US Carbon Emissions Hit 20-Year Low | Hacker News Reader

US Carbon Emissions Hit 20-Year Low

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Power plants that burn coal produce more than 90 times as much sulfur dioxide, five times as much nitrogen oxide and twice as much carbon dioxide as those that run on natural gas, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Sulfur dioxide causes acid rain and nitrogen oxides lead to smog.

You know, the more I read about it, the more I think fracking gets an undeserved bad rap. Certainly there are some concerns over the environmental impact drilling has, but the rewards seem to make perfecting the technology a no-brainer: cheap, abundant, clean fuel that will at least slow global warming down (if not cure it completely). Plus, we have enough of the stuff that we could extract and refine it in the US.

Coal is also extracted through mountain-top removal which is extremely damaging to communities. Start with a mountain and a valley, end up with a toxic wasteland.

That said, the consequences of fracking could be far, far worse. It's understood what coal does. What natural gas extraction of that variety does is still a new thing waiting to be discovered. It could literally poison the well for hundreds of miles around, and with fresh water being such an important resource these days, squandering it on natural gas extraction and further contaminating the ground-water with chemicals may turn out to be a very bad idea.

The economist would claim that fracking is actually far less invasive than other forms of mining: http://www.economist.com/node/21558462

The headline, while certainly nice to hear, doesn't fully capture the reality that this is not all good news (while the use of "cleaner" fuels is). Global warming has caused our winters to be warmer, which reduces energy demand (and thus emissions) from the most demanding time of year.

From the source of the article: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7350

"However, CO2 emissions during January-March 2012 were low due to a combination of three factors: A mild winter that reduced household heating demand and therefore energy use A decline in coal-fired electricity generation, due largely to historically low natural gas prices Reduced gasoline demand"

This is just normal weather cycles at work. A few years earlier the winters were cold and the summers mild.

I'm not sure the "13 years of average global temperatures have all occurred in the 15 years since 1997" is "normal. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8...]

I ignore temperature claims like that one. There are too many politically-motivated lies being pushed in the name of science.

Unlike the minority of scientists that don't believe in climate change.

They certainly couldn't be financially motivated by the big oil and coal companies.

I'm not a global warming alarmist, but where does that state that global warming is the cause for less energy use?

I'm reading between the lines a bit. The theory of global warming is that the world's average temperatures are rising. The warming has been attributed in part to rising C02 levels.

Because winters consume the most energy of any season (in the article) to heat, we emit the most c02 during that season.

Given that the planet is warming, the winters are milder (quoted above) (see this article on 13 of the hottest years on record have occurred in the last 15). Because winters are milder (because global warming), they require less energy to produce for heating.

The section I'm referring to is: ""However, CO2 emissions during January-March 2012 were low due to a combination of three factors: A mild winter that reduced household heating demand and therefore energy use"

The mild winter is an effect because of the time period at which they're looking. Without additional data, one might expect that global warming implies both warmer winters and warmer summers.

Total heating in winter uses more energy than cooling in summer because there is a bigger difference between the outdoor temperature and the target temperature in winter than in summer. Just based on this article, one would expect the delta of warmer winters and warmer summers to roughly offset each other.

So it doesn't seem sound to conclude, based on this article, that, if the CO2 emissions were looked at over a full year, that the warmer winter would result in a net CO2 reduction.

Also, cooling systems are generally less efficient than heating systems, which would increase summer energy consumption (and CO2) more than the reduction in winter.

That's assuming the overall US climate (by which I mean population- or energy-consumption-weighted degree days) necessitated similar amounts of winter heating and summer cooling.

I agree global warming does imply warmer winters and summers. I'm not sure if you're addressing the article or what I wrote, but if you look at C02 emissions over a full year, I doubt the warmer winter would result in a reduction of total annual C02 production, because summers will now require more energy & C02 (to cool). I'm saying the title is misleading because just because a small reduction in the US' winter's C02 doesn't mean the planet is cooling (or global warming is reversing) ... especially if you factor in developing world emission growth, which I didn't mention before.

Average temperatures aren't a great predictor of energy consumption. Yes, warmer winters mean less heating requirement, but warmer summers mean greater cooling requirement. Not such a factor for Jan-Mar in the US, admittedly.

Typically heating and cooling degree days (temperature variations integrated over time) are used to normalize energy consumption data for the weather. Not average temperatures.

I wasn't trying to focus on energy consumption as much as the fact warming is happening in general, which isn't good. My point was the article title and data set (March - Jan) could mislead one to think global warming is reversing because of lower C02 levels from the winter. I'm saying it's likely not reversing, because the planet is warming overall and warmer summers will cause more energy production (like you said) and, overall, especially when you account for other nations, C02 production is still rising annually. Unfortunately, we only have one atmosphere and planet.

As we move away from coal burning the price will fall, but coal producers within the US will simply export the cheaper fuel to countries like India and China. Unfortunately, the overall picture hasn't changed because the coal that was being burned within the US is merely being burned in other countries without the US environmental restrictions. We might be actually worse off environmentally due to the same amount of coal is being burned globally.

I think we're better off for sure. Had we kept burning as much coal, things would be even worse than they are now. You are most certainly correct about the exports, though: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._coal_exports...

The third world is going to use the cheapest, easiest, proven technology to get to first world standards of living, just like the first world did. That is just how its going to work. Look at China and India as case studies.

If people really want clean technology, then we need to develop cheaper, easier to implement and deploy technologies than gas and coal. Anything else will not get the job done.

Problem with that is technology typically can't be both cheaper and yield the same performance. It can be cheaper but yield less performance or more expensive with higher performance. The more expensive technology typically is a sustaining technology, but the problem here is that not enough people want to pay more for a clean technology so we can't start to make it cheaper without government funding. It almost doesn't matter what we do because we will be dwarfed by the CO2 output of Asia if it uses conventional fossil fuels.

That's a benefit of having nasty manufacturing sent overseas. Oh, but then jobs take a dip too. Now what's more important to us, the environment or our economy?

Since when are the two mutually exclusive ?

You can create new jobs. Can't create a new planet though. I vote for the environment.

This is a false dichotomy. On the whole, our economy isn't hurt by sending manufacturing overseas. If it costs less to produce a product overseas than here, then the price for that product will drop. Lower cost of product means higher standards of living for everyone. Why do you think so many people have smartphones? How many do you think would have smartphones if they were manufactured here?

On top of this, the number of jobs is not a fixed number. The workers who lost their jobs in manufacturing can be more productive in other jobs, which benefits everyone. Also, money people save by purchasing cheaper products is money that can be spent elsewhere, increasing demand for other goods and thus supply, which means more workers in other areas. By only looking at the smaller picture losses (manufacturing jobs), you're missing out on the larger picture gains (greater productivity, higher standards of living).

The problem in loss of manufacturing jobs is deskilling. You only have a solid industrial design base if you have manufacturing communities, otherwise their isn't a wide culture to draw on of people who understand these kinds of problems. And so you might be able to compete on design for a while, but the places you have sent your manufacturing to will learn really fast and will be competing with you in design and research and have all the manufacturing base that you no longer have, and all the skilled workers.

This is doubly false. First, offshore jobs has not led to high unemployment in the US; 2 million jobs were offshored between 1994 and 2007 even as the unemployment rate dropped from 6.6% to 4.4%[1][2] - apparently most of those people found other work. Secondly, the reduced emissions is not caused by offshored jobs, either; US manufacturing output is up this year[3] even as emissions have dropped 8%. Not that a cleaner China wouldn't be even better.

[1]http://www.trivisonno.com/offshoring [2]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 [3]http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/current/

I don't think the first statement is a valid argument. One could instead note the number of jobs offshored between 1994 and 2012, and see that the unemployment rate has increased from 6.6% to 8.3%.

That's not to say the original comment is correct either. It's just that there seems to be many more variables that just one in what determines the unemployment rate.

Yes, I guess that's the better point - I don't think there's strong evidence to tie offshoring to unemployment either way. But regarding the 1994-2012 claim, I feel like that's the claim a lot of people are implictly making, since unemployment is high now and they are blaming offshored jobs for it, which is why I respond that it didn't seem to increase unemployment from 1994-2007, so why should even less offshoring be responsible for the 2007-2012 increase? (I suppose you could say there were other factors offsetting the offshoring earlier that weren't later, but I don't feel like people are making that nuanced of a claim)

It is ironic that the "drill baby drill" attitudes of conservatives led to fracking, thus cheap natural gas displacing coal, which drastically lowered greenhouse gas emissions.

There is not even a molecule of irony. They were saying to drill because energy is prosperity and coal is dirty.

The irony is that policies promoted by people who don't care about CO2 emissions and dimiss climate change have led to a significant decrease in CO2 emissions as an unintended consequence.

The word "irony" is frequently misused and doesn't mean "unintended consequences" or "rain on your wedding day". Irony would mean that those who supported drilling were actively trying to increase CO2 emissions and failed. That was not the intention of the Oil Lobby.

Drill in this context means to lift carbon baed fuels stored deep underground and bring it to the surface where it will be converted to energy and then go into the atmosphere.

Irony requires a reversal of expectations. The logical expected consequence of drilling is increased greenhouse gas emissions. What in fact happened was the reverse. This is textbook irony.

Natural gas is a hydrogen based fuel.

Natural gas is made up of hydrocarbons, mostly methane, so it's both hydrogen-based and carbon-based.

"Drill", in this context, also means "for oil". Specifically, "in Alaska". Even more specifically, "in ANWR".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_National_Wildlife_Refuge

Because ANWR would supply petroleum (a fuel mostly used for transportation and scarcely ever used for generating electricity), it has virtually nothing to do with the market for coal (which is used almost entirely for generating electricity), or disruptions to that market caused by a growing reliance on natural gas (which is also frequently used for heating, but remains uncommon in the transportation market).

And because transportation networks and electrical grids have so little overlap in terms of power supplies, policy choices made about Alaskan petroleum have little direct connection with policy choices related to fracking for natural gas. So no, there is no irony in any of this. The word is simply inapplicable.

If there's one thing I've learned from my years of internet use, it's never use the word "irony."

It sounds more like randomness than anything else. If your goal is to increase U.S. energy production without any interest in cleanliness of the energy, sometimes this may result in the energy getting cleaner anyway, and sometimes it won't. In this case, the main controlling factor seems to be a mixture of what's in the ground, and logistics. We've found significant new exploitable natural-gas sources, but since exporting it is hard (U.S. LNG export capacity is very limited), it's mostly not traded on a world market, so there's now a domestic glut of gas that's so cheap it's even cheaper than coal to burn.

Energy is prosperity, but the problem with using non-renewable energy is your prosperity will run out.

Natural gas has lower GHG emissions during energy production, but this doesn't account for GHG emissions during its extraction. With total life-cycle taken into account, this kind of GHG "reduction" isn't so clear cut.

Natural gas is mostly methane. Methane is a potent GHG, far stronger than CO2. During fracking and so on, lots of natural gas (methane) escapes to the atmosphere. It is a gas, after all. A proper accounting would add in this other set of emissions.

So yeah, saying that natural gas usage "drastically lowered GHG emissions" is kind of suspect. Maybe it is better on balance vs. coal, but that is not saying a lot.

You're repeating an assertion by the industry that fracking, and natural gas is "greener" and helps lower greenhouse gas emissions. It's (unsurprisingly) false, or at least challenged by independent science.

A study was released late last year by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) [1] which found that a switch to natural gas would increase warming over the next few decades, as outlined in NCAR's report [2].

It acknowledges something the shale gas industry studiously avoids in calculating figures for its green credentials pitches: fugitive emissions. A significant amount of methane leakage occurs in the fracking process and piping of gases.

When you add in the input-intensive activity of multiple well constructions, fracking, pipeline construction, and fugitive emissions the 'green' story of shale gas doesn't add up.

There was a piece recently on another atmospheric scientist coming to the same conclusion. She uncovered significant underestimation of fugitive emissions of methane (speculating that it is at least double the official figures) and concluded that they are also underestimating release of other chemicals. [3]

[1] http://www.springerlink.com/content/b430681263425q64/?MUD=MP

[2] https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/5292/switching-coal-nat...

[3] http://www.npr.org/2012/05/17/151545578/frackings-methane-tr...

Making things emits carbon.

Making big, expensive things emits lots of carbon.

Making too many of the most expensive thing most people ever own emits massive of carbon.

That's what the housing bubble was. And its collapse caused much fewer big things being made. And much less carbon to be emitted.

It will be interesting to see if the "global warming" trend continues despite lower carbon dioxide levels.

A note: The graphic shows the line moving FAR below '92 levels, and it marks that this is "estimated." I'd go ahead and assume that the change would be much more gradual than that spike... but I've been wrong before.

This is pretty nice to hear none-the-less. Some positive news on a global scale isn't so common anymore.

As the article explicitly states, CO2 levels are still rising globally.

AFAIK, if we stopped increasing CO2 levels tomorrow, temperatures would continue to rise for a couple decades, as it takes a while for the climate to reach equilibrium after the change to the system.

There aren't lower carbon dioxide levels, we're just adding less every year than we were before. Also this is just in the US, other countries are adding more than they have before (China is building a lot of new coal fired electric plants for example).

Those are emissions, not levels;

they are from burning coal only, not all U.S. emissions;