The "Watts Up With That?" website has a review of the Energy Information Administration's (EIA's) 2018 Annual Energy Outlook (AEO 2018) by David Middleton. Mr. Middleton thinks AEO 2018 "rocks." He very impressed that "Coal Keeps on Chugging Away" (see his graph with that title, below). The EIA AEO 2018 predicts that coal-fired power plant capacity ("summer capacity, per Mr. Middleton) will drop from about 274 in 2015 to about 218 GW in 2026, but then will remain almost perfectly flat until 2050.
Graph per David Middleton, based on EIA AEO 2018.
Why does the EIA think that coal-fired power plant capacity will hold constant from 2026 to 2050? I'm not sure, because coal-fired power plants aren't getting any younger, and many of them are in serious economic danger even in 2018, which will be a brutal year for coal-fired power plants.
Per Mr. Middleton, the AEO 2018 also has on page 86, that, "The Reference case projects a steady decline in nuclear electric generating capacity—from 99 gigawatts (GW) in 2017 to 79 GW in 2050 (a 20% decline)—with no new plant additions beyond 2020."
According to the EIA in August 2017, there were 99 nuclear reactors in the U.S. So that's 99 reactors, with a capacity of approximately 99 GW, or approximately 1 GW per reactor. It appears that their initial commercial operation dates break down as follows:
| Initial Commercial Operation | Number of Plants |
| 1965-1970 | 5 |
| 1971-1975 | 32 |
| 1976-1980 | 14 |
| 1981-1985 | 20 |
| 1986-1990 | 25 |
| Post 1990 | 3 |
From looking at the table, it can be seen that all but 3 reactors will have been in commercial operation for more than 60 years in 2050, if they are still operating in 2050. And a total of 51 of them started commercial operation before 1980, so they will have been in commercial operation for more than 70 years if they're still operating in 2050. What is the probability that 79 GW of the existing fleet of nuclear reactors (i.e. approximately 79 reactors, at 1 GW per reactor) will still be operating in 2050? I say the answer is that the probability is much less than 50 percent.
Finally, David Middleton noted that, "About 45% of the current natural gas capacity consists of peakers, ~202 GW."
He provided an Excel spreadsheet which purportedly had an EIA list of the power plants expected to retire by 2047: EIA Table 6-6, Released January 24, 2018
I didn't see many natural gas "peaker" plants (either natural gas combustion turbines or natural gas steam turbines) in the list. So I made the following predictions:
1) Many nuclear units are going to retire in the 2026-2047 time frame.
2) Many coal units are going to retire in the 2026-2047 time frame.
3) Many…and possibly *all*–natural gas peaking plants will retire between now and 2047. (Natural gas peaker plants will be replaced by batteries. It’s a question of when, not if.)
"Maybe in Fantasy Land."
So who's in "Fantasy Land"? Is it me, or is it the EIA in their AEO 2018? I'll be providing the reasoning behind my statements in subsequent posts.
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