US coal generation will fall a record 20%+ this year, driven by long-term market trends and COVID-19-related reductions in demand. Renewables are set to produce more electricity than coal (and nuclear) for the first time. See details over at @TheBTI: thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/… 1/11 
We took a deep dive into latest EIA short term energy outlook numbers. Its important to emphasize that conditions on the ground are moving fast, and these projections are likely conservative in that they only assume a 2020 GDP drop of ~2% (vs 6% that the IMF now estimates). 2/11
Here is US coal generation since 1980, with both 2020 and 2021 projections included. The rebound in coal in 2021 is not due to increased demand – which EIA thinks will only grow by 1% from 2020. Rather its due to higher natural gas prices driven by shale oil declines. 3/11
Around 12% of US natural gas comes as a byproduct from shale oil production. This gas is often dumped on the market – at times at a loss for producers – helping drive record low gas prices in 2020. 4/11
EIA expects natural gas prices for electricity generation to rise 46% between 2020 and 2021 driven by a reduction in associated gas production from oil wells. As there is a -lot- of idle coal capacity now, they project that rising gas prices will lead less gas and more coal: 5/11
Renewables are projected to continue to grow, with utility-scale wind and solar adding a record 54 TWh in 2020 and 79 TWh in 2021 (plus maybe 5 TWh more each year from distributed generation). The 2020 projections are down 5% for wind and 10% for solar due to COVID effects. 6/11
The impact of COVID-19 on renewables deployment in 2020 may be larger than the EIA forecasts due to a higher likelihood of a deep and lasting recession than they account for. 7/11
On the other hand, renewable deployment could be boosted if economic recovery efforts include an extension of the production and investment tax credits currently set to expire/phase out in 2020, though this would mainly impact 2021 numbers. 8/11
The dramatic decline in coal combined with projected record renewable growth will lead to three new "firsts": renewables will likely produce more electricity than coal and more than nuclear. And US will likely get more electricity from nuclear than coal for the first time. 9/11
These factors – along with a large reduction in oil demand associated with COVID-19 – will drive record declines in US CO2 emissions. Here are US CO2 emissions for each year (black bars) along with changes projected by fuel. 10/11
Again, these are very conservative estimates. I suspect the reduction in CO2 emissions may well be larger than the projected 7.5% as it looking increasingly likely that US GDP will fall well over 2% in 2020. 11/11
(Note that "renewables" in these figures include large hydro as well as wind, solar, geothermal, etc.)
