{"id":30254,"date":"2018-01-27T13:49:36","date_gmt":"2018-01-27T18:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30254"},"modified":"2018-01-27T13:50:02","modified_gmt":"2018-01-27T18:50:02","slug":"macrons-pledge-to-wipe-out-coal-is-just-as-meaningless-as-trumps-plan-to-revive-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30254","title":{"rendered":"Macron\u2019s pledge to wipe out coal is just as meaningless as Trump\u2019s plan to revive\u00a0it"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Macron\u2019s pledge to wipe out coal is just as meaningless as Trump\u2019s plan to revive\u00a0it<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n
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In a speech at the 2018 World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, French President Emmanuel Macron<\/a> said he wanted to \u201cmake France a model in the fight against climate change<\/a>\u201d and promised to shut all coal-fired power plants<\/a> by 2021 \u2013 two years earlier than the timetable put forward by his predecessor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Macron\u2019s move is mainly symbolic since France only generates about 2.2 percent of its power<\/a> 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. \u201cWe have finally ended the war on coal,\u201d pretty much sums up American policy these days, as President Donald Trump declared in a recent speech<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 even if it can take longer.<\/p>\n

The US and coal<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the U.S., the Energy Information Administration has been charged, since the energy crises<\/a> of the 1970s, with providing an unbiased view of the types of energy used to power the U.S. economy.<\/p>\n

Its data show<\/a> that in 2006 about 10 percent of all electric power plants \u2013 616 \u2013 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 \u201cother renewables\u201d such as wind, up from 1,659 and 843 in 2006, respectively.<\/p>\n