Even Without Action, US Greenhouse Gases Expected to Grow Slowly

This is the kind of data that won’t be available for the rest of this year because of drastic cuts to the EIA‘s budget in the 2011 spending bill.

In its Annual Energy Outlook 2011, the EIA says that even without explicit action to regulate greenhouse gases, US emissions will grow slowly over the next 20 years. They won’t return to 2005 levels until 2027. 

Carbon emissions fell 3% in 2008 and 7% in 2009 due to the recession. Thanks to increased energy efficiency and use of renewable energy, and substituting natural gas for coal, emissions will grow much more slowly even as the economy picks up. 

Since the US EPA is still formulating regulations on coal plant emissions, projections are difficult, but the rules will probably cause 3-20% of plants to shut down. Much of that capacity will be replaced by natural gas, which emits about half the carbon emissions. 

EIA projects that hydraulic fracturing to produce natural gas  will rise rapidly, as it has for the last several years. But given recent public awareness of the dangers of fracking, that estimate could change. As of now, the agency projects  production to grow almost four-fold from 2009-2035, rising to nearly half of domestic natural gas production.

EIA also expects oil imports to slowly but steadily decline over the next 20 years even as consumption increases. Imports peaked at 60% in 2005 and 2006 and have since been falling – 51% in 2009. EIA says imports should decline to 42% in 2035, because of efficiency gains in transportation and more domestic production of petroleum and biofuels.