In a speech at the 2018 World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, French President Emmanuel Macron said he wanted to “make France a model in the fight against climate change” and promised to shut all coal-fired power plants by 2021 – two years earlier than the timetable put forward by his predecessor.
While Macron’s move is mainly symbolic since France only generates about 2.2 percent of its power from coal, it signals his government is actively trying to wean itself off fossil fuels in sharp contrast to the current policy of his U.S. counterpart. “We have finally ended the war on coal,” pretty much sums up American policy these days, as President Donald Trump declared in a recent speech.
Behind the headlines and clear policy contrasts, however, lies an important point: The U.S. is likely to become coal plant free anyway, with or without presidential support. The reason is economics, which, as always, trumps the words of a politician – even if it can take longer.
The US and coal
In the U.S., the Energy Information Administration has been charged, since the energy crises of the 1970s, with providing an unbiased view of the types of energy used to power the U.S. economy.
Its data show that in 2006 about 10 percent of all electric power plants – 616 – ran on coal. By 2016, the latest year for which data are available, that figure dropped to just 4 percent, or 381 coal-fired power plants. That compares with 1,801 natural gas plants and 3,624 “other renewables” such as wind, up from 1,659 and 843 in 2006, respectively.
In other words, slightly more than 20 coal plants are shutting down each year on average. If the trend continues at the same rate, then most coal-fired power plants will be closed in the U.S. within 18 years, or around 2035. A few will likely remain, since utilities close the oldest, least efficient plants first, but the trend is clear.
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