If the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan is implemented, coal will make up only 18 percent of the nation’s energy mix in 2040, down from 33 percent in 2015, according to a truncated early of the Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 2016. The early release looks at only two of the full reports many scenarios, one with and one without the Clean Power Plan. If the Clean Power Plan, which requires states to develop action plans to meet federally set carbon emissions reduction goals, is not implemented, coal’s 2040 contribution to the national energy mix is projected to be 26 percent.
Not surprisingly, the outlook also projects a decline in carbon emissions in the reference case, which assumes implementation of the Clean Power Plan. “In the Reference case, CO2 emissions in the power sector were 35% below 2005 levels in 2030 due to the implementation of the CPP. … In the No CPP case, emissions rise slightly over the projection, but remain at least 19% below 2005 levels in all years,” the report says.
The EIA said its full report will be released in “early summer.”
