Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
11/6/2015
Current coal-fired power plant trends would lead to the United States meeting the carbon emissions reduction goal laid out in the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants five years ahead of schedule, according to a new report from the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign this week. The regulation sets state-specific carbon emissions reduction goals, and if all these goals are met would result in a 32 percent decrease in carbon pollution from the power sector below 2005 levels. “Coal retirements are helping to deliver on the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of US climate leadership on the international stage at December’s climate change conference in Paris. By locking in coal retirements early and replacing their capacity with cleaner fuels, we are helping to prove that more ambitious climate action is possible,” the report says.
The Sierra Club partially credits itself for these retirements, as part of the Beyond Coal Campaign’s goal of replacing half of the U.S. coal fleet with clean energy by 2025. “As a result of our work, buoyed by plummeting clean energy prices, we have secured record coal retirements over the past five years, catapulting the US into a leadership role in transitioning our economy to lower carbon sources of energy,” according to the report.
Several factors have contributed to an increase in coal-fired power plant retirements, including the age of the fleet with many plants reaching the end of their useful life, a shift to low cost natural gas, and an increasingly stringent regulatory regime.
Using data from the EPA, the Energy Information Administration, and the Rhodium Group, the Sierra Club analyzed the carbon emission impacts of meeting its 2025 coal fleet goal. The group considered two scenarios, one in which the retired coal plants were replaced entirely with zero-carbon energy and one in which the retired coal plants were replaced with natural gas. “We find that retiring and replacing with cleaner fuels half the US coal fleet targeted would reduce 2025 carbon emissions to between 1,563MMT and 1,791MMT, depending on the replacement mix. In short, we could accelerate EPA’s 2030 CPP target by as much as 5 years depending on whether we replace coal plants likely to retire in the coming years with zero-carbon renewable energy or natural gas,” the report says.
