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President Trump can't stop U.S. coal plants from retiring[trump misled voters]

charley

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(Reuters) - More U.S. coal-fired power plants were shut in President Donald Trump's first two years than were retired in the whole of Barack Obama's first term, despite the Republican's efforts to prop up the industry to keep a campaign promise to coal-mining states.

In total, more than 23,400 megawatts (MW) of coal-fired generation were shut in 2017-2018 versus 14,900 MW in 2009-2012, according to data from Reuters and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Trump has tried to roll back rules on climate change and the environment adopted during the Obama administration to fulfill pledges to voters in states like West Virginia and Wyoming.

Cheap natural gas and the rising use of renewable power like solar and wind have kept electric prices relatively low for years, making it uneconomic for generators to keep investing in older coal and nuclear plants.

But the second highest year for coal shutdowns was in Trump's second year, 2018, at around 14,500 megawatts, following a peak at about 17,700 megawatts in 2015 under Obama.

Since taking office in January 2017, the Trump administration has announced its intention to leave the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and is relaxing Obama-era rules on emissions from power plants as it seeks to boost domestic production of oil, gas and coal.

U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, spiked in 2018 after falling for the previous three years as cold weather spurred gas demand for heating and the booming economy pushed planes and trucks to guzzle fuel, according to a study by Rhodium Group, an independent research group.

After falling to 5,144 million tons in 2017, the lowest since 1992, the EIA projected U.S. energy-related carbon emissions will rise to 5,299 million tons in 2018.
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For a graphic on U.S. coal shutdowns, see:
https://tmsnrt.rs/2H1GQIO
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charley, he did his part, that is, what he can do as President. Are you suggesting that he interfere with the much cheaper production of natural gas to make burning coal more economically feasible? That just raises the price of electricity for everybody.
 
charley, he did his part, that is, what he can do as President. Are you suggesting that he interfere with the much cheaper production of natural gas to make burning coal more economically feasible? That just raises the price of electricity for everybody.

Mal, is that what you go by ?,, the president could lead the American people, not confuse them, but when it comes to the 'health of the planet' leadership has never been there, there is water pollution, air pollution, soil pollution, radio pollution... trump denies all,,, sure , you can dance around the facts, but that is deceptive and blocks the reality of what is coming.. trump wanted the 'coal vote' , he promised what he can't deliver, they voted for him , and now he can't deliver , we need to take care of America, trump is the worst caretaker we've ever had,,, progress costs money, so while developing better sources of energy we need to pay more for energy ..

The Trump administration is widely expected to discount or ignore the findings from its own climate change report as it continues to cut environmental regulations, according to environmental experts. It describes in precise detail how the warming planet will wreak hundreds of billions of dollars of damage in coming decades.Donald Trump has often questioned or mockedthe basic science of human-caused climate change, and is now working aggressively to encourage the burning of coal and the increase of greenhouse gas pollution.

“This is a new frontier of disavowance of science, of disdain for facts,” said William K Reilly, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency under President George W Bush.
 
it does appear that Mr. Trump doesn't care about the envirement , it is not good.
 
CNN claimed in a Jan. 7 article that “more coal-fired power plants have closed under Trump than in Obama’s first term.”

Verdict: Unsubstantiated

Experts generally look at the number of generators retired and gigawatts of capacity lost, not plants closed, making it difficult to directly evaluate CNN’s claim. Nearly three times more generator units were retired in former President Barack Obama’s first four years as president than in the first two years of President Donald Trump’s presidency. However, capacity losses have been higher under Trump than in Obama’s first term.

Fact Check:

CNN’s claim relies on data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The agency tracks the retirement and planned retirement of coal-fired electric generation capacity in gigawatts, not total plant closures.

Every coal-fired power plant operates generator units, and as these generators have declined in recent years, so has the capacity of coal power.

EIA’s data, which CNN cited to make its claim, shows that the first few years of Obama’s presidency coincided with very low incidences of capacity loss. During Obama’s first term in office, around 15 gigawatts of capacity were lost. About 20 gigawatts of capacity were retired during Trump’s first two years in office.

U.S. Energy Information Association
U.S. Energy Information Association

However, capacity loss does not necessarily correlate with the number of plants retired. Of the 4.5 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity expected to retire in 2019, half will come from the retirement of a single plant in Arizona. By contrast, many small plants with far smaller capacity have retired over the years.

“Many of the coal plants that retired during the Obama administrations were laggards by industry standards. They tended to be old and small, and ran only a fraction of the time,” Climatewire reported in 2018.

Hugh Wynne, an energy analyst at Sector and Sovereign Research, told Forbes in 2010 that coal-fired plants with 220 megawatts of capacity or less made up 22 percent of the country’s coal capacity.

If many small plants closed during Obama’s first term, then CNN’s claim may be factually incorrect. CNN did not respond to a request for comment.

The Daily Caller contacted numerous energy experts, none of whom could provide a list of plant closures over the past decade. Experts recommended measuring capacity lost or the number of generators retired as better indicators of the effect on the energy market.

“I’d argue that the number of plants or generators is less important than the capacity in megawatts or the generation in megawatt-hours. As an analyst, I usually focus on capacity,” Dr. Jeremy Richardson, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told TheDC.

The Sierra Club estimates that since 2010, more than 270 plants have retired or announced plans for retirement. But the organization did not respond to multiple requests for data, nor does it publish a timeline of plant closures or break out which plants have been officially retired versus being planned for retirement.

Nicholas Steckler, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance Limited (BNEF), provided TheDC with data that shows that 183 generator units were retired in Obama’s first term, compared to only 63 in the first two years of Trump’s presidency.

BNEF estimates that 23 generator units will retire in 2019 and 53 in 2020. If those predictions are correct, generator retirements under Trump’s first four years in office will still fall below the number of retirements in Obama’s first term.

However, in the same way that capacity loss cannot be used as a proxy for plants closed, neither can the number of generators retired. “Some units will close at a plant but that doesn’t necessarily mean the entire plant has stopped running,” EIA analyst Scott Jell told TheDC. “For example, the plant could burn multiple fuels or only the units without the proper environmental controls retired.”

In addition, the number of generator units varies from plant to plant.

The retirement of coal-powered generators comes as no surprise to those tracking the issue. The EIA predicted in December that coal consumption in the U.S. would reach a 39-year low in 2018.

Source: The U.S. Energy Administration
Source: The U.S. Energy Administration

Decline in U.S. coal consumption has occurred alongside an increase in the consumption of natural gas. Natural gas-fired plants have replaced some coal-fired plants in the electricity fuel mix, per the EIA.

Benjamin Zycher with the American Enterprise Institute told TheDC that low natural gas prices and regulatory costs imposed by Obama’s Clean Power Plan on coal were the biggest reasons for the shift away from coal-fired power plants in the U.S.

However, it’s not all bad news for the coal industry. U.S. coal exports increased by 61 percent in 2017. Exports to Asia more than doubled, while Europe remained the largest importer of U.S. coal.

Trump has attempted to scale back the number of plants being retired in the U.S. In 2018, he ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to take measures to prevent the planned retirement of coal-fired power.

“President Trump believes in total energy independence and dominance, and that keeping America’s energy grid and infrastructure strong and secure protects our national security, public safety and economy from intentional attacks and natural disasters,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “Unfortunately, impending retirements of fuel-secure power facilities are leading to a rapid depletion of a critical part of our nation’s energy mix, and impacting the resilience of our power grid.”

thedailycaller.com
 
Rick Perry didn’t know what the Energy Department was until about a month ago.*
Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he does have a knack for identifying people’s weaknesses. In a primary campaign full of memorable jabs, Trump’s best insult was one of his first. Targeting Perry, who would drop out of the race shortly thereafter, he said, “He put on glasses so people think he’s smart. People can see through the glasses.”
When running for president in 2012, Perry
famously forgot
the third government department—the Department of Energy—that he wanted to cut.

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