The U.S. will continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with or without the Obama administration’s far-reaching climate rules, new federal analysis shows.
The Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department’s independent analysis arm, began issuing parts of its annual energy projections for 2016 on Tuesday. The agency’s complete energy outlook will be issued in July.
The outlook includes the government’s first analysis of the final version of the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate change agenda, outlining a reference case in which greenhouse gas emissions in the country are falling dramatically and will continue to do so whether or not the climate plan is fully enacted.
“CO2 emissions are lower in [the Annual Energy Outlook 2016] reference case than [in the 2015] reference case, even without the Clean Power Plan,” an outline of the final report released Tuesday reads.
It reveals what the analysis arm has been saying for weeks: That greenhouse gases are falling as the nation switches from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas, along with about 5 percent solar and wind energy.
The reference case shows “key drivers” of lower energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, including: lower natural gas prices that support higher electricity generation from natural gas “with or without the Clean Power Plan”; lower technology costs for wind and solar with federal subsidies; and fewer coal-fired power plants.
For the most part, those factors drive lower emissions based on market factors, according to the outline of the annual outlook. The Clean Power Plan merely changes the pace of what is already occurring.
Although the administration wants the plan to spur more renewables onto the grid, the EIA reference case projects gas remaining the dominant power source into the middle of the century.
The reference case applies a strict cap on emissions, called a “mass-based standard,” in which natural gas growth slows for a few years as renewables take the lead. But that doesn’t last for long.
“With the mass-based approach, the strong growth in wind and solar generation spurred by tax credits leads to a short-term decline in natural gas-fired generation between 2015 and 2021,” the outlook summary reads. “However, natural gas generation then grows significantly under a mass-based [climate plan] implementation, increasing by more than 67 percent from 2021 through 2040, when it is by far the largest generation source.”
Coal takes a big hit under the reference case scenario, falling to as low as 18 percent of the nation’s power supply in the next 25 years under a mass-based approach. Coal is currently in the low 30-percent range.
The mass-based approach is one of two ways envisioned by the Environmental Protection Agency to comply with the Clean Power Plan. Reducing the rate of emissions is the other compliance method that states can use to comply with the regulation. EIA says it will provide additional samples of other modeling it is doing in the coming weeks.
The second primary scenario the EIA uses in formulating its models is a scenario with no Clean Power Plan. It shows that greenhouse gases continue to fall at a very predictable rate without the regulation in place. It also says that natural gas prices will remain below $5 per unit with or without the power plan in place through 2030.
The snippets issued Tuesday provide a limited snapshot of the modeling the agency will release with the final annual outlook in July.
The samples of the report came less than 24 hours after a federal court pushed back oral arguments in a major lawsuit against the power plan to late September. Thirty states and dozens of industry groups oppose the regulation as illegal overreach by the EPA and the administration.
