After U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions fell by 11% in the pandemic year, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration predicts in its most recent short-term outlook a 7% increase for 2021 and a modest 1% in 2022.
The EIA report, stealing from Mark Twain, also suggests that the U.S. death of coal has been greatly exaggerated. “We expect coal consumption for electricity generation to grow by 75 MMst [million short tons] (17%) in 2021 as a result of relatively high natural gas prices that make coal more competitive for dispatch in the electric power sector. Forecast electric power sector demand for coal then falls by 47 MMst (9%) in 2022. We expect demand for coal for other uses to rise by 5 MMst (13%) in 2021 and by 3 MMst (7%) in 2022. This increase is mostly for coking coal, which is used in steelmaking,” EIA said.
EIA added that “after declining by 19% in 2020, coal-related CO2 emissions will rise by 17% in 2021 and then decrease by 7% in 2022.”
As for nuclear, EIA reflects current trends, projecting, “The nuclear share of U.S. electricity generation declines from 21% in 2020 to 20% in 2021 and to 19% in 2022 as a result of retiring capacity at some nuclear power plants.” The EIA forecast does not predict any additional domestic nuclear power for 2021 or 2022.
Natural gas and coal will continue to be dominant in electricity production. “We expect the share of electric power generation produced by natural gas in the United States will average 36% in 2021 and 37% in 2022, down from 39% in 2020,” said the report. Projecting higher natural gas price up from $2.39 million BTU in 2020 to $4.46 MMBTU in 2021. As a result, coal’s share of the generating market will rise “from 20% in 2020 to 23% this year but falls to 21% next year.”
Wind and solar will continue experiencing considerable growth, says EIA. “We forecast that planned additions to U.S. wind and solar generating capacity in 2021 and 2022 will increase electricity generation from those sources. We estimate that the U.S. electric power sector added 14.7 gigawatts (GW) of new wind capacity in 2020. We expect 17.6 GW of new wind capacity will come online in 2021 and 6.3 GW in 2022. Utility-scale solar capacity rose by an estimated 10.6 GW in 2020. Our forecast for added utility-scale solar capacity is 16.2 GW in 2021 and 16.6 GW for 2022. We expect significant solar capacity additions in Texas during the forecast period. In addition, about 5 GW of small-scale solar capacity (systems less than 1 megawatt) will come online each year during 2021–22 in the STEO forecast.”
As for transportation fuels, EIA expresses little confidence in its forecasts. “The U.S. macroeconomic assumptions in this outlook are based on forecasts by IHS Markit. Our forecast assumes continuing economic growth and increasing mobility. Any developments that would cause deviations from these assumptions would likely cause energy consumption and prices to deviate from our forecast.”
While part of DOE, EIA is an independent forecasting arm of the federal government, and generally not subject by control from the current political administration.
–Kennedy Maize
(kenmaize@gmail.com)