this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
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Coal is 820 to 1050 kg of CO2e per Megawatt Hour
Natural gas is 480 kg CO2e per Megawatt Hour
Nuclear is 20 to 50 kg CO2e per megawatt-hour
Wind is 25 grams of CO2 per Megawatt Hour.
Solar is 20-50 grams of CO2 per Megawatt Hour.
(Numbers should not be considered accurate but relative scale is representative)
The biggest issue here is that without a significant increase in battery capacity a stable renewable grid is impossible without Natural Gas powered generation.
Forgot about hydropower, the OG and also most reliable renewable
I didn't want to get into an argument about construction CO2 and emissions from the reservoir.
But i would certainly class Hydro as green.
Sure, I get that. Dams often involve lots of concrete, which emits insane CO2 during production; and dams devastates large areas of nature (or human settlements).
Just felt it weird to state that natural gas is required for a stable renewable power grid, when hydro exists. Wherever hydro is possible, it's almost certainly better than natural gas in most aspects.
If you have hydro you definitely use it.
But the opportunities for adding new pumped hydro are very few.