What resources are keeping the lights on and cell phones charged in the the US?
NOTE **There are a few reasons the market share looks this way. We'll make a video to talk about that soon (as we will with some of the many bullet points briefly mentioned below).
For now, let's talk a little bit more about each of these power producers...
COALThe mother load when it comes to producing electricity. Coal generally provides close to 1/2 of U.S. electricity generation. Historically it has provided upwards of 60%, but recently in light of the natural gas boom, its production is closer to 40%. | PROSCheap Abundant Supports numerous jobs through several states. | CONSHighest producer of green house gases during electricity generation of the five fuels - 2x that produced by Oil - 4x that produced by natural gas Current mountain top methods of mining coal is HIGHLY destructive on the adjacent environment Underground mining poses major health issues for miners. |
NATURAL GASThe recent combination of horizontal drilling and fracturing technologies have opened up many new natural gas reserves for exploitation. | PROSPlentiful reserves of natural gas under the ground and oceans Competitive pricing with coal Burning Natural Gas releases low levels of GHGs Transporting natural gas from the ground to the power plant requires little to no fuel | CONSMethane can leak during ground extraction when the producer has less efficient or sloppy equipment and methods** Extraction of the gas out of the ground consumes large amounts of fresh water Readiness of natural gas resources decreases incentives to fund renewable and GHG-free technology |
NUCLEAROverall, nuclear has been a consistently reliable long-term fuel source. It's so reliable in fact that nuclear plants are often our base load plants - i.e. they are keeping the lights on 24/7, not just at peak demand hours. However, the proliferation of this type of plant is limited by the high construction costs of the plants themselves. | PROSZero green house gases emissions. Cheap to run and produce very large volumes of electricity after the plants are constructed. Very reliable as a large scale base load plant type | CONSThe volatile radioactive byproduct of nuclear decays over 1000s of years. All waste is waiting for government pick up in large canisters next to the producing plants because there is no current national storage solution. Accidents can be highly dangerous to human health. Only a handful of incidents since 1953 have been considered to pose major threats to wide human populations. Three famous incidents are the following: + Three Mile Island, 1979 - reactor core damaged, but no human threat. + Chernobyl, 1986 - significant release of radiation. + Fukushima, 2011 - cooling system damaged by earthquake and tsunami, resulting in an explosion and local release of radiation. |
OILOil technically is not a major producer of electricity, but should be mentioned. In recent years it has only produced about 1% of US electricity annually. Part of the 1970s oil crisis was due to a much higher dependence of oil used in electricity generation when OPEC decided to restrict our supply. Since then, our use of oil in electricity generation has greatly decreased. | PROSPlants can be turned on and off very quickly during peak or emergency demand. This makes it useful during emergency electricity demand, such as during hot summer days and freezes in winter. | CONSThough it’s less than coal, oil is still a high producer of green house gases. -2x the GHGs of natural gas -0.5x the GHGs of coal Expensive due to high demand by transportation industry |
RENEWABLES - HYDROLarge producer of energy for the western U.S. for several decades. | PROSZero green house gas emissions. Constant regeneration = unlimited supply | CONSDamming a river floods the region directly behind the dam unnaturally. Western rivers have been mostly saturated (Not much room for growth or increase in production). Potential future changes in precipitation could decrease productivity of generation. |
RENEWABLES - | PROS Zero green house gas emissions. Huge existing potential for wind and solar fuel usage. Essentially unlimited resources for electricity generation. Fuel is FREE (sunlight, wind). The only cost of this type of electricity generation is on the generating technology. The cost of solar panels has dropped about 90% since 2008. The price of solar technology will only continue to rapidly decrease. | CONS The technology is not yet cost competitive against conventional electricity generating fuels without subsidies. Tax credit availability and consumption is lagging. Renewables are not offered all the federal tax credits other conventional fossil fuels receive, and are disallowed from allowing private investors to take advantage of certain significant credits against active income. |