This is worth considering, but FWIW, 50 GW would be around 10% of US electricity if it runs continuously (the US consumes at a rate of about 500 GW if you divide total consumption by one year). If the new capacity is as clean as the overall electric grid that would be about 2.5% of US emissions (25% of US emissions come from electricity) and 0.35% of global emissions (US emissions are 1⁄7 of global emissions).
I’m not going to do this math now but I think if the new capacity is 100% natural gas then that’s about as carbon-intense as the US electric grid as a whole, or maybe somewhat worse (the US has a lot of clean energy, but it also has coal plants which are >2x more carbon intense than gas). 100% natural gas would be the worst case, because there is no scenario where the US builds new coal plants (edit: it’s not the worst case, because increased power demand could cause the delay of coal plant retirements, but I don’t think this changes the conclusion all that much)
This is worth considering, but FWIW, 50 GW would be around 10% of US electricity if it runs continuously (the US consumes at a rate of about 500 GW if you divide total consumption by one year). If the new capacity is as clean as the overall electric grid that would be about 2.5% of US emissions (25% of US emissions come from electricity) and 0.35% of global emissions (US emissions are 1⁄7 of global emissions).
I’m not going to do this math now but I think if the new capacity is 100% natural gas then that’s about as carbon-intense as the US electric grid as a whole, or maybe somewhat worse (the US has a lot of clean energy, but it also has coal plants which are >2x more carbon intense than gas). 100% natural gas would be the worst case, because there is no scenario where the US builds new coal plants (edit: it’s not the worst case, because increased power demand could cause the delay of coal plant retirements, but I don’t think this changes the conclusion all that much)