Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Year
Coal
Petroleum and Natural Gas
Nuclear Electric Power
Hydroelectric Power
fig. 10.1
Evolution of the electricity supply. Since
electricity production has come to be dominated by coal.
(Source: EIA Annual Energy Review
[
] Fig.
,
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/multifuel/
.pdf
)
and ignorance of the consequences of greenhouse gas
emissions until relatively recently. Most of the US elec-
trical generating plants are old with an average age of
years. When they were built, fuel was cheap and global
warming was a thing few scientists worried about, much
less citizens or governments. As a result, the US electricity
supply (and the world
s) has come to depend more and
more on coal, which has been the lowest-cost generator of
electricity and still is today outside the United States.
Figure
'
.
from the EIA [
] shows the evolution of
the US electricity supply from
. Coal was
king of electricity generation, and with its crown came a
large increase in emissions. By
to
%of
the electricity while gas and nuclear supplied roughly
it supplied
%, and the
renewables supplied the rest. The same report [
% each, hydroelectric dams supplied
] also
