Natural Gas Playing Crucial Role in Lowering Carbon Emissions
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported natural gas for power generation is playing a key role in reducing carbon emissions from the U.S. electricity sector.
Since 2005, the primary energy sources for U.S. power generation has shifted from coal to priorities to natural gas and renewables. As the EIA reports, the U.S. electric power sector produced 1,724 million metric tons (MMmt) of CO2 in 2019, 32% less than the 2,544 MMmt produced in 2005. This reduction in pollutants is directly related to the 27% decrease of coal’s share of US electricity generation and the 19% increase in total generation of natural gas in the same realm. It is important to support this momentum towards natural gas, being that it emits half as much carbon as coal when generating electricity.
The previously-increasing rate of coal-to-gas switching must continue to exponentialize in order to accomplish a sustained downturn in CO2 emissions in the long-run. Since 2016, when natural gas surpassed coal and became the primary source of electricity generation, natural gas has remained an effective, economic, environmentally-conscious avenue of power. It must remain a priority in the highest sense.
