Major Impacts on U.S. Carbon Emissions Since the Great Recession

by John Miller (The Energy Collective) U.S. total carbon emissions increased to a historic high in 2007. During the 2007-09 Great Recession U.S. total carbon emissions declined rapidly due to a combination effective Government energy and carbon policies, and economic factors. Since the U.S. economy has more fully recovered from the Great Recession the decline in total carbon emissions have made much slower progress than advocated by the Obama Administration. What factors have restrained the U.S.’s ability to make greater progress in reducing total carbon emissions since 2009? And, what possible Federal policy changes will help facilitate greater future U.S. carbon emission reductions?

During the 2007-09 Great Recession total U.S. carbon emissions declined by 615 MMT or 10%. This carbon emission reduction is attributed to declines in coal and petroleum consumption.

‘Non-hydro renewables’ also increased significantly due primarily to increases in ‘wind’ and ‘biomass’, followed by ‘solar’. Increased wind+solar were supported by numerous State & Federal ‘renewable power’ programs (with generous subsides), and increased biomass (primarily ethanol) that was mandated by existing Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS). The loss of hydropower production is somewhat disappointing, but fortunately non-hydro renewables grew at 7-times hydropower’s lost power generation.

The increase in Transportation Sector 2009-15 carbon emissions was due to increased petroleum fuels consumption. All of the increased petroleum consumption came from increased ‘diesel’ and ‘jet fuels’; and no increased motor gasoline consumption.

The Transportation Sectors’ gasoline carbon emissions fortunately have not increased due to recent record Light Duty Vehicle (LDV) sales or the 2015 large drop in gasoline prices. The combination of current RFS standards’ (increased biofuels blending) and increasing CAFE standards have effectively offset the recent increases of LDV fleet size and increased ‘vehicle miles traveled’ 2009-15. The increase in Transportation Sector petroleum consumption increases are due to increased cross-country Heavy-/Medium Duty Vehicle (HD/MDV) trucking (increased commerce transport) and Railroad transport (largely due to increased crude oil shipping), and, increased Airlines’ passenger and goods transport. Most of these increased fossil fuels consumption factors resulted from increasing U.S. GDP and associated increased Industrial Sector outputs 2009-15.

The growth in U.S. population is another significant factor towards increased energy consumption.

Since diesel motor fuels are the largest source of increased Transportation Sector carbon emissions 2009-15, the current EPA HD/MDV GHG and fuel efficiency standard possibly needs modification. These new HD/MDV fuel standards, which begin in 2018, need to be feasibly more aggressive. Addressing jet aircraft carbon emissions also needs to become a greater EPA priority in order to possibly reduce the second largest source of increased Transportation Sector carbon emissions 2009-15.

Another potential opportunity in reducing future U.S. carbon emissions would be the better addressing the RFS ‘ethanol blending wall’. Further carbon reductions could also be achieved by much more aggressively increasing LDV CAFE standards. This could require increasing future CAFE standards more rapidly towards 100 mpg, which would effectively accelerate mandating substantial increases of Electric Vehicle fleets.

Unfortunately more aggressively reducing U.S. total carbon emissions could have actual economic impacts that are very onerous. Rather than substantially growing the economy, aggressively reducing U.S. carbon emissions could require major sacrifices by most Residents. READ MORE