Samaras featured in Forbes

EPP Associate Professor Costa Samaras was recently featured in Forbes in their article covering the carbon intensity of the U.S. power sector in 2019.

According to the analysis conducted by CMU's Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, in 2019, the power sector’s carbon emissions were 11% lower than just a year earlier and more than a third below its 2005 level.

“Some good news,” said Samaras, co-director of the Scott Institute’s Power Sector Carbon Index. “We ran the latest numbers and the annual CO2 intensity of the US power sector for 2019 was 33% lower than it was in 2005, falling below 400 g/kWh for the first time ever.”

Samaras also announced that in the 4th Quarter of 2019, wind power had increased its share 20% from the previous year and solar 18%, while coal fell 22%. Natural gas increased 12%.

It is also being reported that energy generation from coal had reached a 42-year low. Coal plants are retiring, and those that remain open are being used less, the EIA reports. Cheap natural gas has been the biggest factor in coal’s demise, according to EIA.

To read the full article, go here.