{"id":30880,"date":"2018-02-12T10:03:05","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T15:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30880"},"modified":"2018-02-12T10:03:05","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T15:03:05","slug":"eia-estimates-for-usa-in-2050-the-future-is-fossil-fuels-and-cheap-electricity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30880","title":{"rendered":"EIA estimates for USA in 2050: The Future is Fossil Fuels and Cheap Electricity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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EIA estimates for USA in 2050: The Future is Fossil Fuels and Cheap Electricity<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n

What energy transformation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

T<\/span>he EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2018 is out. The hard heads at the US Dept of Energy crunched the numbers, assumed technology will improve, and modeled the outcomes. According\u00a0 to their best estimates (and even their \u201cworst\u201d estimates) thirty years from now, the main energy source for the US is natural gas and fossil fuels. Renewables grows from 5% to 14%, but coal, nukes, hydro stays about the same. When the Australian Greens say \u201cwe don\u2019t want to be left behind\u201d, the answer is \u201cExactly! So explore for gas! Use Nukes!\u201d<\/p>\n

The World\u2019s largest economy <\/a>will still be nearly 80% fossil fueled in 2050.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the road, most people are still using gasoline cars, and here\u2019s the kicker \u2014 electricity prices are still at about 11 cents per kilowatt hour.<\/em> Weep all ye Australians, Brits, Germans and other who would be grateful if electricity only rose 10% a year, not 10% over 30 years.<\/em><\/p>\n

How much does an interconnector cost from Townsville to Texas?\u00a0 \";-)\"<\/p>\n

h\/t Paul Homewood<\/a> who has quoted Mark Perry from AEI:<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite all of the hype, hope, cheerleading, fuel standards, portfolio standards, and taxpayer subsidies for renewable energies like wind and solar, America\u2019s energy future will still rely primarily on fossil fuels to power our vehicles, heat and light our homes, and fuel the US economy.<\/p>\n

\"EIA,<\/a><\/p>\n

EIA, 2018, Graph, Total energy use projections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Electricity prices are dirt cheap and will stay that way:<\/p>\n

\"EIA,<\/a><\/p>\n

EIA, 2018, Graph, Electricity Prices, projections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Of the renewables, only\u00a0 solar PV is forecast to increase. Wind stays the same; Hydro stays the same; Geothermal is still tiny.<\/p>\n

Big-solar does not even rate a mention.<\/p>\n

\"EIA,<\/a><\/p>\n

Which renewables are growing?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Big Picture<\/strong><\/p>\n

Renewables, a small non-essential part that isn\u2019t going to change much.<\/p>\n

\"EIA,<\/a><\/p>\n

Industrial energy use will be \u2026 about the same mix.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Electric Vehicles? Spot the green sliver:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not the car transition some are expecting.<\/p>\n

\"EIA,<\/a><\/p>\n

EIA, 2018, Graph, Total energy use projections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EIA estimates for USA in 2050: The Future is Fossil Fuels and Cheap Electricity What energy transformation? The EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2018 is out. The hard heads at the US Dept of Energy crunched the numbers, assumed technology will improve, and modeled the outcomes. According\u00a0 to their best estimates (and even their \u201cworst\u201d estimates) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18495,251,328,17410,674,827],"class_list":["post-30880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-cheap-electricity","tag-eia","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-jo-nova","tag-renewable-energy","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30881,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30880\/revisions\/30881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}