Decommissioning nuclear reactors is a long-term and costly process

Since 2013, six commercial nuclear reactors in the United States have shut down, and an additional eight reactors have announced plans to retire by 2025. The retirement process for nuclear power plants involves disposing of nuclear waste and decontaminating equipment and facilities to reduce residual radioactivity, making it much more expensive and time consuming than retiring other power plants. More »

Growth in global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions expected to slow

EIA projects that growth in global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy-related sources will slow despite increasing energy consumption. EIA's International Energy Outlook 2017 (IEO2017) Reference case projects that energy-related CO2 emissions will grow 0.6% per year from 2015 to 2040, a slower rate of growth than the 1.8% per year experienced from 1990 to 2015. More »

Transportation constraints and export costs widen the Brent-WTI crude oil price spread

In its November Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA forecasts the price difference between West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil priced at Cushing, Oklahoma, and Brent, the global crude oil price benchmark, to remain at $6 per barrel (b) through the first quarter of 2018 before narrowing to $4/b during the second half of 2018. More »

Russia exports most of its crude oil production, mainly to Europe

Russia exported more than 5.2 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil and condensate and more than 2.4 million b/d of petroleum products in 2016, mostly to countries in Europe. Exports of crude oil and petroleum products represented nearly 70% of total Russian petroleum liquids production in 2016. More »

CO2 emissions from coal fell by record amount in 2015, led by Texas and Midwest

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with coal consumption in the United States fell by a record 231 million metric tons in 2015. More than 60% of the annual decrease occurred in 10 states, led by Texas, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, according to EIA’s state-level carbon dioxide emissions data. More »

Coal stockpiles at U.S. coal power plants have fallen since last year

In August 2017, coal stockpiles at electric power plants were 144 million tons, the lowest monthly level since late 2014, according to EIA’s Electric Power Monthly. Coal stockpiles at U.S. coal-fired power plants typically follow a seasonal pattern of increasing during the spring and fall, when electricity demand is relatively low, and decreasing during the summer and winter, when electricity demand is relatively high. More »