods/services based on where the worst parts/services come from.

          Plastic? Lets try drugs, vaccines, Fertilizer, Carbon Fiber, roads, Ink, clothing, nylon, rubber, Crayons, etc. O&G is more integrated into m

          • WIth this, you then let nations decide how to get their CO2 down, while we simply tax consumed goods/services based on where the worst parts/services come from.

            But the worst part will likely come from America [ourworldindata.org] Why do you want to tax America most? I thought you protectionists wanted to tax the other countries?
            It's a total non-starter anyway. Who would vote for such an absurdity? Who would be even stupid enough propose it?

          • Simply monitor via sats all nations for GHGs.

            Sats = satellites? Is this even possible? It's a genuine question, I don't know the answer. I'm not saying that we shouldn't monitor emissions to the best possible detail. Cross-checking the data is absolutely essential for a problem of the scale we're looking at.
             

            • Yes. There are a few up there now for methane and CO2. [google.com] But, we need a small constellation of these. The reason is they fly a polar orbit (from pole to pole), while earth turns underneath and they look DIRECTLY DOWN. it can take a month before the sat sees the same spot. For mapping land, which does not change, a single sat works. But with gases, this simply shows the level at which that spot is at. But what we need is to be able to see what flows in and out of that 'spot'. That will show True emissions (

  • Problem solved? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by blindseer ( 891256 )

    It's good to see some recognition of the progress we've made in lowering greenhouse gas emissions. I expect to see more good news like this in the future. It's also pleasing to see that the Democrats finally in general agreement with the Republicans on energy policy. This means that instead of the Democrats trying to enact their nonsensical and unscientific energy policy to replace fossil fuels, and failing miserably with it, we see that they recognize the need for more onshore wind, geothermal, hydro, a

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      What still bothers me about the Democrat energy policy is their opposition to oil and gas pipelines. Do they really think that if there is not enough pipeline capacity that people will just do without the fuel they need to heat their homes and feed their children? Of course not.

      No, they think that if they don't give subsidies to fossil fuels that other forms of energy will be more competitive, especially if they do give subsidies to carbon-neutral (or -negative) solutions. You've tried that argument before and failed, why would it work this time?

      It appears to me that we are well on the path of solving the problem of CO2 emissions from human activity. Let's just hope that Democrat party stalling on this for nearly a half century that it's not too late to contain the damage to the environment.

      The problem with your narrative is that it is based on opposition to nuclear, but we achieved this 5% without more nukes, which shits directly in the middle of your argument.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • The biggest issue with solar and wind is energy storage. That seams trivial

          ...once you realize that solar or wind plus battery is cheaper than any other form of power. That's why they're building such an installation for Los Angeles right now.

          IMHO, we need more next-gen fission, and a world concerted effort on fusion, as in yesterday!

          In order for fission to be viable against other technologies which exist right now, it needs an order of magnitude price drop. That's why nobody is building them, not because they want to make you mad.

          As for fusion, it may never turn out to be economically viable either. I'm generally in favor of additional research, though.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • In order for fission to be viable against other technologies which exist right now, it needs an order of magnitude price drop.

              That's 100% purely a regulatory issue and NIMBY-ism. As in, 100% pure politics which is why fission is too cost prohibitive. That's not to say the concerns with the plant life-cycle and waste aren't valid, because they are.

              So wait, the concerns with the plant life-cycle and waste are valid, but it's still a regulatory issue and NIMBYism? You can't have it both ways. Either the concerns are valid and therefore the regulations are valid, or not.

              Radiation doesn't care about your politics. It exists regardless of what they are. If your politics don't include proper management of waste, they represent denial of reality.

              We're not using Cheyenne mountain not because of NIMBYism, but because the proposed storage methods are inadequat

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by sfcat ( 872532 )

                Radiation doesn't care about your politics. It exists regardless of what they are. If your politics don't include proper management of waste, they represent denial of reality.

                True but you are being misleading as to how long you have to store nuclear "waste". Its cost effective to dig out the waste after 300 years to access the Vanadium and Xenon. After 300 years, all the fission products have decayed to stable. Its only the unspent fuel that is still radioactive at that point. So you would dig out the waste, process it to extract everything but the Pu and U and then either reuse the fuel or mix the rest with sand and return it to a mine shaft from where it came. So yes, it

                • 300 years? Name one thing humans have planned 300 years in advance which actually 1) happened, and 2) worked properly.

                  • 300 years? Name one thing humans have planned 300 years in advance which actually 1) happened, and 2) worked properly.

                    There's a number of monuments, cathedrals, bridges, dams, and so on all over the world that have lasted 300 years. They "happened" and when maintained they worked properly. Growing up in the US Midwest I will routinely come across buildings that are over 150 years old that are in good repair and still in use. There's plenty of examples of these on a number of university campuses I've visited all over the USA, as well as examples of government buildings. On the US East Coast there are many buildings that

            • And how do you propose to get rid of NIMBY-isms? Dismissing it as if it was just a minor side-issue rather than a major obstacle in any democracy. I would rather keep NIMBY than discard democracy even if at times it is inconvenient.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by SpiceWare ( 3438 )

            ...once you realize that solar or wind plus battery is cheaper than any other form of power.

            Yep - 15 years ago in Texas we invested transmission lines from West Texas and the Pan Handle to our population centers [wfaa.com] to the tune of $7 billion. Now our grid additions thru 2023 [chron.com] will be:

            • 61% solar
            • 27% wind
            • 7% battery
            • 5% natural gas

            This transition's been going on for a while. From the ERCOT* graph in Clean Energy Is Canceling Gas Plants [rmi.org] we can see that new Wind generation surpassed new Gas generation in 2015/16 and new Solar passed it in 2017.

            * ERCOT is the Electric Reliability Council Of Texas, they manage

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by PPH ( 736903 )

            That's why nobody is building them,

            Once the new Democratic administration is in power, this will no longer be true. Iran, for one, will be bringing some new plants on line.

          • Cheaper - with a 63X subsidy factor applied, you mean. As far as LA goes - it is MANDATED by State law; they have no choice due to State law requiring X% of power from renewables, even if they are not reliable. We're experiencing ever-increasing rolling black-outs because of lack of generation capacity when needed.

            In fact, if it wasn't for gas [electricitymap.org], California would be mostly or completely dark all the time. We would need around 150 GWh of storage capacity - and enough solar and wind to fill that - to repla

        • The biggest issue with solar and wind is energy storage. That seams trivial until you realize that the air conditioner (dehumidifier),

          In fact, air conditioners could easily be made to store energy in the form of chilled water. We don't do this today only because there is no financial incentive to use electrical energy at one time of day compared to another-- the price of energy is the same at 2AM (when the utilities produce more than can be used) as it is at 4pm (when the afternoon peak occurs).

          electric stove/oven, refrigerator

          Stoves no, but refrigerators could also store energy if there were an incentive to do so.

          ...IMHO, we need more next-gen fission, and a world concerted effort on fusion,

          Those would be nice.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • In fact, air conditioners could easily be made to store energy in the form of chilled water. We don't do this today only because there is no financial incentive to use electrical energy at one time of day compared to another-- the price of energy is the same at 2AM (when the utilities produce more than can be used) as it is at 4pm (when the afternoon peak occurs).

              Oh that's been going on since the mid-90s around Houston. Specifically for high schools where a large tank is chilled at night.

              Good for them!

              School systems are large enough that they contract with the electric company directly to buy power (instead of just buying retail at the rate set by the public utilities commission), and when they do that they can negotiate a significant discount rate for using power at off-peak-- a win for both the school and the utility.

              If I recall, someone mentioned the balls being dodecahedron so should they freeze, they can expand. If they were perfect spheres, the plastic would crack from expansion. Anyways, there's some trivia for you.

              Clever. Yeah, you can store a lot of energy in the form of latent heat of fusion from the phase change.

          • the price of energy is the same at 2AM (when the utilities produce more than can be used) as it is at 4pm (when the afternoon peak occurs

            Not here in California. In fact, you can get a discount on your price of power if you let the utilities control when you can pull power in the first place - let them easily throttle you down/cut you off at peak times and they will lower your price per kWh.

          • In POF, many utilities are based on ToD, Demand, and even total amount pricing, ESP. in California. They can actually get .5+/kwh for some of their electricity usage. Water is nice, but even better would be geothermal HVAC. It not only allows for better cooling, but also better heating. And you do not have to waste energy heating/cooling thermal dumps in the off-time.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ichijo ( 607641 )

          ...the air conditioner (dehumidifier), electric stove/oven, refrigerator, electric heater, all consumer way way waaayy more energy than a bank of batteries can hold.

          Really? How much energy can a bank of batteries hold?

          And why can't people use their air conditioners when the sun is shining and generating electricity?

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • And why can't people use their air conditioners when the sun is shining and generating electricity?

            DUH! You have to bank that power then during the hottest portion of the day, so you can run your air conditioner in the cool of the night when the sun isn't shining!

      • wrong. We switched from coal to nat gas. IOW, we cleaned up a very little bit. In addition, we increased the efficiency of our nukes so that they are running at 94% of the time (vs nat gas and geothermal at some 75%, with wind and solar being below 33% ).

        Thankfully, the goon squad did not make it in, and Biden will NOT support either theirs or your BS. Instead, he is pushing for MORE nuclear power, along with geothermal, wind, solar, and hydro.
      • Looking at actual data [eia.gov], renewables get 9X the subsidies of fossil and nuclear fuels in absolute dollars (page 11, table 4), and when you factor in that renewables only produce 15% of our electricity (page 5, table 2), renewables get a ~63X factor in terms of subsidies per kWh supplied.

      • The problem with your narrative is that it is based on opposition to nuclear, but we achieved this 5% without more nukes, which shits directly in the middle of your argument.

        At the risk of stating the obvious, the argument is if we can reduce CO2 by 5% without nuclear, we can reduce it even faster with nuclear. And isn't that what we all want? And if you Follow The Science, you really need to give modern nuclear a fair hearing.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Nuclear is a dead horse, stop flogging it. We need solutions that the market will accept.

      That's actually the story of why nuclear and now even fossil fuels are falling out of favour now. Environmentalists realized that they needed to compete on price. Part of that was removing subsidies from fossil and nuclear, but the bulk of it was getting the cost of renewables down to the point where everything else was just too expensive to compete.

      At this point asking for more billions to build a commercial demonstrat

      • Or we could be like Great Britain and get the cast majority of our power generation from natural gas: SOURCE [electricitymap.org]. There are really only 3 "green" countries in Europe: France (nuclear), Norway (hydro), and Sweden (hydro). Nuclear could have you very green, and very reliable.
      • and yet, it is so dead that Germany depends on France and other nations with coal, while most of northern Europe is heavily based on nuclear (and adding a LOT MORE). Then we have California which has had MAJOR outages since they killed SONG and depend on other states in particular, Arizona, to provide nuclear and coal based back-up.

        And considering that we have spent 100s of Billions on AE, and STILL do not have that much, along with National Security issues, it is LONG past time to grow the Nuclear energ

        • , it is LONG past time to grow the Nuclear energy side to at least 33%, and maybe up to 50%. Add in geothermal at 33%, replace fission with fusion

          Why not unicorns running on treadmills? I hear they are much faster than horses of similar size.
          We tried unicorns farting into windmills. But it turned out unicorn farts were a GHG.

      • Nuclear is a dead horse, stop flogging it. We need solutions that the market will accept.

        You apparently missed the part where Democrats are now supporting nuclear power. There isn't a question of market acceptance any more. People will accept nuclear power or accept the lights going out. This is because as nuclear power plants are retired there needs to be something to replace them. If it's not something of equal reliability, such as coal or natural gas, then it will not keep the lights on. Coal and natural gas are something the market will not accept. Good places for wind, solar, hydro,

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          People have been predicting that renewables will make the lights go out for decades. I remember in the early 2000s someone here posted about how electricity would become intermittent, only available when the wind was blowing.

          Of course they are always wrong. A well managed grid does not have issues. Of course a poorly managed grid, even with fossil plants or nuclear plants will have stability problems.

    • Sounds like a good idea to me. Don't build a pipeline and maybe America can join the 21st century and stop using oil to fucking heat houses. Gas is much more environmentally friendly for that. And in Europe we're already moving away from that.

      America at this point needs to be cut off from energy sources, you have way too many "they can pry it from my cold dead hands" idiots.

      • Sounds like a good idea to me. Don't build a pipeline and maybe America can join the 21st century and stop using oil to fucking heat houses. Gas is much more environmentally friendly for that. And in Europe we're already moving away from that. America at this point needs to be cut off from energy sources, you have way too many "they can pry it from my cold dead hands" idiots.

        You do realize that when they blocked natural gas pipelines going from Appalachia to New England, those states instead burnt dirtier

    • While it is good that we are dropping, most of it, is from electrical switching from coal to nat gas with some AE.
      In addition, we have several cement plants here in Colorado that are in the process of cleaning up their emissions. If it works here, it will be extended to all American based cement plants.
      Add in the fact that several Iron mills are working towards ZERO emissions in both America and Europe, these will drop our industrial emissions more.

      What is needed is to QUIT burning fossil fuels, and s

      • Hopefully, next year, we will see multiple companies producing Battery powered Semi trucks, which these alone account for something like 25-33% of Transportation's emissions.

        Not this lie again WindBourne. You've been saying this for a couple of years now. I've pointed it out often.

        Show your numbers how you think that is even possible. Because Semi trucks just aren't big enough to do that. Even if every Semi was replaced with battery, no, replaced by magic that didn't even need charging. It can't do what you are claiming and drop transport by even your lowest number 25%.
        Medium and heavy duty trucks [epa.gov] added together are less than 25%. And that includes a lot more than just semi tr

      • But, yes, idiots like Newsom shutting down 2 large nuke plants, and now Illinois being blackmailed by a power company that is threatening to kill their CHEAP NUCLEAR power plants, unless they are given the same massive subsidy as wind/solar. This is why I would rather see us kill these subsidies and create a slowly raising tax on electricity which burns fossil fuels (starting with coal being higher).

        That sounds like a great idea.

        No. Wait. That's actually a very bad idea.

        If the state government can be blackmailed with a threat of closing a couple nuclear power plants then the government can be blackmailed with the threat of closing of a couple natural gas power plants.

        The electrical utilities got the message a long time ago on the need to lower CO2 emissions. The problem has been that the Democrats have not been giving the utilities options other than those that raise their costs. Raising their cost

    • It's good to see some recognition of the progress we've made in lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

      It's a light at the end of a very long tunnel. But given that TFA concerned only a very small fraction of the worldwide emissions, I'm afraid that the news is not nearly as good as needed.

      Since almost all the C from coal/oil/gas we extract from the earth eventually ends up in the atmosphere or oceans, we really need to move to carbon accounting at the source, i.e. where the stuff gets extracted. Much easier to measure, fairer, easier to enforce.

      Fully agreeing with your comment on pipelines.

  • Odd coincidence that emissions were down then.

    • Re:Industrial output was apparently down (Score:4, Informative)

      by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Tuesday November 10, 2020 @11:02AM (#60707630)

      Um.. Industrial activity wasn't really down in 2019, it may be in 2020, but we where adding manufacturing jobs through most of 2019.

      The fine article states why this is, natural gas. Folks are switching from coal to natural gas which decreases the Co2 emissions for the same energy output. This is happening because natural gas is CHEAP and it is going to stay cheap for the foreseeable future. In fact, natural gas is killing "clean coal" and even nuclear power (which was supposed to be a source of power too cheap to be worth metering) for electric power generation because it is so cheap.

    • wrong. Industrial output has been rising in America since 2010 until 2020. Only this year have we dropped.
    • US GDP from manufacturing was at an all-time high in 2019: SOURCE [tradingeconomics.com]. In fact, it skyrocketed starting in 2017. The coincidence there is, that is when the President started pushing for onshoring manufacturing jobs, and made it competitive - from a tax standpoint - to do so.

  • Yeah, so market forces work.

    • Paris accord, like Kyoto accords, is WORTHLESS.
      Unless ALL NATIONS that are above say 5 tonnes / capita or above .30 ton / $1000 GDP (real), are dropping their emissions, then it will not work. And the case is, that many, esp. China is not.

      America needs to put a slowly increasing tax on our consumed goods/service, based on what nation/state the worst part/service is from. THis would slowly drive up the price UNLESS either the company changes where their part/service comes from, OR unless that nation/sta

      • Paris accord, like Kyoto accords, is WORTHLESS. Unless ALL NATIONS that are above say 5 tonnes / capita or above .30 ton / $1000 GDP (real), are dropping their emissions, then it will not work. And the case is, that many, esp. China is not.

        Your own data [europa.eu] shows EU+UK at 6.47 and China at 8.12 are much closer to 5 than America at 15.5.

        As I've already shown you plenty [slashdot.org] of times [slashdot.org]. GDP and being rich is a useless way to measure CO2. Having more money doesn't entitle you to emit more CO2.

  • If production decreased by 10% and ghg emissions fell by 5%, that's regress, not progress. One needs to know the ghg efficiency rate, i.e. total ghg per total value added of product.

    • last year, before 2020, American Industry increased like the previous 10 years.
      The emissions drop is a sign that American, in fact, western, industry is taking it upon themselves to continue dropping.

      • last year, before 2020, American Industry increased like the previous 10 years. The emissions drop is a sign that American, in fact, western, industry is taking it upon themselves to continue dropping.

        That's only because gas replaced coal as it's cheaper. Nothing else. Don't pretend it was a conscious decision by industry or the government or even the people, to do that.
        Once that's done though, what next?

        It didn't stop America importing all that embedded CO2 from every other countries manufacturing. And then simultaneously blaming those countries for making it. While giving yourself a free pass for consuming it.

    • US Manufacturing was an all-time high last year [tradingeconomics.com]; even as our manufacturing continued to increase (check the 10 year plot - very instructive), our CO2 output has fallen. So using your ratio, it's even better than a 5% reduction, it's probably close to an 8-9% effective reduction (more output even with less input).

  • Didn't you hear?

    "They take the coal and clean it ..."

  • China is building 60 new coal fired plants....

  • Unrealized profits! Government bailout!

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